Greetings Friends,
I discovered an old stuffed monkey hidden in one of my attic bins and found him to be an interesting vintage artifact that whisked me back to my long-ago childhood. Since rediscovering the toy, I have been dabbling with the idea of creating a new character, possibly for my next book or maybe for use in a short story format. It’s been a tremendous amount of fun working with photo editing and learning a new creative hobby. I hope you enjoy all of the images and stories that I have been working on.
Thanks,
Robert Kuhn
Ho Ho and Hello from Moe,
I am Moe, aka Moe McMonkey, and I love ya’ll! I was born in the U.S.A. Well, not really. Actually, I was handmade in the U.S.A. by Robert Kuhn’s Grandmother. Man, I sure do miss her! I spent decades sitting next to her on the sofa. Those were the good ole days. Or so they say. But if I must be really honest, in reality they were mostly extremely boring days sitting on the same old sofa forever watching TV or doing nothing at all. And I have to tell you, “I am glad to be out!”
Since being handed down through the generations, my life has changed dramatically, as shown in the photos below. A whole new world has opened up to me. Although, some have tried to censor me, here I am now able to express myself in ways that were never possible before. I am so excited to learn and experience everything. My curiosity is unbridled, and my motto now is: “Moe Wants to Know!” Please scroll down and enjoy my new adventures along with me. It’s gonna be a blast!
Moe.
(Please note: The following work was done with amateur cell phone photography and a free photo editor program. All work is original content and copyright protected. No AI generation or assistance was used. Thank You.)
*****
Robert Kuhn
8/25/2026
New Character Idea
I’m working on creating a new character named Moe and looking for ideas about what to do with him. Children’s stories? Political satire? PSA’s?
“Moe, do you have any suggestions on what or where your new character might lead to?”
Moe replied, “Nope, I’m just glad to be off of the sofa and out of the house… GIDDY_UP!”
*****
Robert Kuhn
9/6/2026
Moe’s Party
Labor Day weekend… Moe’s last nighttime citronella bucket bonfire party of the summer! What a party monkey!!!
*****
Robert Kuhn
FB banned 9/5/2026
Don’t Slip On the ICE!
Moe exclaimed, “But I was born here. I’m an American monkey! I was handmade by an American citizen grandmother in 1950! I have rights!”
The guard replied, “Oh yeah? Well, this is 2026, and you look like a foreign factory-made stuffed illegal alien to me. Enjoy your trip south of the border.”
(Author note: Apparently I went too far with this one. Immediately upon posting it on social media, it was rejected and deleted.)
Moe wants to know: Why?
*****
Robert Kuhn
9/4/2026
Moe Wants to Know
Moe is not a poet, and he knows it, but he wants to try it, so here goes it…
Moe wants to know;
If creatures
from the earth
and feathers
from the sky
can come together,
why can’t you and I?
Moe wants to know;
When berries
are plentiful
and seeds
are galore
Why do we fight?
Why do we greed more?
Moe wants to know;
If creatures
from the earth
and feathers
from the sky
can come together
in peace
and harmony,
to share.
Why can’t we?
Moe wants to know;
Will we,
the people,
take this dare
to come together,
and give it a try?
If not now,
when?
And why?
Moe wants to know.
*****
Robert Kuhn
9/3/2026
Litter Box
Moe wants to know: Why did the medical testing lab send another box?
Apparently, based on the label, the lab that sent it doesn’t know either. Neither my doctor nor I ordered a lab test. Nobody ever contacted me about it. So, I was surprised when a box from a random testing lab just showed up on my doorstep one day. I called the number on the box and asked why a medical insurance company sent me an unsolicited test kit and was asking for biological samples (think poop!) They replied, “Your medical insurance company ordered it because your records show that you are past due for the test.”
“WTF is an insurance company doing snooping around in my medical records and making medical testing decisions for me?” !!!
“So, here ya go, Moe. A brand new litter box for you. I cut a hole in the top and set it in the bathroom. When it needs to be emptied, we’ll send it back to the lab with the pre-paid shipping label. Then they will have all the samples they could possibly want!”
*****
Robert Kuhn
9/2/2026
The Dodge
This truly was owned by a little old lady (my grandmother) who only drove it to church on Sundays. But I just don’t think Moe’s heart is into parting with the old Dodge.
Moe wants to know: Why sell it?
*****
Robert Kuhn
FB 9/1/2026
Moe’s great-great-grandfather, “Slow Moe”
*****
Robert Kuhn
FB 8/30/2026
Got PTSD?
Moe wants to know: What is it like having PTSD?
PTSD may sometimes feel like you’re sitting on a mine in the dark.
My message to Veterans and their loved ones is this: PTSD is an honorable war wound, and it’s OK to get help.
You can read more about one man’s PTSD trip here: https://rucksackgrunt.com/ptsd-is-an-honorable-war-wound/
Hope it helps!
*****
Robert Kuhn
FB 8/27/2026
Moe wants to know: Want to help Disabled Veterans? As an old veteran myself, I’m retiring from my motorcycle restoration hobby. Many of the leftover excess XS1100 bike parts (more to come) are now listed for charitable sale.
My buddy Moe and I also have a lot of other cool antiques and vintage collectables listed as well.
100% of the proceeds go directly to the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) charity via eBay’s charitable giving program! Zero $$$ goes to me. Moe invites you to check it out here:
https://www.ebay.com/usr/rucksack.grunt
Thank You!
*****
Robert Kuhn
August 29, 2026
Moe wants to know: Remember the psychedelic days?
Moe is showing off his nostalgic neckwear bling from the 1960s-70s under the black light. Symbols of Peace, Love, and War that coexisted during those extremely turbulent times. BUT not necessarily harmoniously. “The good old days,” they say. Hmmmm…..
