Shark Bytes

My 17 year old daughter & I checked this out on YouTube recently--we laughed our asses off. Face it, there is nothing funnier than dressing up chimps and having them drive around in dumb little cars, acting like humans, gesticulating wildly. I know the animal rights folks hate this (and I understand why) but dang!

I’d largely forgotten about this one until it turned up in the local specialist DVD rental store. Got it out, and yes, it was still funny. It was essentially a live-action cartoon and as such a voice acting show, with a cast of three (Dayton Allen, Joan Gerber and Bernie Kopell) handling all the characters. The pacing was extremely fast, and the show was very reminiscent of similarly amphetamine screwball cartoons like Bullwinkle or Roger Ramjet. The theme was some fine catchy neo-psychedelic pop, too. My brother and I used to nearly die of laughter when anyone got zapped by the slow motion weapon. This is something you couldn’t get away with now, since there are people who don’t like seeing animals made to look foolish (although firstly it was a parody of the spy genre a la Get Smart; and secondly it was the vocal script and performance which actually elicited the bulk of the laughs). It’s a lot to handle all at once, but packaged out in weekly doses it was one of the funniest things on the planet. Sure, the ape actors may not have known what was going on, but they probably did okay out of it.

This show rocked when I was a kid. Funnier than hell. I even had to indoctrinate a 20-something today about LL when she was telling me about some kind of webware called "surveymonkey." I envisioned Lancelot Link coming to my office to interogate me. Ain't nothing funnier than "talking" chimps. Wish Nickolodeon would run them.

Perhaps the greatest achievement in the history of mankind. Faulkner, Twain, Kant be damned--chimps in hokey clothes driving around mini cars, articulating totally unsynchronized nonsense...priceless!

A great show. It was fun. That is, until animal rights groups came in and ruined all our fun.

I never saw the original series, but a cable movie channel used to use the episodes as fillers in between movies now and then. OK, I was a little drunk at 1 in the morning waiting for some movie to start and the Jaws takeoff came on. I just about rolled off the couch I was laughing so hard. Can't remember the movie I was waiting to watch but I remember that Lancelot Link episode.

I had totally forgotten this overlooked gem of Saturday morning in the 70s. Seeing it mentioned in this Web site brings back great memories. Anyone remember "Darwin, what's your theory?"

The show never NOT jumped the shark. For god sakes, it was a show about secret agent chimps in a rock band! The whole premise was a shark jump!

In the tradition of the Flintstones, they came up with great, appropriately themed names. Mata Hairy. Ed Simian. Evolution Revolution. CHUMP Headquarters. Yeah, it was low comedy, but it was very clever too. Never jumped!

Never Jumped. Chimps in spy outfits, driving fast cars and shooting at each other, this show should have gotten an Emmy.

Yes, it was stupid as hell, and if you don't think chimps are funny even WITHOUT clothes or dubbed voices, of course you are going to hate it! But those of us who can just go with the inanity can have a marvelous time. One of the reasons my best friend IS my best friend is that, after 30+ years, we can call other and just say "Hi, Lance!" or "Hi, Mata!" and the other will fall on the floor laughing. This was a Saturday morning MUST in 1970-71 when I was all of 11 years old. I caught up with it again on Nick at Nite in the late eighties and still found it funny. This may mean that I'm hopeless, but I don't give a damn. The dubbing wasn't great but how the hell COULD it be? It's not like they could say, "OK, Creto, move your lips precisely to the recorded voice!" Anyway, I like the show, especially Ed Simian. Hysterical, even three decades later. Lance rocks, baby!

Never ever jumped. The greatest concept for a television show up until now that Crank Yankers has been invented. Has anybody seen this show yet with the puppets reenacting crank phone calls? It's effing brilliant! You've got to watch everything that's going on in the background. The show is hilarious. As for Lance Link, I loved it when I was a very young lad and they showed it on the old WLVI 56 (all of you other Bostonians should remember) usually in the afternoon before or after Mighty Mouse and other such cartoons. I thought it was sheer brilliance then at the age of 4, and when Nick at Nite brought it back in '88 I again fell in love with the theme song but all of the Characters. Was I the only one rooting for Baron Von Butcher? I've said enough, watch Crank Yankers on Comedy Central!

if more shows were done with all-monkey casts, this website wouldn't need to exist

Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp? How can you go wrong? I basically grew up on this show, it just has tons of interesting things going on, on the show and all the stories behind it. Check out Jeff Krulick's ("Heavy Metal Parking Lot") site, he made a film about how the show as made.

This was a great show ! If you have an sense of the absurd, you'd love Lance and the gang. It's a show for people who don't take themselves too seriously, and can imagine a world where chips parody humans.