More Fun?

 I heard the phrase today: “More fun than a barrel of monkeys!”  My immediate thought was that a barrel of monkeys probably wouldn’t be much fun. I get a mental vision of a barrel of primates screaming, clawing and throwing excrement at each other.  Kind of a monkey version of Facebook. 

So it got me thinking. Where did this idea start? What moron thought it would be fun? There was a game when I was a young lad called Barrel of Monkeys. Was that the origin of the phrase? My recollection is that game wasn’t that much fun. 

It appears the phrase was intended to be sarcastic or ironic.  It first appeared in the 1840’s referring to a cage of monkeys  anyone  who has been to the zoo knows how much fun those monkeys are having. It seems from my observation their days are spent screaming, throwing shit and masturbating.  By the 1890’s the phrase had morphed to a wagon load of monkeys.  So wagon load, cage, or barrel a group of primates doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. 

So maybe play the game developed in 1966 or spend some time on Facebook.