“Dinner & A Monkey”: I am looking at the shattered videotape that arrived containing this spin on TBS’ “Dinner and a Movie” film-intro franchise. The tape case is cracked, as if a big ape had stepped on it. When I tried to plug it in and watch anyway, the picture was fuzzy like a distant UHF station and the sound was warped like a 45 played at 33. That last reference, for those of you under age 25, is to an archaic recording technology known as the “record album.” Ask your parents about them, and they may even take you up to the attic to show you one, probably by Carole King. Please, please, hold it by the edges and center label only. But I digress from my story. Then the tape stopped altogether. I barely wrestled the thing out of my VCR–the cassette now has a convenient tape-loop handle–which means I have only the publicity photos to go on. They are very cute, showing monkeys dressed up as characters in the Oscar nominated films. The publicist assures me that this is really funny stuff. Certainly it will be the greatest monkey costume shtick you’ve seen since, say, the recent remake of “The Barefoot Executive.” The half-hour “Dinner & A Monkey” airs at 7:05 p.m.
