For comic book readers of the 1960s and beyond, the ads for mail-order items were sometimes just as intriguing as the superhero action they interrupted. X-ray goggles promised to make adolescents clandestine Peeping Toms; Charles Atlas vowed to turn slightly built kids into muscular powerhouses; most notably, Sea-Monkeys guaranteed a small packet of powder would bring aquatic life to your home.
Sea-Monkeys were far from the most outlandish attempt to solicit live animals to excitable children. That honor goes to the Animal Farm company of Miami Beach, Florida, which promised delivery of a genuine, live squirrel monkey to anyone sending them $18.95, plus postage due on delivery.
In 2008, a man named Jeff Tuthill stated his horrible tale of a mail-order monkey mishap. As a kid in the early 1970s, Tuthill was reading a Spider-Man comic when he spotted an ad for a live monkey, which promised to bring “joy” to one’s household. To make sure his parents didn’t get wise, he had the primate delivered to a friend’s house.
Tuthill stated that “When he called, I rode over on my bike, it came in this little cardboard box. I mean, I’m saying small. It was probably the size of a shoebox, except it was higher. It had a little chicken wire screen window in it. There was a cutout. All you could see if you looked in there was his face.”
Tuthill carried the monkey home and brought it to his…
