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Must make it hard to shop for hats.
This mad scientist has gone bananas, and he's not monkeying around! Professor Monkey For a Head may not have a spare Battery of the Gods to power a new super suit, but that does not stop him from creating new and treacherous inventions! Though the monkey grafted to the Professor's head is easy going and loves to tease him, the Professor is fiercely protective of his simian companion, who allows him to escape nearly any situation with his climbing abilities.
It really is a good thing that Doug TenNapel, the illustrator who came up with Earthworm Jim, doesn't have any ongoing stake in the character. Like, the reason we'll never again see anything done with Xevoz is because the construction idea was a spin-off from Hasbro's licensing partnership with Stikfas, and that company's founder was jailed for having sex with a 17-year-old. The Marvel/DC Amalgam crossover omnibus had to leave out two issues written by Gerard Jones. Dilbert will never regain its one-time level of popularity because Scott Adams is a gigantic racist. Buy anything Jazwares makes and you're supporting their pro-genocide stance. But in Earthworm Jim's case, Dougie doesn't see any money from it anymore, so you're free to enjoy the property without worrying about enriching a religious whackjob.
The bio on the side of the box identifies this figure as being specifically from the cartoon, not the videogame; cartoon Prof needed a battery, game Prof needed the suit itself because he lost the blueprints (Monkey ate them). The two sources also disagreed on the precise way in which the Professor actually got a monkey grafted onto his brain. Was he a scientist who did it to himself? Was he a simple dairy farmer that it just happened to? Was it hereditary? Who's to say! In the original art, the human neck connected to the monkey's back, not scalp-to-scalp like we eventually came to know.
The professor half of the figure definitely looks
like a typical mad scientist: white lab coat with big black buttonsm thick purple gloves, and black... well, they're not pants, because they just go seamlessly from leg to foot, so I guess they're supposed to be like those waders that dedicated sport fishermen wear? But fitted instead of loose? If you're looking for a base to create an Invder Zim Professor Membrane custom, this would be a terrific starting point. The coat is sculpted with a few wrinkles around the buttons, and then larger ones in the middle where he'd be bending over all the time. The legs and gloves are smooth, adding to the suggestion they're rubber.
Just like Jim, Professor Monkey-for-a-Head gets really good articulation. He has swivel/hinge ankles, double-hinged knees, balljointed hips, a swivel waist, a balljointed chest, swivel/hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a barbell neck. You do have to be careful posing him, because of the added monkey-weight making him more top-heavy than your average action figure, but all the joints manage to move smoothly, yet hold their poses well. The lower edge of the lab coat does impede the legs, slightly. I was worried at first because the right bicep in my figure was stuck, but I managed to free it without either heat or cold: just stretched it slightly to crack the seal and it began working fine.
Naturally, being "Professor Monkey-for-a-Head" wouldn't mean much
if he didn't have a monkey for a head. (According to the cartoon, it's actually a chimpanzee who glued a tail on because he felt like a monkey trapped in an ape's body. Yes, that was a real joke used in a '90s cartoon. No audiences freaked out about its inclusion, and no character was loser enough to insist on referring to the villain as "Professor Chimpanzee-With-a-Tail-Glued-On for-a-Head." Imagine that!)
The monkey body is sculpted with nice fur all over, and exposed bare skin on the feet, hands, chest, and stomach. And the face, of course; can't forget the hideous face. In the game, the monkey clings to overhead equipment, transporting the Professor around the arena. The toy can't quite do that, but his tail is curled around, and since it's stiff plastic you'll be able to hang him from it, if you like.
The real shock is that Monkey Professor-for-a-Head is articulated. As fully articulated as the human half! Barbell neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swive;/hinge wrists, balljointed chest, swivel waist, balljoint hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, and swivel/hinge ankles. Amazingly, the joints are all sturdy enough that you can actually pose this figure monkey side down, and he'll still be able to support the weight of the human above. Dang! That's almost unbelievable!
It's even more impressive when you realize this dual figure includes an alternate head. A swappable neck joint that's still sturdy enough to hold up an entire second body high in the air? Amazing! The normal head just has a sinister grin, while the alternate has the mouth open in a cackling laugh. Actually, both mouths: each head shows the professor and the monkey displaying the same emotion, for symmetry's sake. The socket the neck balls fit into is rubberized, which is how it maintains its strength while still allowing swapping. Very smart engineering.
That's not the only bonus bodypart we get. Professor Monkey-for-a-Head has three pairs of hands: pointing, fists, and holding. Meanwhile, Monkey Professor-for-a-Head also has three pairs of hands: open,
fists, and pointing. I guess monkeys don't point. Additionally, the set includes test tubes and beakers in various sizes (red volumetric flask, yellow-green test tube, black Erlenmeyer flask, all sized either for the human or the monkey), as well as a blaster rifle that seems to use bananas for ammunition. That's the same weapon the Playmates figure would have come with, so either this is a direct homage to that, or it actually appeared in the cartoon sometime. It's a large blue gun with four bright yellow bananas sticking up out of the rear.
If not for the internet, Doug TenNapel could have lived out the rest of his life being the respected creator of Earthworm Jim (to the few people who would have known his name). Instead, everyone alive is aware that he's a sexist, a racist, a bigot, anti-LGBT, pro-fascist, believes covid was a scam, and, because "stupid" tends to run in packs, he's also a Creationist and believes in intelligent design. You never see just one kind of dumb, do you? It's always gotta be the whole combo platter. Anyway, by Doug-Doug's own words, Professor Monkey-for-a-Head was a dig at his science teachers who expected him to learn science instead of magic make-believe, something that apparently offended his dunderheaded little sensibilities, to the point where this was his way of getting back at them and the theory of evolution in general. Someone with those kinds of beliefs doesn't deserve a penny of your money, so him being cut out of his only noteworthy creation is a very good thing for the rest of us. It means you can get any of these Earthworm Jim figures without indirectly funding his next trip to Chick-fil-A or Hobby Lobby.
-- 10/13/24
If you could separate one toxic creator from their work, who would it be? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
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