While it pains us to stoop to the animal-threatening tactics of National Lampoon, it seems that Hollywood is far more cavalier with the fates of its four-legged thespians. According to the LAT, one of filmdom's most enjoyable genres — that of the monkey movie — is being assailed by PETA activists, who are demanding that actor chimps be replaced by CG versions. They allege that the trained monkeys are being abused to solicit a performance — and based on this anecdote about "Clyde," the orangutan from Every Which Way But Loose, they may have a point:

You tell me: Where will it end? "Villagers were shocked after a monkey-like piglet was born in China. Curious locals flocked to the home of owner Feng Changlin after news of the piglet spread in Fengzhang village, Xiping township. 'It's hideous. No one will be willing to buy it, and it scares the family to even look at it!' Feng told Oriental Today." [Ananova via Neatorama]

I am deeply concerned that my weekday colleagues are now in league with the monkey threat to civilization, as they conveniently ignored this disturbing report of chimps easily disarming humans in order-I am certain-to stock their burgeoning monkey army with firearms. "A chimp in Japan escaped the sweltering confines of his cage, and a zookeeper with a tranquilizer gun proved no match for this feisty animal. The zookeeper can be seen peeking his head and rifle over the ledge of the roof on which the chimp was resting before quickly crouching down, sensing the chimp had noticed him. The chimp pounced on the ledge, grabbing the barrel of the zookeeper's tranquilizer gun and snatching it away, leaving the poor human defenseless. Score one for the apes." Score one indeed. Terrifying video after the jump.

It's a well-known fact that the monkeys have been plotting against us since the days of yore. But their terrible plans will get sped up quite horribly once they've mastered the skill of banking. That's right. Someone's been teaching the little hellions how to use money! "[O]ne can get some clues as to how evolution prepared us for money from the burgeoning research that seeks to present animals with economic choices. To gain perspective on human financial decisions, one may ask, what would monkeys do?Keith Chen and Marc Hauser at Yale University taught monkeys about resources that bear a strong resemblance to money. Monkeys don't care about money, per se, but they do care about marshmallows."

This is just like the other night when we flipped past ABC and Charlie Gibson said "up next, the robot revolution," which is a story we thought he probably should've led with. Anyway, monkeys finally control robots with their thoughts and mankind is basically defunct, now. [NYT, Drudge]

Every time I find myself in a really divey bathroom, I wanna do blow. Coincidence? Yeah right, according to a new study involving macaques (that means monkeys) and intravenously injected cocaine...

This is awesome: a brief history on monkeys in film, from Ink 19. After all, who could forget that classic 1994 Thora Birch vehicle, Monkey Trouble? We love how author Vincent Basilicato sets down the rules: "Concentration here will be on real monkeys rather than created ones." In other words, Mighty Joe Young and Dr. Zaius do not count. We also appreciate nerdy segues such as, "Chimpanzees pretty much ruled Hollywood for the next 40 years," and the fact that even though many of these animals are technically apes or whatever, it's more fun to call them monkeys. Did you know? Showbiz chimps can get fired, just like everybody else...

Former O.C. and current Jumper actress Rachel Bilson is complaining in Nylon about the chimp dressed as a Santa for website College Humor's last Christmas party: "Maybe I overreacted because I was too tired, but it made me so mad! All these people were drunk and taking pictures, and it was horrible!" It was a pretty white-trashy stunt, but it's hard to come up with new ways to throw money around sometimes. A December Page Six item says that Bilson actually "jumped the half-hour line" to get her picture taken with the chimp, but College Humor co-founder Ricky Van Veen says, "She didn't cut the line. She and her friend were leaving the party, so i brought them to the front of the line for a quick look. She was really nice to everybody." The chimp, who goes by the name of Louie, was unavailable for comment. Update! Louie's latest career move &mdash starring in a Human Giant comedy video &mdash after the jump! He is hilar.

A tipster informs us that the author of summertime sleeper hit Water For Elephants has sold her next two books, the first of which, The Ape House, is about "monkeys who live together in a house," to Cindy Spiegel at Spiegel and Grau, for the highly improbable-seeming (but hey, whatever) sum of 5.2 million, making Joshua Foer's 1.2 million deal (a memoir which sold to Ann Godoff yesterday, and yes he's JSF's little bro) look like a bargain. Bookscan has Elephants at a totally respectable but not mindblowing 132,503 — Bookscan, of course, is always sorta wrong — and foreign rights to it sold all over the place. Still, 5.2 million for a follow-up to a book which — well, we'll let this book blogger sum it up: "the plot is non-existent, the characters are superficial, there is too much talk of penises and it is just a completely non-memorable basic quick read." So what we want to know is: really? And, if so, was it because of penises? Tell us.

We're gonna go ahead and say that this doesn't require a whole lot of explanation. Except for that whole WTF? thing.