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This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.

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Welcome to Red Panda Report, Season 2, Episode 20, covering Red Panda Adventures 20 Monkey

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Shines.

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Here is the copy written by Greg Taylor.

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Sometimes, crime is so easy to spot.

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The thug in the alleyway.

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The mugger on the street.

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And other times, the strangest little things can turn out to be the most sinister.

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Say 500 pounds of bananas that vanish into thin air.

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Or a load of plastic coconuts.

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Times on a theme.

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A new menace taking shape.

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Or is it a simple case of Monkey Shines?

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This episode of Red Panda Adventures originally aired April 7, 2007, written and directed

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by Greg Taylor, again the writer of the copy.

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And I have some notes on this.

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And I gotta say, this episode was a blast.

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Mad Monkey is a recurring villain for the Red Panda.

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At the end of the episode, he gets away, and he definitely comes back.

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And he makes quite the statement.

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He makes quite the statement.

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He's quite the character, and he's a lot of fun.

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Definitely one of my favorite characters in the show.

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And he only shows up a handful of times, really, but it's enough.

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And every time he does, it's quite impactful.

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So that's fun.

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I liked the way that the mystery was set up.

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I liked the way that we had just little bits, just little bits.

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I love the repetition of and the absurd concept of 500 pounds of bananas playing such a big

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factor in this.

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And I really found it delightful.

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And anyway, the zaniness of that being a major clue and being one of the first things in

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this episode that makes it remarkable definitely matches with who Mad Monkey is, Anton Cresswell,

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and how he chooses to operate.

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So that was interesting.

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I really like and I'm surprised by the fact that...

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Well, I always wanted to get a good look at him, and I never ended up buying the comics,

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but there are...

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I have the first graphic novel which features the stranger, the mysterious stranger.

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I think it's just called The Stranger.

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Anyway, featuring the stranger who is a master of mysticism, and he was one of the people

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who trained Red Panda or helped him out, and he gets pulled into the story a lot.

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Maxwell Falcone is his name.

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He's a stage magician, but that covers up the fact that he's an actual magic user.

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Anyway, that's a tangent.

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We get depictions of him and Red Panda and Flying Squirrel in their full costumes and

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everything in that comic book.

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And then there are other comic books put out by IDW, I think, and Monkey Brain Comics.

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Anyway, so Taylor wrote those, and I believe the guy who illustrated them was Koontz.

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I think he did all of them.

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It's K-O-O-N-T-Z, I believe.

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Anyway, I always wanted to see the depictions of Mad Monkey, and I never got around to getting

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those from the comic shop or buying directly from the website to get a good look at him.

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But yeah, he's got an interesting look because his face is painted to look like a mandrill,

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I believe.

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And he's wearing a domino mask, it sounds like to me, based on the description in the

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book.

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And I find that in the episode.

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So I think that's interesting.

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I'd love to get a full look.

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Is he wearing a suit, and then he's got the painted face and the mask, or is he in some

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sort of strange monkey suit?

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It's a little unclear, but either way, he's got the attitude, he's got the drama, and

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the energy to pull off either look, basically, is what I'm thinking, and I could definitely

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buy it either way.

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Anyway, so that's kind of interesting.

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I know it's an audio drama, so you don't get that visual, but I'm definitely curious about

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the visual because it just seems like it would be really compelling to see.

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I like the drop of the reference to Tarzan and the Jungle Book being real things that

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happen in the history of the world of Red Panda.

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I think five years ago, so Cresswell, the story goes that he was with the monkeys for

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six years, and he had this connection with them.

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Five years ago, while Red Panda was still in the Orient training, he, Cresswell, was

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at the Club Macaw and other places talking about his story, and it's taking him this

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time, like the five intervening years, to dream up or cook up the Mad Monkey persona

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and go ahead and go with this as a thing.

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But still, that means that somewhere around there, Tarzan of the Apes and Mowgli, I guess,

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are running around doing something or other, and that's kind of a fun thing.

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I don't think that's serious, but it's canon, so to speak, and that's just a lot of fun

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to think that that's true in the world of the Red Panda.

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And let me see.

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Oh, so this episode was very funny.

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There was a lot of humor in it.

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There was a lot of Kit reacting badly to Mad Monkey, and a lot of Mad Monkey just being

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absurd.

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It's absurd as to him because he's so ridiculous, but he is dangerous.

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There's some great surprises and lines, or some great surprises and turnarounds that

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are reveals, I should say, that are woven into the story.

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And it's interesting because we can't see the monkeys.

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It's all audio, we're all having it described to us.

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And Kit and Red Panda are not concerned about fighting the monkeys really because they're

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just monkeys, right?

