Gorilla and the Mime
One day an out of work mime is visiting the zoo and attempts
to earn some money as a street performer. Unfortunately, as soon
as he starts to draw a crowd, a zoo keeper grabs him and drags
him into his office. The zoo keeper explains to the mime that the
zoo's most popular attraction, a gorilla, has died suddenly and
the keeper fears that attendance at the zoo will fall off. He
offers the mime a job to dress up as the gorilla until they can
get another one. The mime accepts.
So, the next morning the mime puts on the gorilla suit and
enters the cage before crowd comes. He discovers that it's a
great job. He can sleep all he wants, play and make fun of people
and he draws bigger crowds than he ever did as a mime. However,
eventually the crowds tire of him and he tires of just swinging
on tires. He begins to notice that the people are paying more
attention to the lion in the cage next to his. Not wanting to
lose the attention of his audience, he climbs to the top of his
cage, crawls across a partition, and dangles from the top to the
lion's cage. Of course, this makes the lion furious, but the
crowd loves it.
At the end of the day the zoo keeper comes and gives the mime
a raise for being as good an attraction as the gorilla.
Well, this goes on for some time, the mime keeps taunting the
lion, the crowds grow larger, and his salary keeps going up. Then
one terrible day when he is dangling over the furious lion he
slips and falls. The mime is terrified. The lion gathers itself
and prepares to pounce. The mime is so scared that he begins to
run round and round the cage with the lion close behind. Finally,
the mime starts screaming and yelling, "Help, Help
me!", but the lion is quick and pounces. The mime soon finds
himself flat on his back looking up at the angry lion and the
lion says, "Shut up you idiot! Do you want to get us both
fired?"