My Gym Partner's a Monkey
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 🎶 I used to go to a human school where everyone's the same, but now I go to an animal school 'cause Lyon's my last name. 🎶
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"Cartoons about monkeys are nothing special."
— TheMysteriousMrEnter
My Gym Partner's a Monkey is a Cartoon Network animated television series that aired from 2005 to 2008.
Plot
The series revolves around a 12-year-old student named Adam Lyon, who gets was transferred to a school of anthropomorphic zoo animals because of a clerical error making his last name "Lion". There, he meets up with an anthropomorphic orange spider monkey named Jacob P. "Jake" Spidermonkey, who he becomes friends and gym partners with, thus earning the show's title.
Not a Partner Qualities
- Misleading title: Jake isn't Adam's gym partner in most of the episodes. But it was called "My Classmate is a Monkey" in a few countries such as Mexico (where it was called "Mi compañero de clase es un mono") and Japan (where it was called "クラスメイトはモンキー"). In Spain the show was named "A Monkey in My Classroom" ("Un mono en mi clase") and in France the show was named "Mon copain de classe est un singe (My classmate is a monkey)".
- The show’s premise, as mentioned at the beginning of the theme song, is a nonsensical and indolent idea for a kids' show.
- Barely any originality, as there are several similarities to other shows such as:
- Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?, due to its similar premise where a character enrolls in a school where everyone is a different species.
- Wayside, also due to its similar premise and the main character/protagonist being the buttmonkey; though, it surprisingly can't be a rip-off unless you count the book series that came before, as it was released only a month after the TV movie adaptation was released two years before the actual TV show adaptation, so it was probably in production around the time that the movie was.
- The Ren & Stimpy Show, due to its frequent usage of gross-out, toilet humor, surreality, and gross-out close-up shots and the two main characters being a polar opposite duo, with the goofy dumb one frequently irritating the more rational one.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, which came out a year before this show, with Adam and Jake being Mac and Bloo, Mac and Adam going to a foster home/middle school for imaginary friends/animals, and having the same feel as one another.
- Johnny Test, which came out the same year as this show, with Adam and Jake being Johnny and Dukey, but the roles are swapped, as the animal is the obnoxious one and the human boy is the rational one unlike in Johnny Test where the human boy is the obnoxious one and the animal is the rational one.
- Overuse of stereotyping, specifically of the nerds and the bullies.
- Lots of nonsensical episodes. For example:
- The episode "The Butt of The Jake" was centered around Jake turning his butt into a face and making it talk. What'd you expect? And later, he inflates his butt with helium and blocks out the Sun. According to the YouTuber, Mr. Enter the episode even got banned and only aired on TV twice.
- In "The A Word", Jake breaks off his friendship with Adam because the latter said the A-word (ape), which is set up to be a slur against monkeys, but then subverted when Jake says he was upset that Adam didn't use the A-word on him, since it's a compliment to monkeys. How confusing is that?
- The episode "Shiny Thing" is the most painfully atrocious because of a few reasons: Jake brings a glass doorknob to school which is against the rules and mesmerizes everyone in the school except for Adam. Jake uses it to control the entire school and they end up studying about "Monkey Butts" (which is considered toilet humor), Adam later states that the glass doorknobs belong to his mother and if they all break, she'll punish him, and in the end, all of the glass doorknobs break when Principal Pixiefrog shouts out Adam's name (referring to him as "Mr. Lyon") for bringing shiny things to school.
- Mean-spirited and sadistic nature mostly targeted toward Adam, the main protagonist.
- Speaking of Adam, almost every episode in this show is an Adam torture scenario, since most of the abuse he suffers is undeserved and mean-spirited, the worst example being "The Hyena and the Mighty".
- Unfunny attempts at humor as all the jokes on offer are nothing but fart jokes, toilet humor, animal puns, and butt jokes, especially in the episode "The Butt of the Jake".
- The theme song, while okay, just repeats the title over and over again like six times and the lyrics don't even make sense. The word "Monkey" is even repeated by Jake during the chorus, which is annoying and obnoxious.
- Some plot holes. For example:
- How has Adam not been eaten by any of the animals yet? As he's very clearly a human, as mentioned a few times by himself in the earlier seasons, including the first episode.
- Why would he get transferred to an animal school just because his last name is similar to the name of an animal (Lyon =/= Lion), couldn't you tell he's not one by his appearance (as mentioned above) and his usage of English?
- In one episode, the school starts serving human food in the cafeteria, but some of the food is made of animals.
- Some characters are wasn't so bright.
- Adam gets flanderized in the fourth season; his venting about his problems and personal life were cranked up to where he can't go a second without yammering about his personal life, and he has also become a narcissist; making him less likable than is Seasons 1-3. Though it at least makes his butt-monkey role more justified (depending on your opinion).
- Jake Spidermonkey is arguably one of the worst (if not the worst) characters in the series, mostly because he constantly abuses Adam for no reason at all, and his voice is grating just like SpongeBob in the fourth through seventh seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants. It didn't help that Jake was voiced by Tom Kenny, who is well known for voicing SpongeBob and other iconic cartoon characters.
