The gorilla and the lion

[LONDONER]

One day an out of work mime was visiting the zoo and attempted to earn some money as a street performer. However, as soon as he started to draw a crowd, the zookeeper grabbed him and dragged him into his office.

The zookeeper explained to the mime that the zoo's most popular attraction, a gorilla, had suddenly died. The keeper feared that attendance at the zoo would fall off. He offered the mime a job to dress up as the gorilla until they could get another one. The mime accepted.

The next morning, before the crowd arrived, the mime put on the gorilla suit and entered the cage. He discovered that it was a great job. He could sleep all he wanted, play and make fun of people, and he drew bigger crowds than he ever had as a mime.

However, eventually the crowds tired of him and he became bored just swinging on tires. He began to notice that the people were paying more attention to the lion in the cage next to his.

Not wanting to lose the attention of his audience, he climbed to the top of his cage, crawled across a partition, and dangled from the top to the lion's cage. Of course, this made the lion furious, but the crowd loved it.

At the end of the day the zookeeper came and gives the mime a raise for being such a good attraction as a gorilla.

Well, this went on for some time. The mime kept taunting the lion, the crowds grew larger, and his salary kept going up. Then one terrible day when he was dangling over the furious lion, he slipped and fell. The mime was terrified. The lion gathered itself and prepared to pounce. The mime was so scared that he began to run round and round the cage with the lion close behind.

Finally, the mime started screaming and yelling, "Help! Help meee!!!", but the lion was quick and pounced. The mime soon found himself flat on his back looking up at the angry lion. The lion slowly lowered his snarling mouth towards him and said: "Shut UP you idiot! Do you want to get us BOTH fired?"