by Ken Tanaka

Created on: December 31, 2008

Who still watches eighties movies? I sometimes do, because the TV guide and remote control are always closer than the video rental. You might remember an eighties comedy flick called "Her Alibi" starring Tom Selleck and Paulina Porizkova. Basically, Tom thinks Paulina may be a murderess, but gives her an alibi because she has good legs. In a memorable scene, Tom is in the kitchen staring lovingly at Paulina's legs, when she suddenly whips a knife out of the knife holder and hurls it straight at him.

Twang.

Of course the knife doesn't hit Tom because he has to make wisecracks for another good hour so we don't boycott the movie. Instead it impales a stag beetle on the wall.

"How did you do that?" Tom asks.

"I do not like bugs." Paulina replies in a thick Romanian accent.

But this article is neither about Tom or Paulina or Romanians. It is about bugs. Incidentally, both Romanians and giant bugs were popular movie villains of the eighties. Since the Cold War, Romanians have generally ceased to be Hollywood villains, but bugs continue to be film villains well into today. (For example, the big roach in "Men In Black", Japanese Godzilla movies, the spider in "The Lord of the Rings", and the grasshopper in Disney's "Bug's Life").

I also remember a drastic scene in a nineties pregnancy comedy (huh?) called "Nine Months". Hugh Grant hallucinates that his pregnant wife has morphed into a giant female praying mantis and attempts to eat his British head off.

But of course, bugs are not half as scary on the silver screen as they are in real life when we find them, say, on the toilet seat, on the living room wall, or in the sink.

I once knew a girl who was scared to death of bugs. Especially caterpillars. Her boyfriend refused to kill caterpillars because they "have just as much right to live as we do." Naturally she turned into a praying mantis and ate him, just like any other girl in her right mind would do.

Most girls hate caterpillars, excepting, perhaps, Martha Stewart. ("Just dip them gently into the batter like soouchand drop them into a saucepan of boiling hot oil. When they turn golden brown turn them over onto nice clean paper towels and sprinkle liberally with Malden sea salt") However, spiders are at least six or seven times worse. My sister found one in her room, screamed, and sent me, my dad, my brother, and Paulina Porizkova running to help her (yes, in that order.) It was big. About as big as my hand. Paulina whipped out a knife and killed it instantly.

TWANG.

No, not

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