barrel of monkeys

[Wilson Gray]

That's strange! How could you possibly confuse *me* with someone else
who identifies himself as "hwgray," merely because I do the same? ;-)

But, seriously, folks, I have a Facebook "friend" named _Wilson Gray_
who also went to UC Davis. I put "friend" in quotes because he's
actually not friendly at all, being totally unresponsive. Clearly,
he's lost that "Hi, Aggie!" spirit. So sad.

-Wilson

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: barrel of monkeys
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Sorry, I wasn't clear. The date was introduced in 2004. I am assuming
> it's the same Wilson Gray.
>
>> Subject:     Re: snakes and peas
>> From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at EARTHLINK.NET>
>> Date:    Tue, 4 May 2004 12:43:21 -0400
>>
>> The game is actually published by Hasbro, Inc., which owns Milton
>> Bradley. Hasbro's copyright dates to 1966, but Lakeside Toys of
>> Minneapolis introduced Barrel of Monkeys in 1965. Presumably, Lakeside
>> then sold the rights to the game to Hasbro in 1966. However, I have the
>> feeling that I was aware of the saying even prior to that date. My
>> earlier point, obviously poorly expressed, was that the existence of
>> the game and its slogan, "What's more fun than a barrel of monkeys?",
>> possibly helps to keep an otherwise meaningless expression alive.
>> There's nothing inherently fun about real monkeys in a real barrel,
>> whereas it's immediately obvious that real snakes writhing in a real
>> barrel will be crooked.
>
> Hasbro's copyright may have dated from 1966, but it was an assigned
> copyright. Lakeside still produced the game in 1968, but sold the rights
> some time later.
>
>     VS-)
>
>
>
> On 5/21/2010 1:32 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>> I didn't attempt to supply a specific date.The war that I had in mind
>> is WWII. "After The War," "During The War" became one of many
>> catch-phrases that referenced "The War."
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>> On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 4:46 AM, Victor Steinbok<aardvark66 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> I found Wilson's archived post about the game, but the expression
>>> predates the game by quite some time--some 80 years, it seems. Wiki
>>> lists the same date that Wilson had previously found (1965). The
>>> inventors explicitly said that they got the name from the expression,
>>> not the other way around. I am not sure which War Wilson was referring
>>> to. So, unfortunately, we still don't have the origin of the phrase,
>>> although some bits have come more clearly into view.
>>>
>>> There had been some guesses that "barrel of monkeys" had been derived
>>> from "barrel of fun" and "wagonload of monkeys". Although this is true
>>> of the game--according to lore, the game designers initially were going
>>> to name the game "Barrel of fun", but ran into trademark problems--it's
>>> highly doubtful of the original phrase.
>>>
>>>
>
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>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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