*Sigh* Ok, so which group of furry morons does Morgan Freeman get to talk about this year? Oh, lemurs. Yay. Goody. Put the timer on 39 minutes, boys. Now then, tell me everything you got on the sepcies that I didn’t already learn from “Zoboomafoo.” Go.
They can all be found on the Island of Lemurs: Madagascar. Nope, I knew that. Primates. Knew that, too. Date back to the dinosaurs. OK, I didn’t know that. Then sailed on a raft to Madagascar when the reptiles all died off. Um, ok, I’ll take your word for that one. Say, fellas, you had a huge jump on humans, time-wise. Think of all the evolution you could done. And this is what you came up with? Jittery, bug-eyed hand puppets? Well, hey, you evolve your way, I’ll evolve mine.
To be fair, unlike, say, The rest of Africa, Madagascar wasn’t exactly teeming with brutes, hence lemurs were the dominant predator from the time they got there. It’s kinda hard to imagine lemurs as a dominant predator, isn’t it? How low is that bar?
Another curious thing about the earth’s senior primate is that the females rule the roost. This is unique to primates. There’s a pretty good reason this is unique to primates – you take away leadership duties from boy monkeys of all walks and you’ll find they’re left with precious little to offer. Want proof? Get a load of how defensive some American men get at the thought of a woman president. But it works for the lemurs. They’ve had 
their own Hillary Clintons for eons.
A group of lemurs is called a band, troop or group. One source tried to convince me the term “dummy” as in a “dummy of lemurs” was also acceptable. Though hilarious, nothing I found backs this up.
I’m stalling here – this is a run-of-the-mill documentary. It’s gratifyingly short. For all the varieties of lemur, the species has much less to offer than Sasha Baron Cohen would have you believe. The local primatologists stress the loss of the lemur habitat through deforestation over 90% of the island – this is a critical point for naturalist and naturalist sympathizers, but makes for b-roll at best on screen. The highlight of this “give it a miss” discovery channel throw-away is the “dance of the lemurs” in which the little buggers cross the road individually in slow motion to music. Of course, they aren’t dancing at all; the species never learned how to walk, so the troops just bound from place to place. It looks a little awkward on two monkey feet, unlike rabbit or kangaroo legs, but it’s hardly worth the effort of bundling your kids up to keep them occupied for less than one hour at $20 a head.
Learning about the lemur is no thriller
This documentary seems mostly filler
The band leaps and bounds
And makes eerie sounds
And on the plus side: no Ben Stiller
Rated G, 39 Minutes
D: David Douglas
W: Drew Fellman
Genre: Morgan Freeman narrates something
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The Kratt brothers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Confused children wishing to see animated penguins