Moe wants to know: Why did they call them black lights when they were clearly purple? Remember the Hendrix song “Purple Haze”?
*****
Robert Kuhn
FB 8/24/2026
In America
A new opinion article from a mad Monkey named Moe who believes that it’s the TV set that controls what happens in America.
Hi there, my name is Moe. I’ve been sitting on the back of my owner’s family sofas for nearly seventy-five years now! I am one of the more fortunate handmade stuffed sock monkeys because I have been owned by multiple generations of the same loving family who have always taken good care of me. Some of my handmade cousins have not been so lucky. And my factory-made cousins have had it even worse. They have been passed around or sold to who knows how many different owners. Some have even been discarded or placed in attic storage bins. How sad!
My life on the back of a variety of different sofas over the years has generally been a pretty good life. Consisting mostly of just watching TV. From my perspective, everything that happens in the world is because of the TV set. Television is my window to the outside world. The TV is my world! And as far as I can tell, the TV set controls the world.
And oh, how TVs have changed! I fondly remember the good old vacuum tube, black-and-white TV days in the 1950s. Watching Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo, and The Lone Ranger were some of the best years of my life! Everything was just simpler back then. From my point of view, the TV set is what makes things happen. Thanks to TV, the World Wars had ended, and the world was at peace. Everyone just got along. The fun and frivolity of the boob tube era had arrived.
I couldn’t believe it when color TV came out. Who would have known a peacock was so colorful? The wonderful world of color was an enjoyable eye-opener. That was, until the late 1960s and early 1970s came along, when so many horrifying news stories were being shown right in our family living room. Television created those terrible scenes and then broadcast them to the world! Race riots, college campus demonstrations, nationwide protests, political assassinations, and yet another war were all shown on the color TV. And I watched it all from my perch on the back of my sofa. Those were the worst TV-watching years of my life. I blame our new TV set for that. Bad TV! I wished my owners/family would have burned that color TV so that America could go back to peace and calm.
TV viewing greatly improved after the old wooden console color TV years. In the late 70s and into the 80s, as the Super Pittsburgh Steelers came roaring onto the screen, it felt like nothing else mattered and all was “right” with America. At least here in Pittsburgh. I can’t tell you how many times the excitement and thrills from my owners almost knocked me off the sofa!
And then Along came the big-screen projection TVs in the 1980s and 90s, making my world even better. Those TVs were huge, like a refrigerator-sized huge! The picture quality wasn’t that great, but it was BIG! My owners seemed less inclined to watch the news shows and were more into watching some great Betamax or VHS movies. What an improvement over the terrible 60s and 70s. We’ve come a long way, baby, from those bulky cathode ray tube days.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, plasma TVs were invented and then, even better yet, flat-screen LCD TVs came out in the 2000s. Such beautiful picture quality for the many fun comedy and drama shows of the day. Our TV set was making the world smile. I could watch “Friends,” Seinfeld,” or “X-Files” all day if my owners would let me. All they would have had to do was leave the TV turned on when they went to work.
Now here we are today in the 2020s with an even bigger flat-screen TV hanging on the living room wall, right across from my sofa. The new TV shows are shown in larger-than-life pictures and clarity. Unfortunately, my owners have once again become preoccupied with horrific news shows. CNN, Fox News, and their ilk. Political news has become a dominant part of their viewing again. And I hate it! We need a new TV set. This old one has become corrupt and is producing fake news!!
Just take a look again at my monkey face picture above. You can see the smile is gone. Replaced with a look of serious concern. And my tail just doesn’t know which way to flop! What I am seeing on TV now is not pretty. There is just way too much greed, cruelty, vindictiveness, and divisiveness in America today. And it has even filtered into my owner’s family. At one time, it was incomprehensible that parents, brothers, and sisters from the same family could be so divided and turn angry with each other because of divisive political views, opinions, and misinformed beliefs that the TV set was now creating. Nobody in America benefits from that. What made our TV want to cause this to happen? What has the TV set done to America? This has to stop. Changes must be made. Even if the TV set has to be unplugged and maybe even be gone from my living room. Oh, if I could only read, I’d pick up a book and give up TV altogether. These years are the 2nd worst time of my life, and I am afraid they will become the worst ever!!
I almost wish my place in the home could be moved from the sofa and relegated to the quiet peace and tranquility of the attic where the TV set doesn’t control the world. But then, that head-in-the-sand ostrich approach will not make the problems go away. As an aging stuffed sock monkey, the best I can hope for now is that we get a whole new generation of even bigger, better, and smarter TVs that care for us and care for what is going on in America and fix everything.
Perhaps something like living room 3D holograms. Maybe they will bring about a welcome positive change in the way we view the world and life on American TV. Maybe new advanced, sophisticated TVs can bring back sanity to America by showing the future with compassion, togetherness, and reasons for hope.
I know my wishes and dreams for a better American TV future might just be far-fetched pipe dreams. But I’ll never give up my place on this old sofa and never quit dreaming about smarter TV sets and a better America that each new generation of TVs has brought to the world. However, let’s be honest. There’s only so much WE, THE MONKEYS, can do from our small, isolated place in the world, other than watch TV. So, I could use your help, please. YOU, THE PEOPLE, the owners of stuffed toy monkeys and everything else, have to do something to bring about positive change in America. Stop monkeying around! It’s all up to you now. Let’s bring back enjoyable TV sets that create a compassionate, prosperous, caring America. Moe wants to know: do you think I am just being a silly monkey? I hope not, because I truly believe there just has to be a better TV. Bring it on, turn it on, and tune in! God bless America.
Thanks for hearing me out.
Love Ya’ll,
Moe
Robert Kuhn 