Review for Tales Of The Gold Monkey (Review)
Monday, 19th September 2011, 17:08

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Introduction
This is my ultimate nostalgia treat! I was ten years old, and my absolute favourite television programme in the world was Tales of the Gold Monkey. I'd watch it with a religious fervour every week on BBC1, following the adventures of Jake Cutter and his trusty one-eyed dog Jack with an unhealthy obsession. If there was one world that I wanted to live in, it was that of the South Pacific just prior to World War II, it just seemed so exciting, and for a ten-year-old boy, the fount of much fantasy and imagination. And I hadn't even seen Raiders of the Lost Ark at that point. But this was before my family had bought a VHS, and it was long before the boom in home cinema that inspired people to collect bookshelves worth of pre-recorded videotapes. Like most of my favourite shows at the time, Tales of the Gold Monkey hit big for one season, and then was unceremoniously, and in my opinion, criminally cancelled. After that, the only dose of high flying antics I got, was in the Disney animated remake in all but name, Talespin.

Not long afterward they invented the Internet, and naturally, when I wasn't posting on wesleycrusher.die.die.die, I thought about looking up some information on my favourite show from way back when. My memory had begun to waver, and it turned out that there was no such show as Tales of the Gold (en) Monkey, and that search engines back then really sucked. By the time that the IMDB had been created, and I had begun to wander the Internet with more confidence, the DVD had also been invented, and the collector instinct had been so imbued in the consumer psyche, that I figured it would only be a matter of months before I would get to see my once upon a time 'favourite TV show ever in the whole universe' again. The better part of fifteen years later, and courtesy of Fabulous Films, I now have the Complete Series Boxset of Tales of the Gold Monkey to relish. But I am the better part of fifteen years more jaded, cynical, and less prone to gushings of nostalgia…

Cashing in on the fan appreciation of all things Indiana Jones (although originally pitched to the studios some years earlier than the movie), Tales of the Gold Monkey was a weekly adventure serial starring ace pilot Jake Cutter, as he flew from island to island in his Grumman Goose seaplane in the South Pacific in 1938, back when the world teetered on the verge of war. His co-pilot was his trusty, one-eyed dog Jack, and his forgetful engineer was Corky. He was based on the island of Boragora in the French Marivellas, but the little island chain soon became a representation of the world in microcosm, especially as the Japanese had their own chunk of the Marivellas, controlled by the beautiful Princess Koji and her Samurai henchman Todo. The Magistrate of Justice on Boragora, as well as the owner of the Monkey Bar was the enigmatic Bon Chance Louie. The island's priest, the Dutch Reverend Willie Tenboom, who liked to 'bless' the native girls on a regular basis, was actually a Nazi spy, and early on, Jake flew Sarah Stickney-White to Boragora, where she became a singer at the Monkey Bar, although she was actually an American spy. Spies, intrigue, military manoeuvres, secret weapons, hidden treasure, myths and legends, it was all happening in the South Pacific in 1938.

Tales of the Gold Monkey's 22 episodes are presented here across 6 discs from Fabulous Entertainment, along with some tantalising extra features.

Picture
US television from the early eighties had the advantage of being shot on film, not video, so you can expect Tales of the Gold Monkey to look quite acceptable on DVD. It's clear and sharp throughout, and colours are generally consistent. These episodes haven't had a lot of play either when it comes to reruns and syndication, so there isn't extensive print damage. However, age does tell, and in a few episodes there are some tape artefacts that momentarily mar the image. Tales of the Gold Monkey was a fairly high budget genre series, and that work is apparent on screen when it comes to sets, locations, and especially the period costumes. There are some excellent matte paintings used here, and the stock footage while prevalent is never excessive. As always with period shows, you can spend hours looking for anachronisms. I doubt there were many jet contrails back in 1938.

I noticed some frames of minor pixellation in episode 18, 13:13 and 21:44 minutes in. I don't know if it's down to a scuffed disc or an error in replication though.

Sound
Tales of the Gold Monkey gets a DD 2.0 English audio track, which given the television of the period, I assume is mono repeated across both channels. It's perfectly fine to listen to, and the added clarity given by modern TVs to the music and effects actually makes the show sound a lot bigger. The dialogue is clear throughout, a boon given that there are no subtitles, and the theme tune still sounds heroic and exciting.

I did notice that the audio pops 19:33 minutes into episode 11, but as in the pixellation, it may be down to a scuffed disc.

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