Mr. Smith:CJ The Ape - Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries

Mr. Smith aired from September until December 1983 on NBC.

One of the most talked about but least viewed series of the 1983-1984 season was this light comedy about a talking Orangutan. Cha Cha had been an ordinary circus Orangutan until his inquisitiveness and thirst ( he drank a whole bottle of experimental enzyme) transformed him into a talking primate genius with an I.Q. of 256. The government figured that made him smarter than anybody in Washington, and set him up as a special consultant on such things as nuclear energy and MX missle policy. He was renamed Mr. Smith , given a human wardrobe ( except for shoes) and a pair of spectacles, and moved into a suburban house along with his dim-witted former owner, Tommy ( Tim Dunigan), Tommy's smart-alecky kid sister Ellie ( Laura Jacoby), and eventually, his ordinary brother Orangutan Bo Bo.

Attending to Mr. Smith's needs and keeping a watchful eye on America's newest secret weapon was prissy Raymond Holyoke ( Leonard Frey, whose previous work had been as personal secretary to presidents and ambassadors. Dr. Julie Tyson ( Terri Garber) was a research scientist from the Institute for Primate Studies who kept track of Mr. Smith's development, and Dr. Klein ( Stuart Margolin) was her boss. Unfortunately the opportunity for political satire was never really exploited, as stories focused mostly on family contrtemps and little misunderstandings, and the series was short-lived.

The ape was played by a real Orangutan, C.J. who had extensive showbiz experience, having co-starred with Clint Eastwood in the film Any Which Way You Can, and with Bo Derek in Tarzan. The voice of Mr. Smith was supplied by Ed Weinberger, who created the series with Stan Daniels. The third tv sitcom to feature a monkey in a leading role ( after The Hathaways and Me And The Chimp), Mr. Smith got off to a slow start on NBC's low-rated Friday-night lineup.

An Article From TV Guide ( Oct. 22-28, 1983 Ed.)

Mr. Smith ( Sh)apes Up Hollywood-and Washington

An orangutan with charisma is carrying a prime-time show and sending up life in the Nation's Capital

By Steve Gelman

No question who held the power here. Squeezing hands and kissing cheeks, the star of the series had arrived last for the lucheon meeting and now lounged on a pillowed sofa, flanked by two attentive aids. While others ate from a platter of cold delicatessen, the star commanded a special order-hot chicken, fried crisp and brown. Others were offered no dessert. He was served a banana split-three flavers of ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate sauce. Others drank soda from cans. He sipped apple juice from a glass. His appearance spoke of privilege and breeding-shiny red hair freshly shampooed and combed by others; gray pin-striped suit and white shirt custom-tailored to his rather short but powerful 165 pounds; red tie carefully fitted to his noticeably large neck. The others-a producer, a publicist, a journalist, the two aids-seemed plainly shabby in comparrison. This was the producer's office, but the star's domain. Others in the room addressed each other by first names. Reference to the star always began with " Mr."

The star had his own parking space at the Paramount lot. His own motor home on the set. There was commotion whenever he ambled down the studio streets. Moreover, the title of his new series bore his name. There was potential here for what Hollywood calls a " breakout star"-a cover boy, a trend setter. This morning, for example, the star had loosened up with a message, a bit of wrestling, some pullups and twirls on a tree limb; with sufficient ratings for his show and media exposure for him, might that workout soon replace aerobics as the new show-business fitness fad?

Possible indeed. " Let me try to explain his potential, his importance," said the producer Ed Weinberger. " He is the key-stone of this show, the nucleus. He is the center in a way that Judd Hirsch was the center of Taxi, the way Hal Lindon was the center of Barney Miller, the way...let me put it better. If this were The Mary Tyler Moore Show, that guy there would be Mary."

Understand now? This is serious. Serious business. I mean, what did you think? That this was some kind of monkey business?

Uh, oh. There. Now I'm doing it, too.

Occasionally, deliciously, opportunity arises to turn life's frustrations into a joke. This star provides such opportunity. He is an orangutan-formerly known as C.J. and now named Mr. Smith-who leads the cast of NBC's new show, Mr. Smith. The charm of the show is its satire, its capacity for caricature. For people across America, fed up with the preening and bumbling of big brains and big shots, it offers the great glee of a monkey-orangutans are apes, actually-playing the role of a top man at a think tank. For people in the entertainment business, worn to the blood from honoring the rituals and egos of Hollywood , it offers the wonderful outlet of viewing this star as any other. Laughter, really is the best revenge. And what better way to strip bare the pretense of Hollywood's stars than to give equal status to an ape?

