monkeyshines

monkeyshines

Playful or mischievous pranks, tricks, or capers; tomfoolery. The monkeyshines of the two children went from humorous to annoying to downright infuriating over the course of the school year. Don't get so worked up about it, Tom—those are just the monkeyshines of a curious toddler!
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

monkeyshines

n. tricks; small acts of mischief. These kids are a lot of fun despite their monkeyshines.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • class clown
  • clown
  • cheeky monkey
  • age before beauty
  • that's enough for now
  • hubba hubba
  • pram
  • get out of your pram
References in periodicals archive
Weatherby, the Trenton Cuban Giants engaged in comic pantomime and "monkeyshines" that made spectators roar with delight.
I came to college to learn something, to get an education with my head, and not monkeyshines with my arms and legs" (Yezierska 1999, 216).
(24) The Nation wrote that Rolph's style suggested the "glamour, the professional geniality, and the circus monkeyshines of modern royalty." (25)
Murphy's script never advances past that none-too-compelling setup; despite some agreeably quirky odds and ends and some potentially rich characters, it's satisfied to be a series of monkeyshines in which Albert tries to stay one step ahead of the opportunists--a task certainly easy enough for the audience.
` `Tilt' (which, incidentally, includes "Monkeyshines'), a revue-style comedy about skewed or misperceived reality, was produced by Actors' Theatre, in Talent, just outside Ashland, in 1991.'
Yet when Hollings correctly pointed out Danforth's past votes, he accused the Republican of engaging in "monkeyshines, which is a polite expression, maybe, for hypocrisy."
To the extent that the monkeyshines depend on the check coming into the defaulter's hands, an effective stop-gap can usually be interposed if a procedural rule of internal control were observed whereby checks are released for mailing directly from the office of the signing individual.
Under the complex formula written into Gann's new piece of monkeyshines, more and more of that highway money would come directly out of funds otherwise available for schools, welfare and hospitals.
Wirt Elizabeth Thompson, an eye-opener incomparable to anything I had written about before, including the scam of federal deposit insurance, the monkeyshines at the World Bank, and other unconstitutional and unaccountable quasi-federal agencies.
What's left are basically some very shopworn monkeyshines (on behalf of both the chimp and Woods, who can be quite hilarious trying to hide his clipped, nasally whine behind a Bratwurst accent) more than reminiscent of the recent series of "MVP" movies.
"What Planet of the Apes Are You From?"-Garry Shandling stars as a sex-obsessed gorilla in the sci-fi monkeyshines.
Enraged by such a betrayal, apedom's ever-agitated military leader Thade (Tim Roth) convinces Ari's venerable father (David Warner, back again to "Morgan" monkeyshines at last) to declare martial law, allowing him to embark on a massive search-and-destroy mission against Leo and his little group.