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It all started with a mouse… or was it a rabbit? A cat perhaps? Okay, he may not be the first, but he sure as hell was the one who kick-started an era of Toons. Many Toons were birthed to capitalize on his success, and I was one of them.
Name’s Rascal Raccoon.
I was created by a couple, Jane Cheri and Monty Bellworths in a small time-studio called Adam’s Apples. I wasn’t as big of a name like Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny, but I was fairly well-known to the general public and the Toons population.
When Pearl Harbor happened, I was drafted into the 61st Division, also known as The Toon Platoon. The U.S Government thought since we were indestructible, they decided to send us Toons into war thinking they can easily plow the Nazis with this advantage …only to find out that we didn’t want to hurt anyone.
We were reassigned to a supply base, doing what we usually do, making people laugh. When the war ended with the U.S.A bringing The Big Bombs to Japanese, very few people were laughing, others cried, while most were quiet, but little did anyone know the consequences of further testing were very…. Big.
After the war, most Toons resumed with spreading joy and laughter to the lives of humans. In the 50s, when the studio found that I was surprisingly popular in Japan, I was sent there to do some live stage show.
That was where I witnessed something that would change the world forever.
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Tokyo, 1954. It was like any other night, I was performing in front of an audience of kids and adults alike, when all of a sudden loud, explosive noise was heard from outside, and it kept getting louder and louder. Then it stopped. The deafening silence stretched moments into minutes, as everyone was bracing for impact, and that’s when we heard it.
BRAHUAAAAAAAAAHUOURGHH. The guttural growl triggered a primal fear in the hearts of every single person on that fateful night.
Panic soon spread among the audience, the kids were scared and confused, gripping their parents’ bodies as tightly as they could. and so was I. Officers arrived to help everyone to evacuate the building, but the chaos and the crowd caused the entrances to be blocked. I helped some folks to go out the back. When we got out, we saw running people from something.
Smoke and dust were everywhere, obscuring whatever they were running away from, but whatever it was, it was huge. The ground was shaking from the steps it took. Its roars shook the trees and buildings. Soon enough, soldiers with tanks arrived to combat it.
They never stood a chance.
The tanks soon backed away. A beam shot out, causing one of the tanks to explode, killing some civilians and soldiers. One caught on fire, the soldiers inside screamed in agony as they tried to get out.
The kids were wailing, the parents were hysterical while trying to shush their children, and I was beyond terrified.
We managed to avoid the firefight barely. I was already thinking about looking for shelter.
The military was powerless and the population was either running scared or dying.
Tokyo was on fire.
It was the most horrific scenery I ever saw in my life. Thoughts were running a mile a minute in my head.The whats, whys, the hows, all the questions I had no answer to.
Until it literally landed right in front of me, in the shape of a giant foot. Looking up, I saw black scale Maple-like dorsal and a disfigured face. We barely dodged its path as we ducked inside a building but that was a bad idea.
It started to attack the building we were in, pushing the walls in, debris falling from the ceiling. The parents were comforting their kids and knowing death was coming I decided to protect one of them with my life before everything crumbled down and I blacked.
When I woke up, there was a kid beside the bed, her head covered in bandages, stitches on her lips, wearing a brace on her neck. I don’t think I looked much better. Just because we’re indestructible doesn’t mean we can’t break a bone. Unless it was funny. But not now.
I tried to ask where I was, only for her to hug me and cry in my chest. Poor kid, her parents must have died from the monster attack, I comforted her the best as I can, but with both arms in a sling, all I could do was tap her back with the tips of my fingers.
After a while I decided to walk out the room, with the kid in my hand. The hallways were busy with doctors and nurses helping these poor souls, many were either suffering from burns or missing limbs and especially from radiation.
One of the saddest sights I saw was a mother dying in front of her daughter. The daughter begged her mom to wake up, and promised that she’ll clean up her toys. When she cried, all of Japan cried in sorrow and grief, and they prayed for the horror to stop.
Eventually their prayers were answered. A fellow named Dr. Serizawa reluctantly volunteered to use his invention. Although, it turned out his invention was perhaps more horrific than the monster itself. Imagine being a fish just swimming without a care in the world, than all of a sudden this odd-looking contraption came out of nowhere and opened like a nut, sucking the oxygen out of you and striping you down to your bones.
Grisly stuff, I know.
And it was with this horror that will end the nightmare we were all having.
Serizawa and a crew set out to sea, they dove deep into the sea where the monster was sleeping, there they activated the device, the monster surfaced one last time for its final roar.
Just like that, it was over. After all the destruction, the deaths, the pain and anguish of the survivors, the monster was gone… but so was Serizawa.
Serizawa knew that if the things that the invention can do was shown, there will be armed races over the damned thing, he couldn’t let that happen. So he destroyed all of his research, and when he activated the device near the monster, he cut his air hose. His last words were for his fiance and her loved one to be together, but they never did.
As for me? I went back to America and I tried to perform as usual, tried to do the the same routines I used to do, tried to be the funny raccoon that everyone needed me to be, after what I saw in Japan, things were not the same.
I still have nightmares about it to this very day. I ended up quitting from Adam’s Apple, from Hollywood, and from acting altogether. There was no place for an unfunny cartoon character like me.
I was hoping something that horrible will never happen again, But it did.
Another monster appeared the following year and then another one, and then another, and another. It then hit me like a truck, that this wasn’t gonna stop, and Tokyo wasn’t a one and done deal.
This is a whole new age. The Age of Monsters.
It all started with a Giant Radioactive Dinosaur and his name was…Godzilla.