Well, I’ve read Maus. Yes, it is really good! And yes, there is a bit where two of the mice-Jews scream because they see a mouse in the cellar! And yes, I am going to use it for the theme of today’s entry!

(I really need to come up with a catchphrase for these; “themed entry” just sounds wrong, like a clown giving a kid ana-OH GOD THAT’S THE SECOND OFFENSIVE JOKE, I THINK I’M DOING THIS ON PURPOSE...!)

10 Events That Would Be Better Anthropomorphised

1. Tutankhamun’s Tomb Leagues Under the Sea
We begin with a selection of hieroglyphs, depicting creatures with many different animal heads; but all of them have squid legs. We cut back to see that the Egyptians are squids, their tentacles whipping slaves to build them their mighty pyramids. And then we see the distortion of the bloodline and the affect that royal incest (ooh, that sounds kinky!) has had; over the years, each succeeding Pharaoh has had a larger, more off-balanced head. One of them, young Tutankhamun, is a young squid, and dies at a tender age. His underwater tomb is buried so deep beneath the surface that it takes a team of hoki archaeologists years to find it, but eventually, with Howard Carter as the leader of their school, they unearth the carcass, wrapped delicately in seaweed. They take King Tut back to the museums and receive commercial praise. This does not endear them to the gods, who send a giant squid to haunt and strangle Carter in his sleep.

(Here, of course, the text will differ on how “mainstream” [ooh, a pun] the film adaptation would be; were it full of product placement, then Carter would be threatened with an ironic fate – to become a victim of commercial consumption himself. He does, becoming 1 of 3 fish to be a part of the new McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish burger)

2. 50 Cat: Bulletproof
A life in the ghettos, unearthing trash cans for fish, gunning down all the gingas in the area, avoiding the white trash (grey trash cans are better); such is the life of the typical Catsa, sex-addicts with guns and hoez by their sides. Cruisin’ down the roads, shooting the shit out of the pigs, being as urban as cattily possible. You can either get down and gritty when showing these events, and showing the racial oppression that the cats also receive from the pigs (“I know the kind of things people like you get up to. Oink.”), or just make it Top Cat with guns (with leader cat T-Z). Whichever floats your boat. Speaking of which...

3. There was a Titanic who Swallowed a Spider...
Utterly fearful of the deep, and knowing how dangerous a pulled plughole can be, spiders advance their technology to such a degree that they can create the Titanic, an unsinkable vessel. Presumably, any story based around these events would be the recollection of a descendant of one of the survivors (a more experimental film could try differently, but in my experience the dead don’t talk). Let’s throw in a love story too. Unfortunately, the bathtub is being used as a substitute esky in a party by the humans, and the Titanic hits an ice cube. Slowly but surely, it sinks; water crashes in through the tunnels, the spiders hanging onto the walls and ceilings of the corridors, but all in vain.


Featuring the hit single, ‘My Web Will Go On’

4. The Lord is My Ram
The sheep flock to their messiah; a simple farm boy ram named Jesus, who displays remarkable talents, including headbutting the demons out of those possessed (“You have been healed by the horns of Jesus!”). But he is becoming increasingly a pain in the, erm, arse for the other sheep authorities; actions such as bleating crazily and ramming a marketplace in a farmhouse to pieces don’t endear him all that much to them either. Betrayed, hung up on a cross, and dying for our sins. But the Lord isn’t gone; he’s still with us, with all of us. Just look at the clothing you’re wearing.

5. Hiroshima’s Kitchen Nightmares
The cockroaches of a vaguely-represented “oriental hut” in Japan get bombed horribly. This causes the death of many and the mutation of a select few (Hollywood deviant: this is where you tell your mutant cockroach story, if you want). Also features humankind stomping around ala Godzilla, tying in the metaphor in a rather silly way.

6. Are You as Cunning as Rasputin?
An antidote to Anastasia, by Fox Animation; though curiously enough, an animated fox by the name of Rasputin, reportedly the hardest fox to kill, and also the most cunning, ingratiates himself into the Romanovs’ services (portrayed as a pack of wolves). The Romanovs have a problem in their blood; it’s something to do with werewolf-ism (every month, they turn into people...!). Some guff about demons and boys from hell (Hollywood deviant). Also, Rasputin is shown to have the biggest tail ever recorded in the history of foxkind.


My, what an evil and cunning beard you have!

7. Jackal the Ripper
Prowling the streets of London in the 19th century, the legendary and mysterious Jackal the Ripper preys on unsuspecting bitches who’ve sold themselves to male dogs for a quick shag. As they stand at a nearby lamp-lit pole and relieve themselves with a semi-dignified air, Jackal steps in and rips them to pieces with his teeth.

8. The War of the Roses
Some honeysuckers and bees fight for – actually, you know what? That sounds perverted. God, just throw in a dark-coloured adder and a horse, and that’ll do for now.

9. Puberty: Blues and Greens
This isn’t an event so much as a part of human experience. Or in this case, amphibian experience. Young tadpole Jimmy Nobody is perturbed to realise that he is growing new body parts; things called arms and legs, not to mention an expanding mass. He’s worried that he’s overeating, but his parents inform him that he’s just going through puberty. Aw. Cue loads of diagrams of genitalia; or, if this film is being shown in science class, you can show the children first-hand by dissecting a frog. “Look children, this is where the metaphorical breasts are...” Does that work, do you think?

10. Fleas-in-Height 9/11
...no, I’ll get castrated.