Smoking Monkeys

 Back in the 1980s, when I was an art student, I used to love going into joke shops. They had such wonderful stuff, often in very old-fashioned packaging. It was brilliant when I was able to get a card like this, that the novelties were attached to. Just look at that packaging, with the monkeys in all their different poses, but all with fags hanging out of their mouths.

Today you don't really get joke shops, just those horrible places that sell novelties, the stuff of hen parties and tasteless Christmas presents from work colleagues. Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe the world is no longer amused by a smoking monkey. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure the whole world ever appreciated the fun to be had from sticking a fake cigarette in a plastic monkey's mouth. Did they really blow smoke rings like the pictures? And did they have health insurance?