The two investigators hosting the Nick-and-Nora-style dinner party are the chimpanzee scientists Cornelius and Zira from the original Planet of the Apes. Each of their guests is a fictional ape (orangutan, gorilla, bonobo, or chimpanzee) or a human being played by Charlton Heston in a film. (Bright Eyes is what Zira calls Charlton Heston's character in Planet of the Apes, and so she uses the same nickname for the similar-looking human beings here.)
Each guest has committed a crime against some other guest; the bolded words in the accusation clue a word that is a transaddition of the victim's name. The accusation also clues who the perpetrator is; to help in identification, the accusations are in alphabetical order by perpetrator.
In that order we have (using orange, yellow, green, cyan, and blue for orangutans, gorillas, human beings, bonobos, and chimpanzees):
Perpetrator | From | Clued word | Victim | Extra letter | Accusation |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
BEAR | BJ and the Bear | DODGER | GRODD | E | During the three seasons you spent trucking around with your partner, you spread malicious rumors that someone in this very room was a draft evader! |
BINGO | Banana Splits | UNSTONED | DUNSTON | E | You played drums alongside Fleegle and your other bestial bandmates until your music made someone in this very room hallucinate, even when not under the influence of psychoactive substances! |
BOBO | Kim Possible | EMBOSS | MOSES | B | Back in your days rampaging at Camp Wannaweep, you even dared to put a notarizing seal on a fraudulent affidavit implicating someone in this very room! |
CHEETA | Tarzan | DAUNT | UTAN | D | You had your aristocratic but loincloth-clad colleague summon elephants so their intimidating size would dishearten someone in this very room! |
CLYDE | Every Which Way But Loose/Any Which Way You Can | DELTIC | EL CID | T | You kept improperly signaling for right turns in your partner Philo's truck until someone in this very room, stuck behind you, exploded like dihydroxycyclopropenone! |
DUNSTON | Duston Checks In | INTERBRACHIAL | THE LIBRARIAN | C | You teamed up with a jewel thief at the Majestic Hotel to steal jewelry worn between the arms of someone in this very room! |
ED SIMIAN | Lancelot Link | BORING | BINGO | R | You imitated a master of ceremonies introducing a band called "Evolution Revolution," but really you were drilling holes in the stage while someone in this very room was trying to perform! |
EL CID | El Cid | MACHETE | CHEETA | M | And you, Bright Eyes, when you were fighting in 11th century Spain on your horse Babieca, your really big knife injured someone in this very room! |
GORR | Marvel Comics | RANSOM | MASON | R | You, Goldilocks, used your influence as the valet to the High Evolutionary of Counter-Earth to kidnap someone in this very room, forcing others to offer money to free them! |
GRAPE APE | Grape Ape | MAIDENISH | ED SIMIAN | H | You big purple so-and-so, you created a huge disturbance, loudly repeating your own name over and over and offending the young, innocent, ladylike ears of someone in this very room! |
GRODD | Marvel Comics | HORNET | THORN | E | You used your mental powers to convince a stinging insect to sting the Flash, but instead someone in this very room got stung! |
JELANI | Ape House (novel) | OOZIEST | ZOOTIE | S | When you were just an adolescent show-off on that reality show, you, Sam, Makena, and the rest broke out of the house and smeared someone in this very room with the most slimy substances you could find! |
KONG | King Kong | JAWLINE | JELANI | W | You may be the king of your own island, but that hardly gives you the right to punch someone in this very room, bruising their mandible's edge! |
MASON | Madagascar | ERBIA | BEAR | I | When you and your friend Phil and all those others went on a cargo ship to Africa, you took along ten tons of the oxide of element 68 rightfully belonging to someone in this very room! |
MOSES | The Ten Commandments | TOOTH | OTTO | H | As my lovely wife would say, and you, Bright Eyes, you climbed up a mountain, came down with stone tablets, and threw them directly at someone in this very room, breaking a dental appendage! |
OTTO | Endangered (novel) | OKING | KONG | I | We read all about how Sophie rescued you in that National Book Award finalist, but what they left out of the story was you giving the go-ahead to an elaborate con game against someone in this very room! |
THE LIBRARIAN | Discworld | RIGOR | GORR | I | As you were managing the Unseen University's book collection, you reedited a math text by someone in this very room so its proofs had less logical exactitude! |
THORN | Soylent Green | CLAYED | CLYDE | A | And you, Bright Eyes, just this year, you got suspicious about the "plankton wafers" we've all been eating, went digging where you shouldn't, and now someone in this very room is covered with adobe! |
UTAN | Vandread (anime) | BOOBY | BOBO | Y | After you and Rabatto tried to steal Hibiki's Bangaata, you pinned your attempted crime on the blue-footed bird of someone in this very room! |
ZOOTIE | Babe 2: Pig in the City | PAUPERAGE | GRAPE APE | U | You met up with your porcine pal in the urban area where you live, missy, and then you broke into the home of someone in this very room, and stole everything they owned, leaving them in a state of poverty! |
The criminal acts form a giant loop; these provide an ordering, with Bobo (as noted after his accusation) being the first perpetrator and last victim:
Perpetrator | Extra Letter | Victim |
---|---|---|
BOBO | B | MOSES |
MOSES | H | OTTO |
OTTO | I | KONG |
KONG | W | JELANI |
JELANI | S | ZOOTIE |
ZOOTIE | U | GRAPE APE |
GRAPE APE | H | ED SIMIAN |
ED SIMIAN | R | BINGO |
BINGO | E | DUNSTON |
DUNSTON | C | THE LIBRARIAN |
THE LIBRARIAN | I | GORR |
GORR | R | MASON |
MASON | I | BEAR |
BEAR | E | GRODD |
GRODD | E | THORN |
THORN | A | CLYDE |
CLYDE | T | EL CID |
EL CID | M | CHEETA |
CHEETA | D | UTAN |
UTAN | Y | BOBO |
Taking each group by itself, and taking the groups in "folder order," that is, ordered by genetic closeness to the chimps Cornelius and Zira, we have:
Group | Folder number | Letters in group |
---|---|---|
Orangutans | 1 | CITY |
Gorillas | 2 | WHERE |
Human beings | 3 | HAM |
Bonobos | 4 | IS |
Chimpanzees | 5 | BURIED |
The answer is the city where the "space chimp" Ham (who did indeed die of natural causes) is buried: ALAMOGORDO.