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Description
This chap, you’ll be thoroughly unshocked to learn, is another member of the Apeman and Monkeyboy cast. He’s one of the various other gorillas who inhabit the same enclosure as Clarence at San Diablo Zoo, and he’s generally a bright and cheerful sort of fellow, although he’s occasionally prone to bemusement and/or exasperation at Bobo’s antics, hence the above expression. (I drew him that way purely because it amused me.)

Rufus, like all the gorillas (and indeed most of the other animals in the zoo), gets on well with Clarence. But due to the expectations of the zookeepers and the visiting public he’s been compelled to play the role of a young upstart ape who continually challenges Clarence’s authority as the leader of the group, so whenever humans are around the two of them spend a lot of time roaring at each other and fighting. Of course, as with every aspect of what humans believe to be “normal” animal behaviour, it’s all an act - their conflicts are scripted and meticulously rehearsed in advance, and their “fights” usually take place behind conveniently-placed boulders where they use slapsticks, dustbin lids and other theatrical props to create the sounds of battle.

This sort of thing goes on all the time. You know those nature documentaries where you see lions pouncing on gazelles? It’s all painstakingly choreographed for the benefit of the cameras, so the human population never cotton on to just how sophisticated the animals of the world really are. Once David Attenborough goes home they wipe off the fake blood, put the “gazelle corpse” dummies back in storage and go and share a bottle of pampas grass wine down at the local watering hole. To us, it’s natural history. To them, it’s showbusiness.

Description
This chap, you’ll be thoroughly unshocked to learn, is another member of the Apeman and Monkeyboy cast. He’s one of the various other gorillas who inhabit the same enclosure as Clarence at San Diablo Zoo, and he’s generally a bright and cheerful sort of fellow, although he’s occasionally prone to bemusement and/or exasperation at Bobo’s antics, hence the above expression. (I drew him that way purely because it amused me.)

Rufus, like all the gorillas (and indeed most of the other animals in the zoo), gets on well with Clarence. But due to the expectations of the zookeepers and the visiting public he’s been compelled to play the role of a young upstart ape who continually challenges Clarence’s authority as the leader of the group, so whenever humans are around the two of them spend a lot of time roaring at each other and fighting. Of course, as with every aspect of what humans believe to be “normal” animal behaviour, it’s all an act - their conflicts are scripted and meticulously rehearsed in advance, and their “fights” usually take place behind conveniently-placed boulders where they use slapsticks, dustbin lids and other theatrical props to create the sounds of battle.

This sort of thing goes on all the time. You know those nature documentaries where you see lions pouncing on gazelles? It’s all painstakingly choreographed for the benefit of the cameras, so the human population never cotton on to just how sophisticated the animals of the world really are. Once David Attenborough goes home they wipe off the fake blood, put the “gazelle corpse” dummies back in storage and go and share a bottle of pampas grass wine down at the local watering hole. To us, it’s natural history. To them, it’s showbusiness.