1. A bongo is an African forest
antelope,
Boocercus euryceros in East Africa or
Tragelaphus euryceros in West Africa, having a pudgy reddish-brown body with elegant very thin white
stripes down it, and a black and white face. Females as well as males have
horns. The Kenyan one is severely
endangered.
The largest forest antelope, it is shy and not territorial: its small groups may aggregate into herds at salt licks. The red pigment of its coat comes away on your hand: the Zande people of Sudan believe this can give you leprosy.
2. Omar Bongo has been president of Gabon since 1967. As Albert-Bernard Bongo he became vice-president under the founding president Léon Mba, who died in office later that year. He converted to Islam and adopted the name Omar. (In an effort to prevent confusion he subsequently declared he would just be known as El-Hadj President Bongo, but me, that confuses me more, especially as that forename-less phase didn't last long.) In November 2003 he decided this wasn't enough and adopted what seems to be a paternal name, becoming President El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba. And he's a mason.
3. Bongo Congo was the country ruled by King Leonardo in the cartoon.
4. Yeah yeah, the bongo drum. These were developed in Cuba in the nineteenth century from an African drum called a bonko. One who plays the bongo is a bongocero.
5. And there was a Bongo the Monkey, a Tush toy, "born" 17 August 1995, "retired" 1 January 1999. It looks like... a plush toy monkey, basically.