FAQs Part I

There's a question I get asked often:

Why does Charlie have a tail yet Furley doesn't?

Spread from "Monkey Don't"

I should be well-rehearsed at answering this question, but, I'm not... the simple answer is, I-don't-know! I don't have a satisfactory answer, I've never given a satisfactory answer, and you won't find one here either.

If I did have a reason for docking Furley, I've completely forgotten it. But this troubles me, because I have no problems remembering what my brain was thinking for books almost twice as old as Who Flung Dung?, and WFD is only about 5 or 6 years old! I've gone through this over and over in my head, and I've even wondered, could it be, I actually forgot to give Furley a tail? Surely not!... I'm too pedantic about fine details to forget something like that! Furthermore, I don't drink and I've never taken drugs, so that rules that out, and I highly doubt there was some sort of deep underlying philosophical reason for it, though I could always make one up...

After some cursory research through my archive, I discovered an interesting thing — early roughs of Charlie show that he didn't have a tail at one point also...

But when I look back even further to the original Furley design in the very first draft, Furley himself did have a tail! Though, Furley wasn't called Furley at this point, and he resembled a sock monkey (the reasons for the dramatic change to Furley, is for another post...).

So, basically, the evolution, so to speak, of these monkey's tails throughout draft stages went like this: Furley and Charlie started with tails, then they both dropped their tails, but at the eleventh hour Charlie grows another tail, but Furley remains without — so why wasn't Furley's tail reinstated? I'm not sure... There were six drafts of Who Flung Dung? in total, and for the first five Furley had a tail. Was it laziness? Possibly, it is one less thing to draw each time, but I doubt that's it.

It's a mystery for the ages! If I can't answer this question, no one can! Or can they? Why don't you tell me how Furley lost his tail! Perhaps there's a story in it, a prequel to Who Flung Dung?? Hmmm...

Curiously enough, no one ever asks me why Furley is bald...