- Virgil "Bull" Sharkowski can be really unlikable at times.
- This show is extremely hyperactive and thus can get annoying.
- The fourth wall gags seen in episodes like "Animal School Musical", "A Very Special Boy", and "Lonely Lyon" can be seen as harsh towards the criticism the show got online, not to mention how annoying they get after a while.
Qualities That Are a Partner for a Monkey
- The idea of a school full of animals is kind of interesting.
- The character designs are great.
- Several good/decent episodes such as:
- “Animal School Musical”
- “Le Switcheroo"
- “Nice Mouscathe”
- “A Whole Zoo World”
- That Darn Platypus"
- “A Thanksgiving Carol” (which ended the series on a high note)
- The TV movie, The Big Field Trip, was pretty okay.
- Speaking of the series finale, "A Thanksgiving Carol", it is a surprisingly great, emotional, and heartwarming episode that was a good send-off to the series. Also, it is a great holiday episode about Thanksgiving and has a funny parody of A Christmas Carol.
- The theme song, while repetitive, is pretty catchy. Plus when Jake cuts Adam off assuming that he's going to say "butt" when he intended to say "neck", that was pretty funny.
- The twist endings are superb.
- The show did improve a bit in later seasons as John McIntyre (The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter's Laboratory) take over as the new Supervising Director.
- The voice acting isn't that bad when there is no screaming.
- The animation is great thanks to being animated by Saerom Animation who previously worked on season 4 of Johnny Bravo, and would later on animate The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Regular Show.
- It's interesting how a show like this handles criticism slightly better than Teen Titans Go! and The Loud House (which ironically, the creator of that show Chris Savino, is involved in this show).
- A lot of the stock music cues are awesome (and most of them weren't even used in SpongeBob); from the funky and fresh "Frisco Nights" to the moving pieces "Forgiveness" and "Starting Again".
Reception
Ratings
The show was a rating success for Cartoon Network. On the series' Cartoon Network "Fridays" block two-episode premiere at 9:00 and 9:30 P.M. EST, the first episode was seen by 1.2 million and the second by 1.3 million children ages 2–11, according to preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research. The 9:30 P.M. telecast ranked as the #1 telecast on all television, broadcast, and cable, with both boys 6–11 and boys 2–11 in the time. The series went on top of Friday's block ratings, gaining millions of viewers.
Critical response
The show has a 6/10 on IMDb and had a 6.5/10 on TV.com, and, despite its mixed reviews from the critics (according to Wikipedia), was derided by audiences; it is mainly disliked/criticized for its gross-out/toilet humor, mean-spirited nature, the premise and unlikable characters. Because of this, it is considered one of the most controversial shows ever.
William Barker of Web Wombat gave the King of the Jungle DVD a positive review, awarding it with a score of 70%, saying: "With an original – dare I say unique? – premise, My Gym Partner's a Monkey makes for a somewhat refreshing change from superheroes and mutants, and the cut-out animation style is captivating, though far from novel. It's not the most impressive cartoon show I've ever seen, but it's quite cute and fairly amusing – even for the older primates among us."
Larisa Wiseman of Common Sense Media awarded the series three out of five stars, saying: "It's difficult to tell what age group the show's producers were aiming at – the animation style and slapstick by themselves would seem to appeal mainly to grade-schoolers, while the jokes and life lessons are aimed at the tween set. The sly humor may even give some adults the occasional laugh-out-loud moment. Overall, My Gym Partner's a Monkey is commendable for its effort to include a subtle message in each episode. Younger viewers will probably find Jake's sometimes annoying goofiness amusing, and will find the storylines entertaining."
Trivia
- Despise the flaws, the show was very popular in some countries like Brazil and Southeast Asia.
- The creators of this show later went to work on Littlest Pet Shop.
- The episode "The Butt of the Jake" was banned in 2007 as it was deemed too vulgar and "butt-filled" for younger audiences.
- The episode "Amazon Kevin", which features an unflattering Crocodile Hunter pastiche, was never aired in Australia again in the wake of Steve Irwin's unfortunate demise in 2006.
- The episode "Animal School Musical" was dedicated to Robert Goulet who posthumously appeared as Coach Ferret's singing voice.
- Two DVD volumes of the show do exist, but they're Region 4 and region-locked. The series has never had an American home video release to date, aside from the episode "Bubble or Nothing" being featured on the Cartoon Cartoon Fridays compilation DVD. However, the entire series is available on iTunes and was also on the Boomerang streaming app until August 2024.
- In 2007, McDonald's sold a set of eight toys based on this series, Camp Lazlo, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and Squirrel Boy, with each franchise having two characters. The MGPaM toys were a pencil topper of Jake that swung from a branch, and a wind-up chomping figure of Bull.
- After May 2008, the show was removed from Cartoon Network's schedule and stopped airing reruns. Eventually, the show briefly returned on July 27th to burn off the final episodes in a marathon (except the Thanksgiving episode) and the series finale was given no advertisement when it premiered on November 27th of that year.
Videos
Comments
- Chris Savino shows
- 2000s programs
- Cartoon Network shows
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- Shows for everyone
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- "It's made for kids"