In the far and distant future, a sexy and fearless astronaut, Gaylor, and her stunning female crew have crash landed on a strange and desolate planet. But they soon discover that the planet is inhabited by a race of intelligent apes, led by the evil General Lade.
Summary[]
Following shortly after the more hardcore Planet of the Babes and shortly before the softcore/comedy romp Planet of the Erotic Ape, Play-Mate of the Apes was an affectionate soft-porn tribute to the original Apes movie. Where Planet of the Babes had lifted the story directly from that first movie, this film merely used it as a starting point before throwing in references to the other Apes movies and TV series, such as General Lade (Thade) and Sergeant Jerko (Urko). It also uses some comedy elements to poke fun at the original concept. The result is a meandering, very loose plot that doesn't make too much sense but doesn't take itself too seriously. The costumes in use are fairly unconvincing - the ape army consists of a small group of people dressed in sweaters and jeans wearing wildly different pullover masks, Dr Kweera is covered in pink fur - although there was some effort put into the makeups for Dr Cornholeous and the gorilla leaders.
Primary Cast:
- Misty Mundae as Commander Gaylor
- Darian Caine as Uvula
- Debbie Rochon as Dr. Cornholeous
- Anoushka as Lt. Pushkintucushkin
- Sharon Engert as Lt. Fornication
- Shelby Taylor as Barbarian Princess
- Dan Schwab as Dr. Kweera
- Zachary W. Snygg (John Bacchus) as General Lade
- Terry M. West
- John Link as The Missing Link
Synopsis[]
Play-Mate of the Apes
The spaceship crashes
Aboard a spaceship three female ass-tronauts are seen in a state of suspended animation: Commander Gaylor in the cockpit and Lieutenants Fornication and Pushkintucushkin in the crew quarters. The two lieutenants revive first and accidently hit the ‘do not press’ button which sends the ship plummeting to a nearby planet. Gaylor wakes but too late to save the ship which crashes into a lake. Escaping, the three ass-tronauts embark on a long trek through a desert to try to find fresh water.
The ass-tronauts escape
On finding a river they shed their spacesuits and walk into a forest. There they discover primitive, mute humans. Suddenly an army of apes appears and begins hunting the humans. All three are captured and before passing out, Gaylor sees two gorillas posing for a photograph with a captured human. Gaylor is taken to the ape city where she is placed in a cage with a particularly friendly human female she later names 'Uvula'.
Dr Cornholeous
Meanwhile, in a bar, a female chimp called Dr Cornholeous and her associate, an apparently gay male pink chimp named Dr Kweera, discuss the possibility that apes could have evolved from men. She is ridiculed by gorilla leader General Lade and his deputy, Sergeant Jerko (who, like Attar in Planet of the Apes, privately believes that a saviour will come from the sky to lead the apes). The proof that humans have no soul, it turns out, is that they cannot dance. To demonstrate, the apes do some impressive choreographed dancing while Uvula stands idly by, unmoving.
Lade and Jerko
However, a little later Gaylor is among the humans brought into the bar to strip, and demonstrates her ability to dance. Shocked, Cornholeous demands that Lade and Jerko return, to see for themselves that humans can have a soul. She also arranges to have Gaylor’s fellow ass-tronauts brought to the bar, upon learning from Gaylor that she was not alone. They all dance, but Gaylor is horrified to see that Fornication has been operated on by the apes and has lost the ability to speak. Offended by this spectacle, Lade orders the humans to be taken away.
Ape army
Some time later, Cornholeous and Kweera take Gaylor and Uvula from their cell, telling them that they must escape before Lade has them killed. It is too late for Fornication and Pushkintucushkin: they have already been sent to beauty school. Following a large neon sign pointing them to the ’Forbidden Zone’, the four fugitives pass various remnants of an ancient civilization: the ‘Clinton Memorial’; the Statue of Liberty, complete with another stranded astronaut cursing humanity in very familiar terms. Meanwhile Lade assembles an ape army to hunt them down, to kill the humans and to capture the two chimp doctors.
Uvula
After traveling through another desert to a forest, Gaylor discovers a talking woman, the Barbarian Princess, who leads a tribe of intelligent humans. After giving Gaylor a warm welcome, the princess and the fugitives launch into an impromptu rap to explain their respective situations, and also showing that this human tribe can dance, like the other intelligent creatures on this planet. After noticing Uvula’s disappointment at not being able to dance, the princess also shows her how to move. Meanwhile, Cornholeous reveals that the reason she helped Gaylor escape is because she is in love with her, but Gaylor isn’t interested in inter-species love.
Barbarian Princess
Just then, the ape army appears and invades the tribe’s camp. A long battle ensues, pitting Lade’s ape army against the barbarian tribe and the fugitives. No side seems to be gaining the upper hand, but the fighting is halted when a mysterious spaceship appears and lands among them. The prophesied ‘Missing Link’, with the body of an ape and the head of a human, emerges and tells them all to stop fighting. Through the gift of song, he persuades them all to put aside their differences and learn to live together in peace.
Gaylor leaves
Having seen peace established on the planet, and having repaired her spaceship (with “gum and snot”), Gaylor bids a fond farewell to her now mindless fellow ass-tronauts and to Uvula, before saying goodbye to the assembled apes and humans. She boards her spaceship and takes off again in search of home. She eventually lands on another planet where, to her horror, she is handed a parking ticket by a giant talking chicken.
External links[]
Play-Mate of the Apes Review by Decker Shado and That Long-Haired Creepy Guy
- Play-Mate of the Apes entry at the Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
- Play-Mate of the Apes makeup article at themakeupgallery