Friday is Bring Your Gigantic Flying Reptile to Work Day

Last week, when I brought a large, imposing dragon to work, one of my comrades-in-arms mistook Draco for an older, more famous flying menace: Rodan, star of his own Japanese monster movie and co-star in numerous others with Godzilla, Mothra and many more. this coworker remembered that when he was a child in Alabama, his uncle, after having seen the original movie, claimed to have seen the prehistoric terror swooping low over the smokestacks of the factories and mills of Bessemer, a suburb of Birmingham.

The imagination of a ten year old is a furnace that doesn't require much to keep it stoked, so what would it do with such a potent shovelful of fossil fuel? It would burn long and red with terror. And so it did.

Now, at the end of a month of giant monsters, I might as well go out big while rousing a few flashbacks in my wake. And you can't go much bigger then the Shogun Warriors Rodan.

Back in the late '70s, Mattel produced a series of enormous robot toys called Shogun Warriors (based on Japanese toy manufacturer Popy's giant Mazinger figures). Part of this line was a version of Godzilla that shot a tongue of flame out of its mouth, as a proper Godzilla should. (The flame was triggered by a lever at the back of his neck; this lever snapped off pretty easily, and most second-hand Shogun Godzillas have only stumps to work with.) He was also able to shoot his left hand at his opponents (something the movie Godzilla could never do.)

Since Mattel had Godzilla in their Shogun Warriors and he was, by this point in his "career" a good guy, they must have thought, "Hey...doesn't he need someone to fight?" And thus, we have Rodan, rendered in plastic with grasping claws (strung with rubber bands), flapping wings (also strung with a rubber band and operated by three bowling ball-style holes in his back) and snapping jaws (operated by a much stronger lever than Godzilla had). His wingspan is fairly amazing--over 40 inches from tip to tip--and he can be seen from damn near any vantage point in the office.

This has, of course, prompted many more questions from coworkers, most along the lines of, "Do you display all these things in your apartment? How big is your place, anyway?"

My apartment is no bigger than average, I'd guess, and no, I don't display all of the toys I own in it; I'd need an apartment closer to the size of the Field Museum for that.

But Rodan? You're damn right I've got him on display at home--proudly on display at that.