By J. Friendly
If you’re as devoted a Godzilla fan as I’m trying to pretend to be, I’m sure you know that Gojira is Godzilla’s real, native Japanese name.
And I’m sure you’ve heard by now that he is on the verge of retirement. According to an announcement by Toho, the studio that created him and saw him through a series of 27 films to date, he will make his final screen appearance in a film due to hit Japanese theaters in December.
Why, you ask? According to a report in Business Week (April 12, 2004), our campy hero just doesn’t have the appeal he once did in this new era computer-generated graphics and ever-more-realistic animation. In other words, he’s pretty well out of it.
Only 1.1 million moviegoers saw last year’s Godzilla film, Tokyo S.O.S . According to BizWeek , that’s “down 35% from the previous installment and just a fraction of the 10 million-plus viewers these flicks drew in the 1960s and ’70s at the peak of their popularity.”
If my reference to the Big G as a “hero” raised your eyebrows (or possibly singed ’em right off), you obviously failed to see beyond his seemingly indiscriminate paths of destruction. If you was payin’ more attention there, dummy, you’d know that Godzilla’s true mission in life no matter how crude his tactics is, as the weekly business magazine put it, “to save the planet from the ravages of industrialization.”
So after failing that utterly at his task, just look around you! How will the green guy choose to spend his Golden Years? In my opinion, his well-wishers should encourage him to go Western and I don’t mean that just as the opposite of Eastern or “Oriental.”
I’m talkin’ real West, podner. Can you imagine what a handsome figger he’ll cut in his 500-gallon cowboy hat, authentic bolo tie and two-tone, lariat-embroidered, form-fitting Cowboy-cut shirt with mother of pearl snap buttons on each breast pocket?
He’ll be gussied-up perfectly for his first blind date, and I can’t think of a better prospect than a woman almost as dragon-like as he is, Rosie O’Donnell. As I envision this playing out, Godzilla will escort his new sweaty-pie to a square dance.
As a finishing touch on his makeover, he will finally do something about that offensive breath problem, gargling from a monster-size bottle of Listerine. (With any luck, there be enough left over for her, too.)
And with even more luck just about the time Rosie confesses to him that she really doesn’t like guys the square-dance caller will holler, “STOMP YOUR PARTNER,” and that’s the last any of us will ever see of her.
For true Godzilla fans, here is how I see the best possible future: After millions of TV viewers watch Godzilla accept a gold medal from His So-Called “Highness” the Emperor of Japan (OK, that’s the only short joke I’ll make here), diehard fans will raise such a hue and cry that the Toho people will have no choice but to bring him out of retirement.
I can see it now a monster headline (translated for your convenience) reading: “GODZILLA, BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND.”
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