Gemmy 2000 Bongo The Bouncing Baboon - “Papa Oom Mow Mow”

We’re getting to the good stuff now
Oh, and btw, this was take #38 😊
Obtained: eBay for $20 on February 8th, 2023. So exactly one year ago!
Repairs: It was sold as non-working, but it worked just fine when it arrived. Still, there was some slight battery corrosion I had to clean out, and sometimes the jumping would get stuck and just grind until you manually pushed him down. This was due to the support beams for the leg bracket being snapped off the body shell, which was causing the bracket to pop out of place occasionally. I glued them and reinforced them with metal wire and zip ties, so I don’t think they’ll be a problem again lol.
I almost, almost didn’t get this guy at first, but I’m so glad I decided to. Such a classic. I hope to find a way to refill the eyeballs someday, but there’s still a surprising amount of liquid left in them right now and I don’t really want to mess with them lol
Thanks for checking out the video! Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think in the comments, and I hope to see you again soon!

[@Dier-Decor]

The way he just slowly jumps backwards…. 🫣

[@toylover1793]

Lol

[@crazyrobotlady3391]

OK. This one is pretty cool. I don’t know much about Gemmy lore, but it sounds like this is a pretty rare find so congratulations!

[@toylover1793]

Thanks, it is pretty cool! Glad you enjoyed it

[@ringthegemmycollector]

This is definitely one of my favorite classic Gemmy items

[@Snowysanimatronicss]

Gotta love when there were people at Gemmy that loved making gorilla/monkey/orangutan/Baboon items (even full on series).

[@toylover1793]

I know, right? Bring back the monkeys lol

[@mrhenry5488]

After listening to this several times, this is what I heard: "Funniest song I've ever heard And I can't understand a single word Everybody in the heavens sing "Pa oom mow mow" is all they're saying Pa pa oooooo Babababababawooooooooooooo!"

[@ChristopherS768]

A little off, you can just google the lyrics lol.

[@toylover1793]

I think the official lyrics are “Is he serious or is he playing? Oom mow mow is all he’s saying” But I literally cannot hear that in this recording of the song, I’m not entirely convinced that’s what it actually says 😂. I guess that’s what they meant by “I can’t understand a single word”

[@masielamothe3641]

I love the sound the jumping makes, and I absolutely adore the recording. I also love the recording of the get down Gary, if I'm spelling it right.

[@SlimothyJimothy]

no way its the jack the singing jakealope recording

[@Z-Man-lz]

I remember watching videos of this and the other version when I was younger, so this is one of the more nostalgic items to me lol.

[@toylover1793]

Me too!

[@Steven.metal56]

Awesome surprise you got one these are pretty rare i also had one of these but it broke it got passed to me but i dont have it anymore

[@bobsmedia2003]

So this guy’s not extremely rare anymore I take it.

[@toylover1793]

It was one of those bizarre cases where an item is impossible to find, then 5 or 6 surface within a year or two, then all of a sudden they’re impossible to find again 😂. I’m glad I bought mine when I did, I haven’t seen another one anywhere since lol

[@bobsmedia2003]

@@toylover1793 Yeah good thing lol

[@brookieexists]

if you get the black variant, I WILL BE ON ME NEES

[@domingosilva9802]

I love this Gemmy item ❤

[@Dier-Decor]

Cool one but an unfortunately rare one too

[@toylover1793]

Yeah, while I wish these were more common it’s not surprising that they aren’t.

[@Cecnorthernohio]

I believe i put the article for this on gemmy wiki back in 2015 or so (whenever i wasn't constantly being blocked for no reason)

[@toylover1793]

That’s cool lol I probably read it back in 2015

[@Idiotic_B_Purcell]

Alllllright.... "VeggieTales promo" - Take 38

[@Idiotic_B_Purcell]

only the rare breeds will get it lol

[@toylover1793]

I guess I’m not a rare breed 😂

[@gemmyreviews]

Are the eyes moveable?

[@thehalloweenguy4399]

Why did it take 38 takes lmao

[@mrhenry5488]

It probably kept falling on its back as it was jumping.

[@toylover1793]

EXACTLY. I could go on a whole rant here 😂. The arms have pose-able wires inside of them. If you pose them so they’re sticking out away from the body a little, they sort of bounce up and down with the body and create this really cool movement I wanted to try and capture in the video. I gave up on that idea about 8 takes in, when I quickly found the arms need to be positioned extremely precisely or he would fall over. The whole item is top heavy, so it needs to be perfectly balanced in order to work without help. Also, I should probably point out that I did not do all 38 takes right in a row, I didn’t want to fry to poor thing lol.

[@evantheplushguy5588]

Take… *38* I would have gave up by take 3 😂 Anyway, this is another classic I’d kill for, mainly for this version though , the black one is just ok. ( what liquid is in the eyes? Also… why?)

[@VintageToycollecters595]

The eyes used to be filled with water but it evaporated due to age

[@toylover1793]

Yeahhh 😂 I should probably specify not all 38 takes were filmed right in a row, I didn’t want to fry to poor thing so I gave it some breaks lol. I agree though, this version definitely beats the black variant. Also… I believe the eyes were actually originally filled with kerosene lol, normal water would’ve evaporated in a matter of weeks. They got in trouble for it in 2004 with some Halloween eyeballs if I remember correctly, then after that they switched to using normal plastic eyes on items like Joe Blow the farting monkey. The normal plastic eyes look far better than these ones do nowadays, but I’d imagine it would’ve been just the opposite when these were brand new. The idea was that with the eyeballs filled with liquid, they’d spin and bobble from the movement of the baboon jumping. They did this with a few other items too