TOOBWORLD GOES BANANAS!

Among the most popular of the ads shown during the Super Bowl was the CareerBuilder.com trilogy. It had a running storyline about the schlub who worked for a corporation which was otherwise "manned" by chimpanzees.

Three commercials, broadcast on TV.... It should be considered a part of the basic TV Universe then. But even though Toobworld is filled with reality-busting concepts - 'Mr. Ed', 'My Mother The Car', 'The Apprentice' - I don't think there's room for a chimpanzee corporation (with the un-palindromic name of "YEKNOM") on Earth Prime-Time.

But luckily, there is a place for it in an alternate dimension. Earth Prime-Time/Ape has been in existence since at least the first episode of 'Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp'. And it recently came back into vogue with a series of mock movie previews on TNT. Those proved to be so popular that a TV series was spawned called 'The Chimp Channel'.

In all of those instances, we understood what the chimps were saying as they were speaking in English. That's because we, as the audience viewing at home, were seeing everything from their point of view. But for the CareerBuilder.com blipvert, we were allied with the human's P.O.V.

Apparently, he was not a native to that world, or he would have spoken their language. (He may have been gifted with telepathy which would be how he understood what they were conveying in their dialogue.)

By the third commercial, the human was still stranded in his job at YEKNOM. Even though the ad's Voice-over was touting that one should contact the website of CareerBuilder.com, this guy was unable to do so. The internet company was back on Earth Prime-Time... and of course, on Earth Prime.

So how did a lone human end up on Ape-Earth, trapped in a world he never made?

One possibility would be 'Sliders' technology. Another would be a rogue wormhole similar to the type that plagued those 'Twilight Zone' characters who woke up in their own beds but unrecognized by their loved ones.

Or it could be a case of cosmic transference. Remember that episode of 'Star Trek' in which four members of the Enterprise crew ended up in the evil mirror dimension while their savage counterparts ended up in the main TV Universe?

Perhaps there was some similar exchange - that guy ended up on Chimpworld, while his simian doppleganger ended up over on Toobworld.

And whatever happened to that primate? I think we saw him in another commercial. He obviously had lost his mind, and thought that he could re-establish contact with his homeworld by talking into a banana. He'd take a few steps, talk into the banana, and then proclaim the Chimpanese equivalent for the word "Good."

That's right. He was the chimpanzee counterpart to that dork who works for Verizon!

Can you hear me now, Bonzo?

BCnU!
Tele-Toby