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Sink Australia

The platypus, as we’ve established, is certainly an odd creature, but it is by no means the only odd creature in Australia, or even the oddest. Let’s take a look at some of the other critters that share this bizarre continent.

The flying fox, or pteropus, looks like a Dracula’s nightmare, but is actually quite gentle. It is not, as the name would suggest, a fox, but a bat. Specifically, a subspecies of the suborder of megabat – a suborder which, if there were a god, certainly wouldn’t exist. It has a huge fox body. And huge bat wings. And large, death-brown eyes. And a lizard tongue. It flies. And, oh fuck me I just looked at a picture of one. They are truly terrifying. Their wingspans can grow to as wide as 5 feet and they stand, but mostly hang, three and a half feet tall, or down, however you want to look at it. They only eat fruit and nectar, but I wouldn’t risk it. Stay away from Australia.

Australian accents are like a drunk Texan feigning an English lilt and happily yelling at you about camping, insisting that you need to relax every time you ask him to lower his voice. It’s horrible. The similarly horrible Broadchested Orange Magoot has picked up that accent through years of contact with its garbage voiced countrymen. It is a kind of cross between a small bear and a parrot and it’s yowl, that’s the only real word for it, is heavily inflected by that sickeningly gregarious cockney twang. Australians are the worst.
Except for Naomi Watts. She’s an earth angel.

Discovered only last year, the Neon Doodlegoose is the brightest creature known to man. Visually, anyway. They look like feathered traffic cones under a black light, with a big, ugly, completely bald bird head jutting out from the hole in the top. By contrast, it’s extraordinarily dim in terms of intelligence. Monumentally stupid, really. They can fly, sort of, but have absolutely no sense of direction, and usually just pathetically flap about in small circles – when they’re not brainlessly diving directly into the ground like some kind of passionless, mush brained kamikaze pilot. They continue to exist only because they have been isolated for so long and will eat literally anything, gulping down papaya’s and kangaroo shit with equal, nauseating abandon. And they smell. Holy moses do they smell. Like someone vomited inside of a durian and heated it up in the microwave. Other animals won’t eat them because of the stink and, presumably, the deep sense of disgust and pity that the mere sight of one engenders. Also, their feathers are dusted with a poison that will irritate your skin to no end. Pretty much everything is poison in this god forsaken country. What a terrible animal.

Speaking of terrible animals, try this one on for size. It’s called the Giant Blood Moth. Can you even imagine? It’s awful. It has a wingspan of 8 inches – and it’s a moth, as if those things weren’t bad enough as it is. And its body is all furry and grey, like a moldy mummy. And – get this – it drinks blood. Blood! With its teeth. It has teeth! Like a fucking Dracula. A moldy mummy looking Dracula! The blood it drinks is mostly from cows, but still! It’s just flying around drinking blood. And these Australians seem like their always outdoors. You couldn’t get me within a thousand miles of this place. Like, what is your problem? We get it – you’re a very hearty and masculine people. But do you mean to tell me that you’re not at all skeeved out by a giant blood sucking moth? That’s not brave, that’s stupid. Bunch of god damned lunkheads over there.

Or how about this – you’re really going to love this one. It’s a kangaroo, right? No big deal. We’re all aware that they have kangaroos over there. They’re fun! They box! But here’s the thing – this kangaroo, the Ghost Kangaroo, they call it. This kangaroo is mean. Really mean. This kangaroo has four inch teeth – four inches – and red eyes and – are you ready? – 80% of them have rabies! Rabies! And they were mean to begin with! Give me a fucking break! On top of all of that nonsense, they are called Ghost Kangaroos because they are very quiet and can blend in with basically any surroundings. So, you’ve got a big, angry, foaming at the mouth, deadly, shark toothed marsupial that you’ll never see coming. What fun! When can I buy my plane ticket to this enchanting land where these diseased, jumping, glorified rats are just lurking around any given corner to give me rabies? I can’t get there soon enough!

And the water! Australia is surrounded by the stuff and it’s positively full of disgusting monsters. Like the Saltwater Bat. That’s right. Another fucking bat. In the water. It’s not really a bat, of course, but it looks a hell of a lot like one and it lives in the goddamn ocean in very shallow water, which these shit for brains Australians just splash around in like it’s a goddamn hotel swimming pool. I’m telling you, there’s something wrong these people. The Saltwater bat is very small – only an inch and a half in most cases – and its “fur” is really thousands of tiny sensors that can all move independently. I hesitate to even tell you this next part for fear that you might be eating, but, dozens of times each year people accidentally swallow these disgusting little things and – Oh, what do you know! – they’re poisonous, and can leave you completely paralyzed unless you get your stomach pumped within the hour. Surfs up!

