Musings on three things — Nairobi, gorillas, and gorilla suts — en soi (as “just stuff:”) vs. those things serving as symbols, with various values / evoked associations, which are typically conventional: cultural meanings. With specific reference to these three things in the 1950s Ernie Kovacs comedy sketch The Nairobi Trio.
The background. From my 12/6/25 posting “TNT: the basics”:
My morning name for 11/28: The Nairobi Trio (TNT).
… TNT .. involves three people in gorilla suits moving in sync with the tune “Solfeggio” [the posting has a link to a videotape of one performance of the sketch] … I’ll ask the question: why is TNT funny? And eventually the question: why does TNT make many people feel uneasy?
On this last question, I’ll look ahead and suggest that the twinges would vanish if the skit were called, say, “The Solfeggio Players” — no Nairobi reference — and the gorilla suits were replaced by, say, chicken suits or frog suits [AZ: indeed, I suggest that the twinges are a response to the symbolic values some people give to Nairobi, gorillas, and gorilla suits, not to these things en soi]
The aswer to the first question is given in the Wikipedia entry on TNT:
[1] People in gorilla suits had long been a comedy staple. [2] The ploy of well-known, predictable music pieces gone awry had been practiced by artists as diverse as Stan Freberg, Spike Jones, and P. D. Q. Bach. [3] The “slow burn” of one character being annoyed by another, resulting in eventual retaliation, was not new. But the combination of all of those ingredients, combined with [4] impeccable timing, produced a unique and memorable result.
The things.
— Nairobi, the capital of the east African country of Kenya, is a metropolis of 4.8 million people, more than in the city of L.A.; in addition to a large urban core, it embraces a set of game reservations, primarily featuring the animals of the African savannah.
— gorillas belong to a genus of great apes. From Wikipedia on the great apes:
The Hominidae, whose members are known as the great apes, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); Gorilla (the eastern and western gorilla); Pan (the chimpanzee and the bonobo); and Homo, of which only modern humans (Homo sapiens) remain.
… Gorillas are large, primarily herbivorous, great apes that live in the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus Gorilla is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla [in east central Africa] and the western gorilla [in west central Africa] … The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of humans, from 96 to 99% depending on what is included, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after the bonobos and chimpanzees.
Gorillas are big (150 to 500 lbs.), intelligent, highly social, and not notably aggressive (except in defense of the troop): “gentle giants”.
In the real world, Nairobi and gorillas have no connection: the nearest gorillas to Kenya (in the savannah of east Africa) are in the forest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, several countries west of Kenya.
— gorilla suits are creature suits (costumes worn by people) resembling a gorilla. Other creature suits resemble bears, chickens, cats, Frankenstein, etc. Since they are objects of culture rather than nature, their use in our culture is a central feature of their definition.
Creature suits are realistic costumes used to disguise a performer as an animal, monster, or other being. They are used in film, television, or as costumed characters in live events. (Wikipedia)
The gorilla suit is a popular Halloween and costume party costume, and is also used as a source of humor. (Wikipedia) [AZ: note that we’re entitled to ask why it’s a popular costume and why it’s funny]
Creature suits then pick up symbolic values indirectly. A gorilla suit is, first of all, conspicuously not a gorilla — while possibly calling up whatever symbolic values you associate with gorillas, so that it’s a source of symbolic tension and maybe playful ambivalence.
Summary. So much for the things. Now, you ask, how do we come to get people in gorilla suits performing in The Nairobi Trio? That has very little to do with the real world, but almost everything to do with the symbolic values of Nairobi, gorillas, and gorilla suits.
Which I take up in the next installment of this cultural drama. Stay tuned.
Leave a Reply