Bashful gorilla

Bashful guerrilla gorilla

Does anyone here know the joke about the bashful gorilla? I don’t, and can’t find it upon (an admittedly desultory) search. …

Next question: Did the audience in the 1950s know the joke? Or did some yes but some no? Edit: No, some site said these reruns were from the first two years of the comic strip, hence 1950-51 roughly. But a bit of digital magnification shows the blurry info at the left of the last panel includes what looks like a “1964”. It doesn’t matter much here, but was significant for the “Viet Nam” strip a couple weeks ago.

Next: Or was there never even a particular joke? Was it simply a tease all along? And would that matter? Would the comic strip gag work anyway, and would it be enuff?