" I need a lot of time with your star," I'd told the Paramount publicist upon beginning this assigment. " You know. The usual. Lunch. See him at work. At home."

The publicist didn't draw a breath. " Lunch, probably. Work, OK. But nothing at home. Please. He likes to keep his private life, quite private. He knows he owes the public a debt of gratitude, but he feels he repays that debt by giving the best performance he is capable of evertime." A pause. " Don't get this wrong. We're not talking about any prima donna. I'll probably have less trouble with Mr. Smith than with any other actor I've worked with in my 11 years here."

A short NBC promotional film opens with Mr. Smith, in suit, tie and spectacles, behind a desk. To his side, Weinberger's co-executive producer Stan Daniels explains the series" " It's about a monkey who becomes involved in some Government experiments...and the monkey winds up with an IQ of 256. He learns to read, to speak; he teaches himself law, medice, nuclear physics-and the series is about how the monkey, Mr. Smith, learns to cope with this new world and how he uses his immense intelligence for the benefit of mankind. And animalkind."

Mr. Smith nods agreeably and is introduced by Daniels as " the distinguished actor...He appeared with Clint Eastwood in 'Any Which Way You Can,' in the Bo Derek version of ' Tarzan.' "

The star's television background is cited: a guest shot on Mork & Mindy, a few game shows. Then the voice that has become Mr. Smith's on TV says, " But I never really wanted to do weekly series TV before."

" What changed your mind?"

This," Mr. Smith slaps at his desk. " It's the first script I've read that combines solid family values with an opportunity to really say something important."

Wonderful. More fun, in fact, than a barrel of...

But seriously.

I mean, its terrific to wink and nod at the whole hot parody-to let the little fellow watch " the dailies," to doll him up in tails and top hat, to rearange shooting because of " the stars need to sleep late." But there also is work to be done. For all the monkeyshines, what we have here at bottom, is an ape with a very large role in a weekly series, an ape on- stage so often he carries a burden " no show," according to Weinberger, not Mr. Ed, not Lassie," has ever put on an animal."

How hard, then, must the other actors work to make the show succeed, to help the ape along? Weinberger shakes his head. " We had one scene," he says, " where he has to walk out of a room with another star, Leonard Frey. He has to walk to the door, hit his mark, turn toward camera, put his hands in a coat, wear a hat and walk out. We had to keep repeating it. Four times. Four takes. Because of Leonard, Mr. Smith hits his mark, opens the door and walks out on cue every time. Meanwhile, Leonard's getting his lines wrong every time.

" Another thing, " Weinberger says, " You know how they say an animal will steal a scene. Well, he has a scene with Leonard-they're having a fight. And he has potato chips in his lap and he's supposed to be eating them. Well, Leonard would do a line, and only when Leonard was through speaking would he take a potato chip and eat it. Never stepped on Leonard's line. Leonard Frey said he hadn't seen that kind of respect from another actor in the history of his entire life."

Now 12, Mr. Smith was born in a Dallas zoo, put up for adoption at 7 and purchased by the two aids who flanked him at the lunch in Weinberger's office-Boone Narr, his head trainer and Bill Gage, the associate. They spent two months simply getting Mr. Smith accustomed to them and to short walks outside his cage. For a year and a half after that, they worked with him daily, rewarding his progress with food and compliments. Only then, says Narr, was " he ready to do anything on-camera."

Presently, he was working in pictures, sharing a scene with Clint Eastwood, touching his paws to Bo Derek. What are his feelings about those two stars? We'll only talk professionally ," says his publicist. " You can say that on a professional basis-we're speaking professionally now-probably because of Eastwood's greater background, he enjoyed working with Clint and, as a newcomer, Bo appeared to him to have quite a career."

These days, as a star himself, Mr. Smith mostly lives inside Narr's and Gage's suburban homes, sleeping in his own bedroom, sharing Big Macs and fries at the table, driving around in the front seat of the car. " He goes everywhere with us ," says Gage. " He's family. Also , it's part of his training-getting him comfortable in all kinds of situations."

On a typical day when he's working, Mr. Smith will wake up at 7, exercise, then have a shower and a breakfast of oatmeal, toast with honey, and juice. At the set, between calls, he naps in his motor home and watches cartoons on TV. Back home in the evening, Mr. Smith favors chicken and vegetables, cooked in a crock pot, for his big meal of the day. Before bedtime, says Narr, " he likes cookies and milk, but he can't always have them because oraguntans have a tendency to get fat. The reason for that is, in the wild, certain times of the year when there's lots of fruit around, they'll just eat, eat, eat, storing a lot of fat for those times there's not so much food around."

