Monkeybone is a 2001 American comedy film that combines live-action with stop-motion animation. It was based on Kaja Blackley's graphic novel Dark Town. The film stars Brendan Fraser, Bridget Fonda, and Whoopi Goldberg with an uncredited Thomas Haden Church, Rose McGowan, David Foley, Giancarlo Esposito, Megan Mullally, and Chris Kattan, and was directed by Henry Selick.
Stu Miley (Brendan Fraser) is a disillusioned cartoonist whose comic strip features a rascal monkey named Monkeybone. Stu is in love with a sleep institute worker named Dr. Julie McElroy (Bridget Fonda), who helped him deal with his terrible nightmares by changing his drawing hand. One night, Stu crashes his car on a ventilator's tubes after accidentally activating an inflatable Monkeybone toy and falls into a coma.
His spirit ends up in Down Town, a limbo-like carnival landscape populated by human beings, mythical creatures and figments of people's imaginations where nightmares are entertainment. In Downtown, Monkeybone (voiced by John Turturro) is real. During that time, Stu befriends a catgirl named Miss Kitty (Rose McGowan). When Stu learns that his sister, Kimmy (Megan Mullally), is about to pull the plug on him, he asks Hypnos, The God of Sleep (Giancarlo Esposito), what to do. Hypnos tells Stu that to get back to the living, he has to infiltrate the Land of Death to steal an Exit Pass from Death (Whoopi Goldberg) which are given out to coma victims by reapers giving them permission to leave Down Town and awaken from their coma. Stu successfully steals an Exit Pass, but Monkeybone steals it from him in turn and enters the Land of the Living in Stu's body through the Revive-O.
Plot
In a coma, Stu Miley a cartoonist who created a comic strip called Monkeybone which features a rascal monkey. He finds himself trapped within his own underground creation and must find a way to get back, while racing against his popular but treacherous character, Monkeybone. Naturally, Monkeybone himself is there, and he and Stu quickly start fighting like cats and dogs. When Stu realizes that his sister, due to a pact they once made, is preparing to pull the plug on him, Stu makes a deal with Hypnos, the god of sleep, to help him steal a golden ticket from Death himself. But when Monkeybone takes over Stu's body and escapes to wreak havoc on the real world, Stu has to find a way to stop him before his sister pulls the plug on reality forever!
Keywords: agent, applause, artist, autopsy, balloon, bar, based-on-comic, based-on-graphic-novel, based-on-novel, bedridden
If It Yells, If It Swings, It's Got To Be Monkeybone!
Get Boned!
Bone 2 B Bad
Stu Miley: Excuse me kitty. I'll be right back after I choke my monkey!
Stu Miley: The woman I love is living with a horny little monkey that looks like me.::Kitty: What a lucky girl!
Monkeybone: I left my number in your undies!
Hypnos: [fustrated] I can't believe it, we give him a body and he sends us dogs? This is so humiliating!::Kitty: [stroking Hypnos] Let's not think about dogs... Let's think about pussycats...
Julie: It looks so... new.::Stu: Well that's because it is new!::Julie: But the heirloom - your grandmother's ring...::Stu: What? You want a used ring?
Stephen King: How about that nightlight I asked you for?::Edgar Allen Poe (to King): King You Pussy!::Stephen King: Bite me Poe!
Doctor: [while in a van chasing Organ Donor Stu] Wait! We're doctors! We don't want to hurt you, we just want some organs!
Stu Miley: So how long have you been in here?::Steven King: 25 Years. I steal the golden ticket and Cujo gets to use it.
Organ Donor Stu: What is wrong with my neck?::Doctor: You broke it, you're an organ donor!
Monkeybone: No I wasn't in a coma! Alright I was in a coma but it wasn't like I was IN A COMA and goofing off, I was thinking up hilarious new bits the whole time!