According to the official story, Cheeta, the famous chimpanzee star of many Tarzan films, lives in retirement in Palm Springs, but Truthahol knows this to be an obvious lie.  The chimpanzee claiming to be Cheeta is, in fact, an impostor.

Cheeta, un-human movie star and famous chimpanzee, was born wild in Liberia.  In 1932 he was captured and taken to America, and by 1933 was acting in Hollywood’s successful Tarzan franchise.  Cheeta dominated the field of chimpanzee actors during the next twenty-five years through his charisma, charm, and excellent use of Method Acting techniques.  

Cheeta wasn’t known for wondering off alone, but he was known for forming close relationships with his female costars.  What really happened in that darkroom only Cheeta and Anna Marie know, but neither are talking.  What we do know, however, is that the quality of Cheeta’s acting declined significantly after that day.  With the exception of the powerful final scene (which was filmed before Cheeta’s disappearance) Tarzan and the American Trappers carries none of the emotional weight and theatrical range as Cheeta’s earlier works.  

Truthahol believes Cheeta was replaced shortly after his disappearance, to allow filming to continue.  We will probably never know what happened to the real Cheeta; either he died in the dark room by drowning in the stop bath, or the red light drove him to run away.  The real Cheeta was never seen again.

According to records at The California State Mental Asylum, Fredric Hempstead, a committed inmate, escaped on the 7th of May that same year.  Mr. Hempstead was afflicted with the rare mental disorder Chimansia, which causes suffers to believe they are chimpanzees.  Hempstead is the worst recorded case of Chimansia in medical history; he was so troubled observers thought his arms had actually grown longer. 

Truthahol asserts that his escape was aided by studio executives in order to replace Cheeta.  Like Cheeta, Fredric Hempstead was never seen again after his strange disappearance.  Unlike Cheeta, however, Fredric Hempstead was a horrific actor.  Hempstead was, and still is, able to play the part of a chimpanzee so perfectly so that many people have never even noticed Cheeta is really a small man inside a chimpanzee suit—but he doesn’t possess the electric skill behind the camera that made Cheeta special among chimpanzees.  Hempstead acts like a chimp, but he fails when acting like a chimp acting.  

Hempstead isn’t the guilty one here.  It’s the people wearing a different kind of monkey suit.  The studio executives, who deprived a poor man of proper medical attention while also covering up the disappearance of a beloved animal actor, who should be blamed.