The Fake Gorilla

THE STORY is told of a gymnast who was out of work. He was reading the newspaper and he read that the gorilla in the local zoo had died. He went down to the zoo and said, “I hear your gorilla has died.” He said, “I know you are probably planning to get another one, but I have an idea.

Give me a gorilla suit; I am a gymnast so I can do all kinds of moves. I’ll make the people think that I’m the gorilla. I’ll have a job and you’ll have a gorilla. If this arrangement works out, then you can keep me on.”

Well, they didn’t have anything to lose, so they gave him an authentic gorilla outfit. He practiced a bit making some gorilla sounds and then got in the cage.

Everyone thought he was real. People kept showing up until the crowd had grown very large. Next to his cage was a lion’s cage. There was a rope hanging down in the gorilla’s cage, so he said to himself, “I’ll start swinging on the rope and dazzle the crowd with my moves.

They’ll really get riled up if they see me swinging over the lion’s cage.” He started swinging. The people did get excited as they watched him swing over the lion’s cage and back. The zoo loved him and kept him on as the fake gorilla.

One day he swung over to the lion’s cage and the rope broke. He fell down, and found himself looking straight into the mouth of the lion. Out of fear, he forgot his role of gorilla and yelled out, “HELP!” Immediately after his scream for help, he heard a female voice say, “Shut up, or you’re going to get us both fired!”