Danny DeVito has fought many battles in his impressive Hollywood career. He went toe-to-toe with Batman, took on climate change in The Lorax, fought a telepathic child in Matilda, defied common decency as the one and only Frank Reynolds in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and even stood off against ridiculous, retro-futuristic aliens in Mars Attacks! But nothing is quite as crazy as the battle he fought IRL against a trained monkey while on set for Batman Returns.
In this short clip from The Graham Norton Show, DeVito recalls the time a monkey decided to take an artistic turn off-script without conferring with his screen partner. Instead of simply bringing DeVito an object (you know, standard monkey-acting fare), the monkey thought it might light up the screen if he took a leap at DeVito’s schwantz. He tried to bite into his crotch-berries like they were poisoned figs in an Indiana Jones movie, but got a mouthful of prosthetic penguin fat instead. He must’ve been sorely disappointed…or feeling whatever weird, semi-human emotion monkeys feel that parallels disappointment…when he drew back a chomp of foamy costume stuffing instead of greasy DeVito balls.
Lucky for DeVito, though, that he had all that padding on. Otherwise Frank Reynolds might have had a harder time “bangin’ whoores” later in his career.
