Where was the effing monkey?

January 4, 2016 4:21 PM

Back in 1999, there was a website with a game. The aim was to find a monkey in a tree. If you won, you'd get $10k. Did anyone actually find this monkey?

Sometime in 1999 there was a website that ran a competition to win $$$s. Banner ads for it seemed to run across the entire web.

The game was played by clicking on a picture of a tree. Supposedly, if you clicked on the right spot and found the monkey, you'd hit the jackpot but, more likely, you'd only end up being bombarded by special offers and discount codes.

As a student, I was completely suckered in by this website and procrastinated days (possibly weeks) on end playing the game when I should have been working on my dissertation. I knew at the time it was probably one big marketing scam but my optimistic (financially desperate?) side kept me clicking.

Does anyone remember this game? More importantly, does anyone know if anyone ever won the jackpot?

posted by popcassady to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

I remember this game, or something like it, but closer to 1995. There were definitely monkeys involved. Maybe bananas? I have no idea. Despite my hundreds of clicks I never won.
posted by PercussivePaul at 4:45 PM on January 4, 2016

you're not thinking of punch the monkey?
posted by andrewcooke at 4:47 PM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

I remember the giant picture of a tree as well. What I remember was not punch the monkey.

Also I remember after ever few clicks they would stop the game and throw up a page where they begged you to click on their banner ads. The only one of these I remember said "We've fired our artists!" (as in, you haven't clicked our ads and we've gone broke) and there was a drawing of a cute monkey artist getting shown the door. Something like that.
posted by PercussivePaul at 4:51 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I remember this too, and it wasn't punch the monkey because it was a whole site, not just a banner.
posted by kimberussell at 4:52 PM on January 4, 2016

Best answer: TreeLoot.com. There was at least one winner.
posted by bdk3clash at 4:53 PM on January 4, 2016 [16 favorites]

Seconding TreeLoot.com. I won a little stuffed monkey. Don't ask why I was playing TreeLoot. It was a dark time.
posted by kimdog at 5:07 PM on January 4, 2016 [9 favorites]

I have often wondered about those lost hours of my life. Why did I do that? And why did the game exist?
posted by samthemander at 8:40 PM on January 4, 2016

Here is an archive.org copy of the treeloot.com page from 1999.

Today treeloot.com takes you to the parent company, Virtumundo.
posted by flug at 8:56 PM on January 4, 2016

There were more than a few variants on this, I don't know if treeloot.com was the original "X the Y." The one that I distinctly remember was "Shoot the groceries." Because I do that all the time in real life.
posted by user92371 at 8:59 PM on January 4, 2016 [2 favorites]