Monkeys: Terrible at filmmaking, great at extortion.

Republican opinions on evolution are devolving: In 2009, 54 percent of GOP voters told pollsters "humans and other living things have evolved over time." In 2013, only 43 percent believed the same thing. By 2103, a majority of conservatives will be really into crafting rudimentary wood tools for foraging.

A startling revelation from the '60s emerged this week when Dan Richter, who played the contemplative ape in the prologue of 2001: A Space Odyssey, acknowledged a top-level, primate-swiping security breach on Stanley Kubrick's set. It all started with the embittered recollection of losing a special 1968 Make-Up Oscar to Planet of the Apes — and then, like a slo-mo bone in the prehistoric sky, the conspiracy theories flew: