It was definitely “monkey” when I first heard it over fifty years ago but it was always as an answer to “what time is it?”
Never heard “Mickey”, it’s always “monkey”.
I’ve also only heard “monkey”.
The Historical Dictionary of American Slang gives “monkey’s ass” as a synonym for “monkey’s uncle”, in the phrase “I’ll be a monkey’s ass”. But I suspect that’s unrelated, and “half past a monkey’s ass” was just a bit of wordplay based on the rhyme and rhythm of the phrase.
The first Mickey Mouse watch was made in 1933, so if the phrase predates that date, it would definitively refute the “mickey” version.
ETA Although it’s certainly possible, even likely, that someone somewhere modified the “monkey” phrase to “Mickey” with reference to Mickey Mouse watches.
Yes it was exactly and precisely: “A half past a monkey’s ass and a quarter to his balls” in answer to somebody asking for the time (as you say: “What time is it?”) I said it easily over a hundred times myself and I must have heard it 1,000 times over a few years before we all grew up. This is why I have absolutely no doubt I am remembering perfectly. And it started for me 60 years ago in Orange County, CA. Roughly ten years ago, but not before this thread was started, I wrote it online about something not related to time (I was making a joke about a body search that resulted in an arrest of a well known person in Las Vegas) and one replier laughed his butt off and said I must been in Orange County or something like that. I still like the ring of it today - shame I grew up and forgot it for 50 years!
“A half past a monkey’s ass and a quarter to his balls” is how we said it here in NJ in the early 80s at least.
In Upstate New York, also Monkey. I never heard or used Mickey. Or Camel. This, from the late 1960s.
A bit late, I suppose, but yes: brass monkey ornaments used to be very common, at least here in the UK.
Typically they would be a set of three monkeys, seated, one with its hands over its eyes, one with its hands over its ears, and one with its hands over its mouth – symbolising “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”.
I haven’t seen one in years, but when I was a child they were the sort of thing everyone’s granny had.
Colonel Blake made an oblique reference to the phrase one freezing night at the 4077th — Better keep the brass monkeys in, tonight.
A friend had a variation on this - there was a fourth monkey with his hands over its crotch.
Early 60’s, SF Bay Area, Monkey, never Mickey or Camel. Just a smartass answer to “What time is it.”