Me Tarzan, You Dead

Cheeta, one of many chimps who upstaged the man meatbags in the Tarzan movies of the 1930s and 1940s, has died at an animal sanctuary of kidney failure at the age of 80, making him one of the oldest chimpanzees ever recorded. As the second banana, Cheeta provided comic relief and recruited his animal friends to rescue the loinclothed lunkhead. He can be grateful that he made his mark before having to endure message board trolls going apeshit and pointing out that he was never featured in the original Edgar Rice Burroughs novels or PETA incessantly flinging poop about everything, or having to feel up a naked Bo Derek in 1981’s Tarzan, the Ape Man, where Tarzan was incomprehensibly partnered with an orangutan. A 1995 fire that destroyed sanctuary records and the fact that at least 15 animals are reported to have been in the movies, often several in the same movie, throw a monkeywrench in efforts to determine exact cinematic contributions to the franchise, but this Cheeta reportedly retired to Johnny Weismuller’s estate after hanging up the vine, then moved to an animal sanctuary in Tampa in the 1960s.