Oh, let’s not forget the sharks. Australia has some real doozies, things that make Jaws look like Finding Fucking Nemo. I don’t even know where to start. How about the Megatooth Red Devil Shark. How’s that for a combination of words? If you need me to paint you a picture of how horrifying this thing is, you’re dumber than an Australian. And let me tell you, that’s reeeaaally fucking dumb. Like, we love Crocodile Dundee and Silverchair dumb. I mean, take any two, or even one of those words and it’s, like, get ready for the worst day of you life. Put them together and it just makes you want to set yourself on fire rather than live in a world where a thing like this exists. The fact that there hasn’t been some kind of concerted military effort to eradicate them all really tells you something about the Australian government. (Editor’s Note: Killing animals is wrong.)

Not afraid of sharks? That’s completely fucking illogical. But maybe something smaller can haunt your every waking moment. The Spikenosed River Worm, perhaps. I ain’t ascared o’ any worm I ever seent, you might be thinking. Well, this delightful creature is small enough to swim up your dickhole – and it does! Like, all the time. They love dickholes! Nothing pleases one of these little creeps more than swimming right up your urethra all the way up to your stomach so it can live there and lay millions upon millions of eggs which will all hatch and then the millions upon millions of worms inside your god-forsaken body will quickly turn your organs into goop! Do you understand what I’m telling you? They swim into your penis and eat your insides! I’m not saying there is a 100% chance that this will happen to you if you wade into an Australian river, but even if it were a .0000001% chance – and it’s significantly more than that, like a 4% – is that something you’d really want to risk just so you can tell your dumb friends that you went to Australia and post pictures of it to Instagram so people you barely know at all can think that your life isn’t a putrid garbage pile? Do you think any of those people will really come to your funeral after your insides are turned into worm shit? They won’t! How many times can I say this before you get it through your thick, bulbous skull: Stay away from Australia!

Let’s talk about monkeys. Cute right? Not on this Island of Dr. Moreau, they aren’t. The Blue Eyed Prowler Monkey has a pretty nice name, but trust me, if you see those deep cobalt peepers in the wild, it will already be too late. They are vicious. They only stand about a foot and a half high, but they travel in massive, murderous packs that can reach into the hundreds and they love nothing more than tearing unsuspecting tourists to shreds. And here’s the worst part – they will hold you down and rip off your ears, digits, and genitals first. A real bunch of sadists these things. And they’re smart enough to lay traps. One of these dastardly primates will dawn a hat – any kind of hat they can get there hands on – and pleasantly amble up to an unsuspecting victim who, disarmed by the presence of a hat wearing monkey will, invariably, reach out their hand for a good natured hand shake. Who wouldn’t, right? Once they are in the monkey’s vice grip, the rest of the beasts emerge from their hiding places and proceed with the torture. The really fucked up thing about these hairy creeps is that they are vegetarian. They don’t even eat these poor saps, whose only crime was to travel to the worst land expanse in all the world. They just rip them to bits, slowly and methodically and continue upon their merry way.

Is that enough for you? Have the Bono colored glasses finally been ripped from your eyes? Are you ready to join me in refocussing America’s ire from those poor Arabic people we’ve been hassling for the last couple of decades to this truly heinous continent and it’s disgusting inhabitant, both beastly and human? If you are – and god help you if you’re not – please go to www.SinkAustralia.org and sign my petition to end this nightmare once and for all.

If we don’t, I ask you – who will?

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Platypuses

Script

Australia, 1799. White people, as they so often do, discover something that has existed for tens of thousands of years and been known of and tended to by the natives to the point that it’s been common place for as long as the natives can remember. The white people are astounded by their brilliance and bravery, celebrate their great fortune – a blessing from god – and waste no time in changing its name and pushing it to the brink of extinction before “saving” it – which they pat themselves on the back heartily for – and making it a totem of their own culture, erasing its considerable history.
In this particular case, the white person is Captain Hueling Q. Winbiggler and the thing is a strange Australian creature with a bill, thick fur, a large flat tail, and webbed feat, known to the aboriginals as mallangong or tambreet or dulaiwarrung, depending on which aboriginal you ask.
Captain Winbiggler was exploring the Northern coast of Australia, then known to Europeans as New Holland, at the behest of King George III. He hoped to find gold and magical fountains and spices and people to sell spices to. People were crazy for spices back then.
Instead he found the platypus.
Winbiggler, like some of our best middle aged actors, was a renowned prankster. Six months earlier he had reported back home that he’d discovered a race of gigantic, hairy, pig people. All of Britain was abuzz with the report, but when Dr. Rundell Framebridge, a timid, proper intellectual and Winbiggler’s point man in the motherland, received the supposed proof of this discovery, it was just a crude drawing of his mother.
So Dr. Framebridge was understandably skeptical upon hearing of a creature that was a cross between a duck and a beaver. It sounded like it could very well be another joke about his Mom.
It wasn’t, though the creature he found before him still seemed like a hoax. It had, as Winbiggler had described, fur, webbed feet, and a beaver-esque tail. Framebridge assumed that this was just some clever taxidermy – not uncommon at the time. Monkey tops sewn to fish tails were a popular variation, passed off as mermaids, a far cry from the disturbingly sexualized mer-people of today.
He cut into it’s fur to find the stitching. There was none. This bizarre creature was real. What in God’s name had god been thinking when he created this horrid beast? He opened its mouth to inspect the teeth. He didn’t find teeth – adult platypuses don’t have any – but he did find a graphic rendering of the woman that had birthed him being double teamed by rhinoceros scribbled on some paper.
Captain Winbiggler had struck again.

