There you are! Hi there! If you are here, and it sure looks like you are, I just want to stop and say, Here You Are! See, there you go!

The problem with intellectuals is that they need to read something before they can experience anything. And so, in order to better pander to the elite, this article aims to provide a foothold in reality and lamely attempts to explain the rest of what can be seen on this web site and a few others, herein known as Small World, individually and collectively.

(to the right: Dr. Bushyhead discusses current street trends with the San Francisco Police. The Good Doctor knows the Secret Handshake.)

My best friend Shane had a Team of MEGOS, too, and we discussed, mapped and lived in an elaborate smash-up derby of a fantasy universe for our MEGOS, pulling inspiration from everything our 10 year old heads had absorbed from Star Trek and Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and Barlow's Guide to Extraterrestrials.

Here are some of the Fun Facts about those Early Days: The Captain of my team was the twin brother to the Captain of Shane's team (even though mine was a Klingon and his was a General Ursus ape), Each team had a main vehicle that was overloaded with tools and supplies packed in Avon ring boxes and hamburger-bubblegum containers (remember those?) My team's vehicle was made for 12 inch MARX figures so it was roomy. I added roll bars and covered every inch of it with duct tape, adding compartments and refining the interior. Our teams had mutual galactic enemies, namely The Evil Tai-Pan (who turned out to be an evil triplet of our Captains) a Capt. Kirk figure who had been hideously deformed with a Bic lighter a la Capt. Pike from The Cage. These wounds, it appears, also made him insane. His Overlord in Badness was The Evil Sho-Gun, a 12 inch Star Wars Stormtrooper figure in a menacing black and yellow cape stolen from a plush Hamburglar. Our teams had adventures every weekend for a few years, one week at Shane's house the next at mine. We were always working on a new team member or vehicle so there was a cumulative and chronological feeling in this play that I always think of when discussion runs to how great childhood was. It was. Shane and I both recalled recently the sudden death of Dr. Milo, the wise orangutan saw bones. We built a funeral pyre in the side yard of Shane's apartment complex and with the aid of WD40 and another stolen Bic we produced a cloud of toxic plastic smoke to honor old Milo. I loved being a boy.

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure the force that made me stop playing with MEGOS was an increased attraction to girls. I started to notice girls and felt weird doing so holding a doll. Right around this time my family moved and for whatever reason the team went into a Van's shoe box and the rest of it was sold at garage sales or thrown away. That's what happened to my Wayne Manor Playset. It was a dark time.

Cut to 1988, I am enrolled in a wacked-out hippy college in the Pacific Northwest and considering animation projects when I remember my old friends. I dug Them out and the five survivors hung on my curtains again for the first time since the full ooze of puberty. I even found some 6 inch WWII figures with identical articulation at a Yardbirds store so I was able to add new faces to the old team, but for the most part I still kept them in a box in the closet and took them out when no one was around. I was not yet old enough to admit my passions openly, but I sure knew how to feed them... I spray painted a Barbie camper (the first of many) and soon had an awesome well rounded and equipped team, still discreetly closet sized in case the doorbell rang unexpectedly... At work I began to make excuses to go to the office supply cabinet to look for useful bits, but I never spoke a word to anyone of my secret intentions.

Then, just like Tarzan had popped in to my life a few years earlier, I met my wife Catherine. I have no idea who gave her to me or why, but I love her and I never take her to pancake houses. It took some time but she finally convinced me that it was ok to amass more action figures than the combined capacity of our closets, so in a very real sense the fact that they have conquered every room of our house and the population continues to grow unchecked is her doing. I am an innocent victim here. Her devastating sense of taste and fashion, her love of the diorama, and her keen natural ability to play are all major factors in the state of Small things. Woof, what a woman.

Oh yeah, and somewhere along the line we started calling these things Smalls, and it stuck.

So, elitist smatypantses, there you have it. Thanks for dropping in!

We now return you to
OVER THERE...