Industry metaphors are everywhere.

Several weeks after the fried-chicken lunch, Mr. Smith was in his dressing room at Paramount, waiting for wardrobe personnel to come by with a costume. He had been on the road for a while, shooting scenes outside national landmarks in Washington, D.C., and inside the Resorts International casino in Atlantic City N.J.Performing among crowds of gamblers in the casino, he had attracted considerable attention; a Philadelphia newspaper had run his picture on the front page and declared him better dressed in his little suit than regular patrons who gawked at him. What's more, Boone Narr was saying now, "he won $320 at roulette."

Come again?

" Yea. I let him point to numbers and I placed the bets. Won $320."

" A great time," said Bill Gage. " Boone and I got to the airport the next day and the guy at the ticket counter says, ' Where you guys coming from?' We said , ' Resorts International.' He says, 'Yea? I was there last night. They had a midget in a little suit.' We said, ' No, that was an orangutan.' The guy says, ' No, it was a midget.' We said, ' We're the trainers. We train him. That was the oranguntan, Mr. Smith.' The guy says, ' Hey ,I know I had a few drinks but there's no way you're gonna convince me that wasn't a midget in a little suit.'

Now in his dressing room, Mr. Smith, wearing shorts was sprawled on a couch. His dressing room is an enormous motor home with carpenting, air conditioning, a combination living room-dining -room-kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom with shower. Across the street this day was Leonard Nimoy's motor home. Nimoy's seemed not even two-thirds the size of Mr. Smith's.

Leaping up at the arrival of the wardrobe people, Mr. Smith nuzzled everybody hello and began trying on the clothes of a surgeon. He stepped into green pants, stuck his arms through the holes of a green medical gown , slapped a small green hat on his head and slid his hands into surgical gloves. " One of the easiest actors I ever worked with," said the wardrobe lady. " Never complains about color. Never complains that something makes him look too thin or too fat."

Shortly, Mr. Smith was shooting the scene. " Smith! Where's Smith?" a crew member called out. And here came this 3-feet 6-inch bundle of hair and green costuming plodding into the room where he and two other " doctors" were to scrub up before performing an operation. Holding his hands high, with great medical aplomb, Mr. Smith hit his mark at a scrub sink. As the camera rolled and Narr gave commands with hand signals and voice-" Wash, Smith! Hands up, Smith!"- he did the scene in several takes. Later there would be touch ups-fill-in shots involving mechanical devices and special effects. " Like a lot of actors in this town," says Weinberger, " he doesn't do all his own stunts."

People on the show are reluctant to discuss details of these touch-ups. They fear such facts will somehow destroy an illusion, will lower Mr. Smith to the level of assorted talking parrots and performing chimps, will reduce him to simply another animal act. No need to worry. This little fellow is an original. He not only dominates his show, but the surprise is that beyond all hoopla, beyond all hype, he does have special personality. Observe his patience between takes as he sits in his orange director's chair, the picture of wisdom with his chin cupped in hand. Watch him play catch or sip coffee-cream, heavy on the sugar-from a cup. Or lick his lips as he flirts with girls. Mr. Smith eats bagels, with cream cheese and strawberry jam. Mr. Smith senses that the real action-in a scene or on a street-doesn't start until he 's there, and is expert at working the crowd. He nods and waves to passers-by. He hugs friends. He pays attention, looks into your eyes when you talk. And he knows how to put people at ease. That is star quality.

Rhapsodizing about Mr. Smith's intelligence and charisma and sweet disposition, Weinberger said one day: " He's a great person."

There was laughter.

" OK," said Weinberger. " But really he is. He's a better person than persons. You know what I mean?"

Absolutely. But that's now, in the first flush of success. What will happen to Mr. Smith when the limo rides become commonplace and he is honered with paw prints in cement.? Already, Boone Narr detects he has grown " a bit more picky at what he eats."Is there likelyhood Mr. Smith will someday submit to other curses of the Big Star Ego?

He may have, praise be, an inborne break. An authority on monkeys and apes observed a while ago that, confronted by the sight of himself in a mirror, an orangutan in the wild would likely react with anger and fright, would flail away at what he percieved as another ape bearing in for an assault. React with rage to his own image in the mirror?How many other actors, do you suspect, have that capacity in their genes?

For More On Mr. Smith go to http://www.tvacres.com/simians_orangutans.htm