Here at ITAMII, we spend most of our time enrapt in the dazzling performances of the non-human primate stars on screen. After all, who doesn’t? However, it has come to our attention that we fail to devote anywhere near enough ink to those doing the hard yards.
Today, that changes. In this new series, we hope you enjoy learning more about simians who hit the big time behind the scenes.
Shiloh
It was 1999, and a young Shiloh stepped out of her crate and onto the scorched tarmac of LAX with a suitcase full of bananas and a head full of dreams.
Like many of her kind in the jungles of Borneo, Shiloh grew up watching the silver screen stars of yesteryear, longing for her chance to flaunt her stuff along the storied boulevards of Tinseltown.
Thanks to a chancy win at a local wildlife relocation centre talent quest, and at the tender age of 7, Shiloh landed herself a plane ticket to Hollywood.
There was no turning back.
But for Shiloh, it wasn’t to be. Despite oozing charm, audition after audition came to nothing. The grind was getting to her and she felt the wind gone from her sails. One day, a sympathetic casting director confessed to Shiloh that she just didn’t have the look.
Her nose wasn’t befitting of a leading lass. Distraught, Shiloh contemplated rhinoplasty, but saving the thousands of dollars needed for the op felt a lifetime away at a time when she could barely scrape enough dough together to put a plantain on the table.
What was she to do?
Like all good rags to riches stories, Shiloh caught a break just when she needed it.
The looming threat of Y2K had the big cheeses at the studios panicking. With the distinct possibility that Xerox machines would be offline, how would they get last-minute script revisions to their crews filming on location?
The only answer was to revert to the outdated practices of early cinema where teams of workers would hand-write fresh scripts each morning and deliver them to the sets. But there was another headache for the studios.
The economy was booming and cheap labour was hard to come by; at least among the human labour market… To save up for her return ticket to the jungle, Shiloh picked up a job as a script re-printer – not an occupation you will see listed in the credits of your favourite blockbusters today.
In the last few months of 1999, over 10,000 non-human primate script re-printers were hired in California alone in anticipation of the Y2K event.
Monkeys’ opposable thumbs and lack of access to adequate legal representation made them ripe for the picking to shrewd Hollywood execs.
Shiloh went straight into training. Like most of her fellow recruits, Shiloh didn’t know how to write. Once she got the hang of it, she was let loose re-printing scripts for early episodes of Friends as part of her vocational placement.
Facing the realisation her Hollywood dream was close to over, Shiloh decided to make a last ditch attempt at success. Whilst re-printing a scene where Ross enlists the help of his friends to carry a new sofa up to his apartment, Shiloh slipped in a revision of her own. The original script called for Ross to yell “Turn!” repeatedly at Chandler and Rachel who were helping him lift the sofa up the stairs. Sensing that the gag wouldn’t quite land, Shiloh revised the exclamation to “Pivot!”.
The unwitting cast performed the scene as written to rapturous laughter, and the rest is history. The Friends writing team hired Shiloh as a script adviser for the next season, before she was fully instated to the team for the remainder of the show’s run.
After Friends ended, Shiloh returned with her riches to Borneo where she runs an after-school writing programme for under-privileged forest dwellers. Recent interviews report she keeps in touch with her Hollywood pals, and rumour has it, she and Marta Kauffman could be starting a podcast together.
Keep your ears ‘peeled’…
Is there a monkey in it? 