The platypus got it’s name from the Greek words “platus” which, loosely translated to English, means “freaky-deaky” and “pous”, meaning beaver. As with most things, its existence was fairly inconsequential to Europeans, but folks were eager to wear and consume its parts. The pelt – which looks and feels like a beaver’s but smells of pineapple and your first significant girlfriend’s morning breath – became a popular source for stoles and, because of its water repellant properties, swim wear across Europe in the years following the discovery. The bill was either ground down and used to produce healthifying tinctures and the first known fake dog shit – the kind used to pull hilarious pranks, much to Captain Winbiggler’s delight – or strung from a chain and worn around the neck, where it could hold a beverage or perfumes, anything really, or be brought up to the face to be worn over the nose and mouth to scare children and ward off disease. Their flesh was never widely eaten as it tastes like bologna, which most people had not yet become glutenous enough to deem edible. (Editor’s note: It also had yet to be invented.)
As the human population of Australia grew, the platypus population dwindled and the cost of their parts increased. But by 1815 the craze had died down considerably due to the explosive popularity amongst the very rich of clothes made from human hair, typically harvested from orphans.
And so the platypus population made a comeback, and the animals lived peacefully, as they do today, in the parts of Australia left undisturbed by man as well as the countries zoos and the homes of various eccentrics and hipster scofflaws.
In 1898 it was confirmed that the platypus laid eggs – no one had even thought to find out if they did before then, why would they? – and, upon the discovery and removal of those eggs, that the male platypus is equipped with a poisonous claw on its rear right foot that can kill an animal the size of a dog, cause an adult human severe pain for months, and probably kind of sting a blue whale, though this has never been attempted, as far as I know.
In 1901, when Australia declared independence, the platypus was named the countries official animal after defeating a kangaroo and a wallaby in a fight to the death.
In 1905 the worlds largest platypus was erected in Shelley, Idaho, for some reason. It was carried away by a tornado in 1942, killing 34 people at a Woolworths two towns over when it dropped. The headline the next day read, “Platypus Plummets, People Perish.”
Throughout the 1920s and 30s, a gentleman named Manvil Werts became know as The Platypus Man, and was a popular attraction in the Shamblin Family Traveling Freak Show, which made it’s way all over the United States. Werts stood only four feet tall, was covered in hair from head to toe, and had a massive nose. He really did look like a platypus, with the exception of the tale, which had to be pinned on for the show, but still managed to marry a quite classically beautiful woman of average height and fathered 16 children, none of which looked like a platypus. One did look like a potato, though, and went on to have his own successful career as a freak, as well as inspiring the popular Mr. Potato Head toy.
An infamous 1982 episode of Mork and Mindy featured the arrival of Mork’s beloved childhood pet, Zoldar, a 6 foot long talking platypus, who arrived from Ork in, you guessed it, an egg. The animal is sent to Earth by Orson, a disembodied voice and Mork’s manager or something – to remind Mork of his roots and prevent him from becoming too human. Zoldar, terrified by his new surroundings, runs roughshod over Boulder, reducing the city to ashes, all the while screaming, “I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t ask for this!” The episode ends with the beast dead by Mork’s own hand – he hacks and hacks and hacks at it with a shard of its own egg, weeping madly while Mindy, her blood rich with the platypuses poison, lies near death only feet away. The episode never aired and Mork and Mindy would be cancelled within the year.
In 1994, a homeless woman named Bilomina Shivers gained national attention in the United States when a keen eyed movie critic noticed her and her pet platypus, Gordy Shivers, in the background of several notable films shot over the previous decade. Look closely at the scene early in The Neverending Story, when Bastion is running from bullies to seek shelter in a book store. As he turns a corner, you’ll get a brief glimpse of Bilomina staring straight into the camera, holding Gordy’s leash. She similarly appears in Purple Rain, Sixteen Candles, Fletch, Re-Animator, Brazil, Blue Velvet, Howard the Duck, Flight of the Navigator, La Bamba, The Last Temptation of Christ, Gorillas In the Mist, Do the Right Thing, Tremors, and Aladdin, just to name a few. The directors of the various films have denied casting her and were unaware that she appeared in their movies at all. Asked how she had found herself in so many films, she replied, simply, “I goes where I goes and Gordy comes with me.”
In the years since then, the platypus has laid pretty low. Scientists have discovered a few new, barely believable facts – it stores fat in its tail so it can go long stretches of time without eating and its bill is covered in tiny electroreceptors that it uses to sense prey and predators when it is underwater, for instance. It’s been the subject of a ludicrous number of children’s songs, and the title of an equally ludicrous number of instrumental jazz, house, and speed metal songs. But, despite its extraordinary features, the platypus is a humble creature, really, solitary and stoic, intending no harm to anyone and usually able to avoid inflicting it.
We could all stand to take a lesson or two from this magnificent, ludicrous beast.