The Russian Mafia Kidnapped the Bananas in Pyjamas and Held Them for $100,000 Ransom

“Bananas in Pyjamas are rotting in a basement…”

It goes without saying that, in ideal circumstances, the world of children’s entertainment and the underbelly of organized crime don’t have any degree of overlap. In fact, that’s basically the entire premise behind Danny DeVito’s 2002 satirical black comedy Death to Smoochy, and it’s possibly the reason why the movie bombed so bad. Kids and the mafia don’t mix, just ask Kay Adams. As such, when the Australian children’s television series Bananas in Pyjamas went to Moscow for a photo opportunity with the intention of courting a new international audience, the worst-case scenario they could have imagined would have to have been a run-in with the Russian mob. 

Unfortunately, during a recent interview with News.com.au, Kenneth Radley, who played one half of the potassium-filled pair of titular characters in Bananas in Pyjamas, revealed that, not only was the show’s Russian trip derailed by organized criminals, but the mafia even stole the expensive banana suits and attempted to hold them for ransom for $100,000 Australian dollars.

Sadly for the original Bananas and their expensive Pyjamas, instead of paying the outrageous sum, the show’s marketing head simply split.

“Grahame Grassby was the head of marketing and franchising … and Grahame went all over the world with some banana suits to get photo opportunities at places like London Tower and the White House,” explained Radley, who played anthropomorphized banana B1 for over a decade on Bananas in Pyjamas. “He took the suits to Moscow … and the suits were stolen, and there was a ransom note given to Grassby for $100,000 Australian dollars for the return of the suits.” 

Radley alleges that the note came from the Russian mafia, though it’s hard to imagine how exactly he would know the identity of the kidnappers — no one here is suggesting an inside job, just that there seemed to some monkey business going on.

Nevertheless, Grassby set to rescuing the hostages: “Grahame got in touch with ABC Sydney and said, ‘This has happened, they want $100,000, what will we do?’” Radley recalled. “And the head of the ABC said, ‘Well, we’re not gonna give them $100,000. How much do they cost to replace?’ And Graham said, ‘They’re $20,000 to make.’” 

As such, the president of ABC Sydney told Grassby to bring $20,000 to the drop-off and see if he could work it out with the slippery banana kidnappers. “So they wired $20,000 Australian through and then he’s (Grassby) walking with a briefcase to meet the Russian mafia … and he stopped and thought, ‘What am I doing?’” Radley said of his old coworker’s completely understandable reservations about hostage negotiating. 

“He went straight to the airport and got on a plane with the $20,000,” Radley said of Grassby's objectively correct decision. “So the bananas are actually in some gulag in Russia, in some freezing cold jail.”

I highly doubt the bananas are still frozen in the gulag to this day. At some point, one of those Ruskies must have broken out the chocolate syrup.