Jordan Peele's third film, "Nope," was released last Friday and has already taken both the box office and the Internet by storm. This time around, the thrilling film follows trainer siblings played by Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as they confront a mysterious UFO. Alien encounters anchor the film, but the nope and most terrifying sequence concerns Ricky "Jupe" Park, played by Steven Yeun, a fake 90s sitcom, and a mysterious chimpanzee.

The "Gordie's Home" incident is a large part of "Nope/Noe," and Peele even dropped the opening credits of the fake series on Twitter during the film's run. There is also a significant connection to the film's overall theme of aliens and contemporary spectacle culture. For a breakdown of the attacks, read here.

In the world of "Nope," former child star Jupe's breakout role in the film "Kid Sheriff" was in the situation comedy "Gordie's Home." (He now runs Jupiter's Claim (open in new tab), a western theme park based on the movie.) From the opening credits (above), the show seems to be about a chimpanzee who goes to space, lives with a female astronaut and her family, and becomes best friends with Jupiter's character. The clips include a clumsy father, a mother who juggles cooking and cleaning with her literal job as an astronaut (...) ), a teenage daughter, and a skateboarding son who spends his nights stargazing with Gordy. (The theme song is Gowan's 1985 jingle "(You're a) Strange Animal.")

The short-lived sitcom was abruptly canceled after an incident that became infamous for gracing the cover of Mad magazine and spawning an SNL sketch starring Chris Kattan as Gordy; as noted in Nope, a chimpanzee playing Gordy was killed off when the show filmed an episode of Birthday As noted in Nope, the chimpanzee playing Gordy went berserk while the show was filming its birthday episode (many balloons were released and eventually burst, and the loud noise angered the chimpanzee). The performers were savagely mowed down in the attack, leaving only Jupe unharmed. Years later, the theme park owners maintain a hidden room full of memorabilia and charge fans a fee to see (or spend the night among) the memorabilia.

In "Nope," the attack is depicted twice, once at the opening of the film and once in the middle of the film; in the second sequence, we see the attack from the perspective of Jupe hiding under the table seen during the opening credits. The table is covered with a translucent tablecloth next to the table, so Jupi does not look straight at Chimp when he turns toward her. When Chimp approaches Jupi, instead of attacking the actor, he shows an explosive gut-punch, which was his trademark greeting on this show. (The chimp is then shot and the attack ends.)

Throughout the film, Jupe was planning a new attraction at Jupiter's Claim, the Star Lasso Experience. The show's debut shows that the former child star also has his eye on aliens hiding in the clouds above Agua Dulce. He tells the audience that he is luring (aka feeding) the aliens with a horse he bought from OJ (Kaluuya) after his father's death. Jupe believes he has made a connection with the aliens and plans to lure them out with the horse Lucky to show the audience and become famous again.

It soon becomes clear that Jupe thought he had made a peaceful connection with the alien (whom OJ and Emerald (Palmer) nickname Jean Jacket), but he was wrong. When Lucky refuses to leave the glass enclosure and is sucked into the sky from a distance, Gene Jacket comes very close to Jupiter's claim. At one point in the film, we see that the aliens spare the humans who do not look directly at them. Perhaps they see direct vision as hostile. When it lands on the crowd looking up in awe at the sight, Jean Jacket responds by sending them all down its throat (the chamber's esophagus.) When Jean Jacket flies into the Haywoods' house, the screaming stops and alien blood begins to rain down.

Gordie's attack and the UFO-type creature are the two spectacles of the film, key terms first mentioned in the biblical epigraph: "I will cast upon you detestable filth, and I will make you unclean, and you will be a spectacle" (Nahum 3: (6). The characters in this Hollywood-adjacent film are exploiting the non-humans to gain fame, stigma, and fortune; everyone from OJ, Emerald, and cinematographer Antlers (Michael Wincott) to the TMZ cameraman has captured Jean Jacket on film, and their images They want to sell them. Jupe has profited from Gordy for years. fame or actually making money from his little museum.

It is also clear that Jupe, at least subconsciously, believed that the only reason he was not attacked by Gordy was because he had made some connection with the chimpanzee. The Star Lasso Experience was his attempt to recreate Gordy's Home on a larger scale and to live off its fame. He clearly did not fully process the 1997 incident (hence explaining it to OJ and Emerald via the SNL sketch), so he was unaware of the more likely reason he was saved: he did not look Gordy in the eye.

In classic Peel fashion, there is also a major visual clue in Jupe's mind that connects Jean Jacket to Gordy. Early in the film, OJ encounters a group of "aliens" hiding in the horse barn, who turn out to be Jupe's children in costumes. He later sells the costumes and other merchandise that are supposed to look like the aliens, which he names "Viewers." (He is unaware that Jean Jacket is not a UFO containing aliens, but one big alien.) Jupe's "Viewers" are ape-like, hairy, upright bodies. In an even cooler detail that fans found on Twitter, the head of the costume closely resembles the camera on the set of Gordy's Home.

So far, no internet research has found any record of chimpanzee attacks on television or film production sets. However, there is one infamous case of a chimpanzee that was kept in a home and later attacked a woman: according to the LA Times (opens in new tab), Travis the chimpanzee was sold to Sandra and Jerome Herold of Connecticut in 1995, and the couple described him as "dressed, wine . drink, eat at the table, and sleep in bed together."

In 2009, Travis attacked Charla Nash, a family friend of the Herolds, in a shocking attack that may have been triggered by Nash's possession of a red Elmo doll. Nash was blinded and suffered severe injuries to her face, nose, lips, and hands; in Nope, Jupe's co-star Mary Jo Elliott also survived the Gordie's Home attack and suffered similar facial injuries. (Later in 2009, Nash appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" (opens in new tab), wearing a similar veil as Mary Jo.

The second "Gordie's House" sequence has a detail that is easy for fans to theorize. In the scene Jupe remembers, he notes Mary Jo's tennis shoes. He has kept the shoes for years and they are on display in his little museum. Since the physics-defying shoe is never mentioned or seen again after the second Gordy scene, one wonders why that particular, gravity-defying shot made it into "Nope."

There are two interesting interpretations here. The first is that the shoe standing upright defies science, which means that aliens may be involved. The character Gordy has been to space, but nothing is known about the chimpanzee playing him. It definitely agrees with those who theorize that the government knew about Jean Jacket. They covered up the deaths (Agua Dulce is a blur on Google Maps, and the disappearance of Jupiter's Claim was blamed on a flash flood), or they released Jean Jacket into the desert to be used as bait.

The second take is that Jupe's memory is unreliable. Most of Gordy's sequences are seen through Jupi's eyes, and the shoes are specifically depicted through his perspective. We may see that he incorrectly remembers the shoe being upright and later claims the shoe as some sort of token. If this is true, then we may also be misremembering that Gordy gave him a gut-punch. It would be a heartbreaking development if there was in fact no moment when Gordy "spared" him, and whatever meaning he ascribed to the event, unconscious or not, it was born of a false memory.

Again, these are complete fan theories, but if the second theory is correct, Peel will not hesitate to let us know in some way. In the meantime, I shall return to the theater in search of more Easter eggs.