Marquis Chimps

The Marquis Chimps were a group of trained chimpanzees that were used in variety shows and television programmes and commercials, initially in Britain and then in the United States, from the late 1940s to the 1980s.

He left school at an early age, only learning to read and write in his teens,[1] and worked in the family act as a tightrope walker in music hall shows and carnivals in England, where he was billed as "The Vagabond of the Wire".

[2] He developed the idea of working with animals, and attempted to train rhesus monkeys and baboons before buying a chimpanzee, which he named Marquis.

[3] In 1950 the Marquis Chimps appeared on the bill at the London Palladium, and visiting American entertainer Danny Kaye suggested that the troupe would be successful in the US.

The show aired on ABC and starred Peggy Cass and Jack Weston as suburban Los Angeles "parents" to a trio of performing chimpanzees, named Candy, Charlie, and Enoch.