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And Criswell kind of mocks him and says, yes, cute, harmless little monkeys with razor sharp

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claws and teeth.

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And Kit's like, yeah, we'll be fine.

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And he said, did I mention they have guns?

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And just like that delivery is so fantastic.

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And it's so ridiculous to think that they were all armed with weapons and somehow those

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were hidden.

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They're wearing little monkey vests that they have the guns in, they have them on backpacks

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or in satchels.

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We're like, what's going on with these monkeys that they're able to conceal these weapons

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and then bring them out dramatically?

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And of course, he's controlling them.

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So he coordinates them and has them bring the weapons out or whatever.

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But it's just, it's kind of, it's a lot of fun and it's ridiculous and crazy.

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And I really enjoy it.

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So yeah, Mad Monkey is definitely one of my favorite characters.

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I really love the like little bit of lore that because of whatever happened to him when

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his plane crash landed, I think is what happened.

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He somehow gained an innate psychic ability to link not with humans, but instead with

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these, I don't know if it's, it's some specific form of monkey or ape or whatever.

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And the baboons are what seem to be affected.

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And I think because it's old timing, like they don't really make the difference.

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They don't really mark the difference like, like a monkey has a tail almost always gorillas

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and chimpanzees don't really have tails.

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They've got, you know, the little subby tail thing, like how humans have a tailbone, but

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we don't have, have actual tails that, you know, whack.

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So like that's a key difference between monkeys and apes.

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I don't know what the other differences are between monkeys and apes.

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And I wasn't aware, I guess, that baboons were in the monkey family.

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And it seems like mad monkey can, despite the fact that he calls himself mad monkey,

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can only control baboons.

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At least that's what I think is the statement or is what's true.

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But anyway, what's cool about that is that he has this ability to, or rather a resistance

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to hypnosis from other people because he's got like a natural hypnosis that, or a, yeah,

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it's an innate, I'll say it that way.

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He has an innate hypnosis ability that works between him and these particular types of,

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I guess monkeys, baboons must be like a subspecies of monkeys.

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Anyway, so not apes, distinct from gorillas and chimpanzees.

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Anyway, so that's really interesting.

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And I, first of all, that's interesting that that could happen in the world of the red

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panda.

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Second of all, it's great that it gives him immunity to red panda's hypnosis.

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And we get to hear that he tried for years to have other hypnotists remove the link and

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they were unable to.

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And that really makes him an interesting foe.

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Like his absurdity and his like willingness to, well, also the fact that he thought this

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was a caper, that this was a scam, a flim flam that red panda was doing in the town

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and he was making money off of it is really fun and interesting.

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That kind of reminds me of how Peter Parker in like, I think the actual amazing fantasy,

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no, spectacular Spider-Man.

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He debuted amazing fantasy 15 and then he was an amazing Spider-Man one, a month or

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two later.

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He goes to the fantastic four and he's like, Hey guys, I want a job because I'm poor and

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I need money.

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And they're like, we don't do this for my, any, any money we get to recover, we donate

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and whatever.

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And we have a fund that we like a grant that we use to afford everything we need to do.

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And he's like, Oh, that stinks.

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You guys are no good.

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And he gets out of there.

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So it's kind of funny that I'm not saying that Taylor, Greg Taylor was thinking about

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that when he made this story, but it is fun that Mad Monkey did want to enrich himself.

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He wanted to get it on the scam.

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And when he couldn't, I really liked that thing where at the end, he says, if you didn't

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be good for good sake, then I'll be evil for evil sake.

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And then he runs off and promises to be red pandas nemesis and in earnest time.

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And I know that it's really interesting.

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I think it's a great set up for a villain.

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I love that fact that red, that red panda and flying squirrel didn't get in that they

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let him get away on purpose because he had made this thread of all these bombs in the

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building that were going to destroy whatever the building was.

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It was, it was a lot and they didn't want to allow that destruction to happen.

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It was more important for them to protect that place and that property than it was for

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them to seize Mad Monkey at that time.

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And I think that's interesting.

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It works.

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It definitely feels very much in line with the times and with, you know, heroic actions.

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And I don't know if there were people in there who were going to get hurt too or not, but

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anyway, good stuff.

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I really liked it.

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It was a lot of fun.

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And I'd love to know what you thought about this.

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And yeah, share your comments with me, share your thoughts on it.

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I'd be curious to hear.

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Like I said, until next time, folks, take care, be well and stay away from monkeys.

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I hope you enjoyed that.

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Subscribe to keep up with me, like and share to help me reach more people like you and

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go to mjmunoz.com to find your next favorite thing.

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And don't forget to let your voice be heard.

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Stories are always better when you're part of the conversation until next time.

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Be well.

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This is MJ signing out.

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This has been a Story Over Everything production.