Her only love sprung from her only hate...

We eat in front of the television from time to time (but that's a topic for a different time) and tonight we ate our tortellini while watching Animal Planet. Tonight's feature was "Romeo & Juliet: A Monkey's Tale."

Picture courtesy of DVDtalk

First of all, I couldn't imagine living in that area of Thailand and having to deal with all of those monkeys! Second of all, the monkeys pick your pockets and steal food right out of your hands! Third of all, did I mention all of the monkeys?

Anyway, the whole point of the one-hour long show was basically a very simplified re-telling of William Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" but from the viewpoint of two love-struck monkeys from dueling monkey groups -- one group (Juliet's family) lived at the ancient temple, the Temple Troupe, and the other (Romeo's family) lived on the streets, the Market Gang or whatever they were called (my memory is shot).

It was a very cute movie -- the kids giggled and couldn't believe how naughty the street monkeys were. Bottom line is that this movie was a love story. Malia "ooohed" and "aaahed" the whole time she watched. Aidan kept laughing and tried to mimick as many monkey moves as he could (there were monkeys shaking light posts and hanging off of wires!). The ending was happy, the movie was short and sweet (only an hour...with commercials) and the kids were exposed to another culutre in another country. All good things in my book.


Now, I should warn you that if your kids are as keen as mine are, don't be surprised to hear comments about monkey butts or, even worse, monkey parts. I honestly did not know what to say, think or do when my daughter said that one of the monkey's looked like he had a brain between his legs (Were they testicles? I don't know...my guess is yes, but I was more concerned with trying NOT to choke on my pasta).