The Full Tale of Tarzan and Arturo

PENN: Recap: I'm having a party at The Slammer. And I have invited, accidentally, a monkey, which is a chimp. I know a chimp is a gorilla which is a great ape. Right?

MICHAEL: Old world.

PENN: Old world ape, without a tail.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

PENN: New world he'd have a tail.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

PENN: It's not a monkey. It's an ape.

MICHAEL: Not a monkey.

PENN: But the word "monkey" is funnier.

MICHAEL: It's funnier.

PENN: So we use the word "monkey". Chimp!

MICHAEL: Chimp! Kinda funny.

PENN: And we talked about how this 80 lbs monkey has the strength of a 300 lbs man. Dangerous. Dangerous things. And they bite fingers off. That's what they do. And the way we control monkeys is that we fool them into thinking that we're part of their pod and that we're bigger and have more power than them. We are bigger than them. We don't have more power. And monkeys, because it's bred into them, have to go for dominance. They won't go up against me. Tarzan weights 80 lbs, I weigh 280. He's not going to come at me. I'm a big silver back to him. When I say to him "get me a Diet Coke out of the fridge," Tarzan runs and does that and changes his own diaper and everything. Perfect. And we're talking about how all the women love the monkeys because the monkeys feel them up in public and they kind of get off on that. The women that I know. I'm not saying women in general. The women that I know. And some women are upset because they can't tell the monkey what to do. We covered all of this. But I also invited our friend Arturo who is from Mexico, who is a little person. He's a dwarf. I believe the word little person is more insulting to a dwarf than the word dwarf. I've always thought that.

MICHAEL: He's a full person. A short guy.

PENN: Exactly. He's just a short guy.

MICHAEL: He's a 100% person.

PENN: And I also don't like the word African-American. You know? I think that the hyphenate should be taken away. They're not African-Americans. They're Americans. I think that black is good and goes with white but no one agrees with me, I go with them. No one agrees with me on dwarf; I go with little person. But Arturo himself calls himself a dwarf so I'm going to. I've invited a dwarf to a party. And Michael Goudeau who worked at Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus Greatest Show on Earth said to me "oh man I thought you were circus? You invited a dwarf AND a monkey to the same party?" I said "yes." So I called Arturo, planning on uninviting him to the party. I'm such a scum ball that I was willing to tell a Mexican dwarf that he couldn't come to my party --

MICHAEL: -- Rather than the monkey?

PENN: I thought the monkey would be more fun. That's what I thought. I was going to throw his ass out of my party.

MICHAEL: You were going to turn down a person coming to your party in preference for a monkey?

PENN: Exactly.

MICHAEL: Let's make that clear. Let's get that out in the open. You were inviting a monkey over a person.

PENN: That's the kind of scum bag I am. I think I'm not supposed to say "scum bag". Scum ball. That's the kind of scum ball I am. But I'm a cowardly scum ball. Because when I actually got Arturo on the phone, he was 'cited about the party. 'Cited. I said "'cited". He was excited about the party. I back down. I said "Okay, come over." So the idea was we were going to ... Michael Goudeau says we're going to introduce the dwarf to the monkey. The monkey is going to be in the arms of my girlfriend at the time, who was a situation comedy actress. She was going to be holding the monkey. We would then bring in the dwarf and then Goudeau gathered together a vigilante squad of about four of us who had knives. And we made a solemn pledge in the backroom with Michael Goudeau as our leader that if it came to a choice between saving the dwarf and saving the monkey... Although I made different choice in who I'd invite to the party, the other choice was with the knife we would kill the monkey with tools in order to save the dwarf.

MICHAEL: If it got that bad. If it got out of hand.

PENN: And Arturo's plan was there was a pool and monkeys hate water. And he was going to dive into the pool. He had no wallet, no watch. He would dive into the pool. So that's the plan. This is what's happening at the slammer. Now remember this is all people who are stone cold sober. Never had a drink in my life, there's no alcohol ever at the slammer, and we are introducing a monkey to a dwarf in my backyard. And monkeys are really sweet and they're a good size and you hold them and they wrap around you and they're cuddly and they're very, very pleasant. But they're strong and they're mean and they can kill you. It's an interesting situation. So my girlfriend at the time is holding the monkey and around the corner comes Goudeau's vigilante squad, four of us. I think it was Provenza, you, me. I forget who else. Probably Mack King or somebody. With weapons. We had weapons. And then around the corner comes Arturo the Dwarf. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life.

