Professor Monkey-For-A-Head (Earthworm Jim)

Professor Monkey-For-A-Head “Taste the wrrrath! Of my awesome, FAT-TOMIC, RRRAY GUN!!” Gender: Male Type: Antagonistic Genius (in the first game) Power-Hungry Mad Scientist (in the animated series) Age: Unknown Species: Human Chimpanzee (on head) Portrayed by: Charlie Adler (cartoon) Status: Alive Media of origin: Earthworm Jim

“Actually, he's a CHIMPANZEE, a member of the ape family, he had that TAIL stuck on and he likes people to call him a MONKEY. (Peter: Uhm okay why?) He feels that he's a monkey trapped in the body of an ape. (Jim and Peter: Psychedelic!) I know I know don't get me started.” - Professor Monkey For A Head to Earthworm Jim and Peter Puppy

Professor Monkey-For-A-Head (also simply known as Monkey-For-A-Head) is one of the main antagonists from the Earthworm Jim series.

In the animated series, he was voiced by Charlie Adler, the same man who voiced The Red Guy from Cow and Chicken.

Background

He is affable and easy to speak to, but is often waspish, irritable, hot-tempered, argumentative, and quick to anger. Like many mad scientists, he thinks very highly of himself and has zero tolerance for insults or mockery.

It's claimed he was once nothing more than a simple dairy farmer. Now, he's such a space villain he has even been featured on Lifestyles Of the Rich & Villainous, with such creations as the Sparktronic Protobluntifier, the Atomic Banana, the Pay Toilet, and, of course, the creation of the Super Suit. He became a mad scientist whose inventions and motivation for evil would be relied upon when Professor wanted to subdue Jim. Despite his symbiotic relationship with Monkey-For-A-Head, Professor is often at odds with the monkey, with the monkey often being responsible for the Professor's lab-related blunders. Monkey-For-A-Head will only work on a project for as long as it interests him before absentmindedly tossing it aside for a new endeavor. Evidence of this can be seen as many of his old lab-grown monstrosities freely roam his massive laboratory, apparently forgotten. He is also quite psychopathic and insane, as should be evident from his voluntarily grafting a monkey to his own head.

The Professor has a reputation for being quite possibly the most advanced super-scientist in the galaxy, which gets him plenty of work as a freelance weapons designer. He spends his time in a massive laboratory conducting strange, unethical experiments and creating devastating weapons. At some point, he decided to graft an entire living monkey to his skull, possibly as a dubious attempt to increase his already impressive intelligence. But this backfired considerably as the monkey will often disrupt the Professor's experiments. However, there was an upside to this as the Professor, through the monkey, has become much more nimble and athletic. His reputation caught the attention of Queen Slug-For-A-Butt. The Queen commissioned the Professor to create the Ultra-High-Tech-Indestructible-Super-Space-Cyber-Suit so that she may become powerful enough to expand her rule throughout the galaxy. The suit was eventually finished and in transit to the Queen, but was unfortunately lost amidst a skirmish, crash-landing on a backwater planet called Earth.

In the games, the professor had blueprints for his plans and inventions but the monkey ate them. In the cartoon, however, he can rebuild the suit whenever he wants, he just can't make them as powerful as the one Jim has without another Battery of the Gods.

Apparently surviving his encounter with Jim largely unscathed, not much is known about what happened to the Professor afterward. With the Queen slain by Jim's hand, the Professor presumably returned to his life as a "mad-scientist-for-hire".

Why He Rocks

1. Out of the many mad scientists of fiction, this guy is one of the most obscure and overlooked, yet one of the most unique "crazy scientists" in video games next to Dr. Eggman and Dr. Nefarious. This has to do with his countlessly random inventions and plans that tend to be very eccentric and unpredictable.
2. He is given plenty of personality in the cartoon. As a villain, he is a great balance of comic relief. One despite having moments of being threatening, he is a very entertaining villain alongside Psycrow, and to a certain extent, Evil the Cat.
3. The Professor has great chemistry with his monkey, as he is able to translate Monkey's screeches and seems to respect his chimpanzee partner's thoughts and feelings even if the monkey makes messes in Professor's lair. And their relationship is very unique, as the monkey would have moments where he shines as a comic foil to Professor.
4. Charlie Adler did a brilliant job with voicing him and hamming up his lines that makes Professor's lines all the more entertaining to listen to, which would slightly predate Red Guy's voice.
5. He is much more active in his attempts to reclaim the super-suit from Jim in this series, often attacking Jim personally with some new invention of his. He will even team up with other villains, such as Psy-Crow, in joint attempts to subdue Jim.
   • Speaking of which, The Professor has made several products that'd help other supervillains to use weaponry and gadgets against other superheroes and citizens, making it all the more impressive that his equipment is more reliable than Looney Tunes' ACME ever was.
6. Unlike most villains in the series, as seen in the cartoon, he got a hold of Jim's super suit and tried threatening other people like aliens with the newfound powers as seen in the episode “Bring me the Head of Earthworm Jim”, which manages to work and make Jim and co. needing to retrieve it.
7. He is very pragmatic despite being a psychopathic and insane scientist. It's shown that he is fully able to create as many super-suits as he wants, but it would be useless without a Battery-of-the-Gods, of which the Professor was only able to claim one, and said battery resides in the suit Jim possesses.
8. His character design is odd yet creative, which is rare to see a scientist with an animal attached to the person's skull.

Bad Qualities

1. He, alongside Psy-Crow, is very bland in Earthworm Jim 3D. As he serves as a generic antagonist with forced lines.
2. His tactics for defeating Jim in the first game are very random, as he escapes after chasing around Jim to make him fight a robotic chicken with a laser.
3. His relationship between the professor and the monkey isn't exactly wine and roses. Especially since the monkey has accused the professor of "making eyes at a gorilla" (to which the professor angrily retorted he's a happily grafted man), the man has beaten up the monkey with a steel rod during a psycho-therapy session, and the monkey deliberately put shrinking cream in the professor's coffee so it can watch shows the professor hates.

Trivia

• In the cartoon, the Professor and his primate companion live in a lavish space station laboratory where they enjoy their many hobbies, including recreation, grooming, and gourmet cooking.
• According to the cartoon, some of the Professor's more devious inventions include pay-toll toilets and atomic bananas.
• The monkey on Professor's head is actually a chimpanzee who wants people to call him a monkey because of his tail despite being a member of the ape family. Ever since Professor grafted a monkey to his very head, the chimp feels like he's trapped in an ape's body.

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