We Have A Theme!

No! I Am Not Talking About The Byzantine Military-cum-Political Unit
Which underpinned their empire for a good 400 years at least, from the seventh century to the very end, which you can nominally state was about 1460, when Trebizond (as was) fell to the Ottomans and became Trabzon - 
     And yet again we begin with something that's not what this particular BOOJUM! is about, although you really ought to get yourself some John Julius Norwich and discover a bit of Byzantine history.

A right riveting read

     If you are new to the blog WHICH YOU SHOULD NOT BE, then you may not be aware that we occasionally pick a particular subject and concentrate on it, until either all the humour or the facts or both have been squeezed out of it, like a lemon slice in a vice*.
     So today I thought we'd go all out about GIANT ANIMALS!!  The topic has been broached already, and last night, whilst also watching episode 6 of "Ragnarok", I was busy making a list of notes for blog topics.  Art?

     Once upon a time this would have been 4 words scribbled in an A8 notepad.
     Okay, so, let us ease into the subject with - Art?

KITTEN KONG**!

     This is an episode of "The Goodies" that you whippersnappers have probably never heard of, let alone seen, from The Seventies when <Mister Hand intervenes to edit out several thousand words of loathsome self-pitying nostalgia> at Montreaux.  All ends well, apart from television presenter Michael Aspel, who gets crushed by Twinkle (the kitten).             
                 

     Now to continue with the considerably less cuddly GIANT MOLE from "City of Ember".  I don't know what it is about being rendered huge, it's just that GIANT MOLES seem to become ravenng meat-eating monsters.  Remember that GIANT MOLE from "The Menace in Pit 13"?  Yeah, a big meat eater also.  Art?


     Conrad, putting on his Scientific Adviso

r hat, speculates that this is because a mole normally eats worms to survive.  Imagine the sheer tonnage of worms a mole the size of a family car would need to consume in order to survive! and consider how much more efficient and time-saving it would be to instead dine on Hom. Sap.  Though you we would have to have Mister Massive Mole roll over us a few times to tenderise the meat and crush the bones into consumable pieces***.
     Right, back to another comic series, but a text one with illustrations, rather than the usual strip art: "The Last Six Hundred".  Art?

GREAT SQUEAKING BATS!!

       No, I am not aghast and amazed that we have another GIANT HEDGEHOG story, after "The March of the Prickly Giant".  I picked this illustration up at random, and look at the text five lines down - "Trebizon Hotel".  Bitten by the Coincidence Hydra AGAIN!
     <takes calming draught of gin>
     Right, in TLSH we find that all animals across the globe have grown to gigantic size, which has of course caused the destruction of all civilisation, apart from six hundred plucky Brits who live on the Isle of Wight.  Pretty bleak, hmmm?  Conrad is unaware of how it ends, if it did, and whether the six hundred dwindle to none hundred or go on to reconquer the planet.
     Then there is "Land of the Giants".  Conrad is not sure if he ought to include this, as you might argue that everything is normal-sized, it's just the interlopers from the future who are midgets.  Regardless, Art?


     Conrad is sorry he can't identify this creature; evidently some strange wildlife native to South Canada.  Probably a "posum" as I believe they're called.
     And no, it's not exactly a convincing special effect, it is?  In fairness, they probably weren't expecting nit-pickers and pictorial pedants picking over their television program 50 years later.
     Then we have the granddaddy of them all: Jonathan Swift's "Brobdignag", which surely inspired LOTG, as the protagonist Gulliver is shipwrecked on a land where everything is huge, including the animals.  Art?

Again with the GIANT RATS!

     Though there is also an encounter with a GIANT CAT.  Art?

"How strange!" thought Tiddles.  "Walking cat-food.  Whatever will they think of next!"

     It's "A" level time at nightschool since I read "Gulliver's Travels" so I can't remember all the interactions our hero has with GIANT ANIMALS.  He goes on to have adventures aboard Laputa, the flying city, so he must have got the better of the feline above.
     Jumping forward several centuries, we revert to the GIANT HEDGEHOG trope again.  I bet you never realised how many interations of GIANT HEDGEHOGS there are out there, hmmmmm?
      Okay, in this advert, first you saw the consequences of some ghastly entity that is crushing cars.  Art?

Ignore the arm and phone lead, okay?

     That's at least three drivers crushed to death, and don't try any of that "O they were only parked up" as it won't cut it - a narrow country lane in the middle of nowhere and three cars are randomly parked there?  NO!
     Okay, after 18 seconds we get a clear view of what's caused this mayhem.  Art?

     An hedgehog as big as a bus.  "That makes a refreshing change!" burbles some witless onlooker, happily endorsing MASS MURDER, MISTER!!
     Of course, I could be overthinking this ...
     Finally, let us go out in a blaze of gunk, with some low-budget schlockbuster called "The Food of the Gods", allegedly inspired by poor dead H G Wells, whose work might even be in the public domain by now.  Art?

"Based upon a portion of - " well, that says it all, really

     Generally, the more skin the young lady on the poster is showing, the worse the film.  I think you'll find this an iridium-clad law.

     And with that our first post of the day is done!

*  A poetical image for you. You're welcome.
**  There's going to be a lot of upper case today.  Just so you know.
***  Yes, this is a ghoulish detail.  I know you love them so.