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No, I'm not trying to start a new ongoing thread.

I thought of a comic strip today from my childhood that I remember thinking was a really strange strip. Just one of those bizarre memories and I'm hoping one of my fellow geeks will be able to help me out.

In the Los Angeles Times Sunday edition, the funny pages had one or two "serious" comic strips, that were more like comic strip versions of soap operas than anything else, mixed in with all the humorous strips. Apartment 3-G was one of them. I had no interest in those. Then there were the funny ones. Then there was this one that I could never really classify. I think it was supposed to be funny, but whatever humor there was was lost on me, perhaps because of my youth. BTW, this is circa late 70's.

The premise that I can remember is that the central character was a struggling Hollywood "everyman" type of character. But the weird thing is the character was a monkey, not a human, but dressed and talking like a human. I don't know if he was a struggling actor, or writer, or what, but I think he lived in a low-rent apartment or something, and had a pet parrot or parakeet or something that he was always talking to. I think the strips were essentially provided commentary about Hollywood life, but it had this retro feel to it, like it could have been from the 40's or 50's or something. I have this image that the central character was often seen sitting with a newspaper open, possibly scanning the want ads or looking for auditions or something, and commenting to his pet bird all the time.

This bizarre memory came to me because I was thinking about the movie Ed Wood, and the backdrop of retro low-budget Hollywood that is so well represented in that film kind of reminded me of this comic strip.

I know this comic strip existed, so I'm not insane. I'm just hoping that somebody here might know what I'm talking about and give me the name so it won't drive me nuts. I don't even remember if it was any good because the humor was over my adolescent head.

I remember Apartment 3-G and some of the other "serious" comic strips like Rex Morgan, M.D. and Judge Parker.  Unfortunately, I don't remember the monkey one you are talking about.  One that I never understood as a kid and still don't understand is Zippy.  Or maybe I DO understand it, but it's just not funny.

Thanks anyway, Burgo. Actually, I found it. I was off on the circa. It was early to mid 80's, when I was an early teenager, but my mind seems to associate it with a younger age. It was a short-lived strip that appeared in the L.A. Times, maybe others. It wouldn't surprise me if it was only successful there because of the subject matter.

The comic strip in question is Rudy. It was written by William Overgard, who had done the Steve Roper and Mike Nomad comic strip for a long time before that.

Rudy was a talking chimpanzee, often dressed in a tuxedo, and was more than subtly based on George Burns. He lived in a low-rent apartment with a pet parrot named Bonita. He was a previously successful vaudeville performer that was trying to make a comeback in Hollywood. That was the premise. Kinda weird. Crazy how certain obscure memories will just come flooding out of nowhere.

Here's a link to a small article about it.

http://www.progressiveruin.com/2010/01/19/rudy-in-hollywood-holt-rinehart-and-winston-1984/ (http://www.progressiveruin.com/2010/01/19/rudy-in-hollywood-holt-rinehart-and-winston-1984/)