Pre-assembly -

I am calling this toy the “Clappy Monkey”, and I believe there is some sort of lever in place. I assume that there is some sort of connection between the arms directly connected to the handle protruding from the front of its chassis. There are most likely no gears or or springs or anything like that inside this. The reason I think this is that the operation of the toy has no smoothness whatsoever. The motion of moving the lever up and down feels directly connected to the arms opening and closing. The lever does not spring back open, hence I do not think there is a spring, either. From what I can see on the outside, it is held together by two screws, but I am unsure of how the bottom banana part of the chassis is held into place. I am also not sure if there are any plastic clips holding anything in place.

My dog, Leif, unsure how he feels about Clappy Monkey.

My dog, Leif, unsure how he feels about Clappy Monkey.

Post-dissection -

Clappy Monkey will never be the same. Aside from that, my assumption that there was a simple lever action being used directly linked to the arms was correct. What surprised me was the lever plate linking everything together. In my mind, there was some sort of post angled the same as the lever handle, which was then linked to the arms, but that was not the case. Instead, this plate provided a much lower profile lever system, allowing a sliding action to move the arms. Internally, the plate was coupled to the arms with pegs and a slot. There is also a track-like structure on the inside of the monkey part of the chassis, which when screwed tightly together, locks the lever plate into only up and down movement.

The chassis was indeed held together by two screws, with an additional smaller screw to attach the lever handle to the lever plate. The banana portion connected to the monkey chassis thru a lip on the banana that fits into either side of monkey chassis and locked together thru the two body screws.