MICHAEL: There's a switch on the monkey.

PENN: Do you remember the anti drug commercial way back from when we were kids when it said "They say people who are hooked have a monkey on their backs. Isn't that cute?" Then it goes "aaaaaaarrrrrr!" and there's that face of that monkey. Or in the Exorcist, there's that quick, brief shot of the monkey "ah ah" that goes when you go into the subway. You probably don't know that but there is one. And there's that thing where monkeys, which we anthropomorphize right, because they have cute features. We've talked about this before. They have cute features, they're really nice, they seem a lot like us. They also seem really sweet, maybe nicer than us because they're non-verbal.

MICHAEL: Like Teller.

PENN: Like Teller.

MICHAEL: Teller is nicer than us.

PENN: Teller is a lot nicer than us. And we figure this monkey is kind of cute, kind of nice. And then it was amazing. The dwarf came around the corner: "kaaaaah!" And all of its teeth bare. And the monkey which is being held tightly, he just moves her arms like there's nothing and he jumps down and we are now in my backyard with weapons planning on killing a god damn monkey in order to save a Mexican dwarf. You freeze frame that right there. You say, "how did the son of Sam and Valda Jillette in Greenfield, Massachusetts, a kid who went to Boy Scouts, who played Little League, who did well at least in grade school before everything fell apart as he got older. How does that kid -- that kid -- end up at a much too big house in Las Vegas with a monkey and a dwarf and a knife in his hand to kill the monkey? How did that happen, man?" That is harder to understand than the Menendez Brothers. It's just impossible. And then Arturo just hauls ass like you wouldn't believe and he makes it to the house.

MICHAEL: Fastest dwarf you ever saw.

PENN: And the monkey, it's amazing. The monkey is slowed down a little bit, just confused by us. He makes it into the room. And then monkey is "oooo oooo ahhh ahhhh. I'm a happy monkey."

MICHAEL: The switch slips the other way.

PENN: The switch goes back on and instantly he's grabbing nipples again and reaching up skirts and down jeans. It's back to happy. We did the rest of the party like it's Kevin Costner and Bruce Willis at the same party, moving them from room to the other. So like Arturo would say "Hey I have to go to the bathroom, man." "Oh no the monkey's out there. Move the monkey here. Move him there." And later in the day, we had Arturo on a barstool. Remember that?

MICHAEL: Yes.

PENN: Arturo on a barstool which put him up to normal height. And we had Tarzan outside of the window looking in the window. And there was no hostility towards Arturo. And because we are nuts, and we are dangerous nuts, after almost having to kill a monkey with knives to save a Mexican human being. Ummm, we then opened the door and let the monkey in again. And this was in an enclosed space where he couldn't run away. And I remember the monkey. It was this great thing. The monkey is looking at Arturo sitting on the barstool, kind of going "ooo arp ar oo ar." And is going "is that a short guy? Is that a short guy whose ass I should kick or is that a tall guy who dominates me? Hawr hawr." And looked at Arturo. And Arturo was, of course, scared spitless sitting on the barstool. And we've left him, no man is an island, but this dwarf is on a barstool. He's got no place to go. And then they co-existed peacefully. The lion laid down with the lamb. The monkey laid down with the dwarf. They were all very happy. And then Goudeau, who is one for crazy inventions, said "next party we need to have is we need to have painter stilts and put the dwarf on painter stilts." You know they put you up about 3 feet? So that he's tall and pull the pants down over them and have him walk around on painter stilts.

MICHAEL: It's the monkey fix. It's our new product! That's what we're going to call it. "Monkey Fix". We'll sell it to dwarves working in the circus.

PENN: The only problem with that is if you're going to a party and you're bill boarded as there's going to be a monkey there and a dwarf and you get there and the dwarf is 5'10". You know? And he's wearing painter stilts. So you got a dwarf on stilts. Then the party has to be ballyhooed in a different way. You have to say "come on to the party over at Penn's house, we're going to have a monkey and a Mexican." That's all he would be. He would just be a Mexican. Because a Mexican on painter stilts is a Mexican. So that is the story of how it ended from yesterday of the monkey and the dwarf.

MICHAEL: There was no bloodshed.

PENN: There was never another party, because the man who owned Tarzan also owned a tiger --

MICHAEL: (evil chuckle)

PENN: -- that ripped off the guy's head and killed him.

MICHAEL: That wasn't involved with us. We were not there.

PENN: Nothing to do with it. Although we did want to have the tiger come to a party too.