Rodents of Unusual Size: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:big rat 246.jpg|link=The Food of the Gods|
{{quote|'''Buttercup''': What about the R.O.U.S.'s?
'''Westley''': [[Trope Namers|Rodents of Unusual Size]]? [[Blatant Lies|I don't think they exist]].
'''ROUS''': RAGH! (''attacks Westley'')
|''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]''}}
Are they so named because they are unusually ''small'', you ask? Heh, heh, heh...
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{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* Several Kia car commercials feature giant hamsters, sometimes complete with giant hamster wheels.▼
* In an ad for Doritos, a man puts a piece of an extra-cheesy dorito on a mousetrap, then sits down to eat some more. A giant mouse (well, a man in a mouse suit) bursts out of the wall and tackles him, presumably not being satisfied with the tiny tip of one chip.▼
* Orkin's series of Giant Creepy Crawly extermination-service ads now includes one in which a family comes home from a trip to find scruffy human-sized rats hanging out in their living room.▼
* There's a commercial for extra-durable work pants which demonstrates their toughness with a giant cartoon beaver, which loses its teeth trying to bite through a pair.▼
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Galaxy Angel (anime)|Galaxy Angel]]'' had this alien hamster thing which they found in the ruins of a once great city.
== Comic Books ==▼
▲== [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[Neil Gaiman]]'s gag biography in ''[[Sandman]]: The Season of Mists'' [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|denies]] that he was found outside a London sewer unable to say anything more than "Powerful big rats, gentlemen". And then goes on to deny that he had a vestigial tail, played a part in the ''obviously fictional'' negotiations between Londons Above and [[Neverwhere|Below]], or that there were any tooth marks on the bones.
* In the ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' universe they have these. After examining the meat from one they decide to farm them in place of the regular rats they used to farm.
* ''[[Beasts of Burden]]'' has a Rat king leading the sewer rats, and his general is a rat larger than the two cats who fight him.
* There's a [[Donald Duck]] comic where Don and his cousin Fethry team up to fight giant rat ghosts. Unusually big rodents shouldn't be a foreign concept to Donald, considering [[Mickey Mouse|whom]] he used to co-star with early on his animated career...
* The [[Spider-Man]] villain Vermin is a man who was turned into a humanoid rat by Baron Zemo's diabolical experiments.
* Prince Raffendorf, from Larry Elmore's ''Snarfquest'' comic strip, was a human prince before being turned into a giant humanoid rat by an evil wizard.
* In [[Bone]], the Giant Rat Creatures, despite that they are drawn without snouts and that they cut off their rat tails as a cultural ritual.
* One supporting character from ''[[The Elementals]]'' was a wererat who had a crush on Fathom.
==
▲* Several Kia car commercials feature giant hamsters, sometimes complete with giant hamster wheels.
▲* In an ad for Doritos, a man puts a piece of an extra-cheesy dorito on a mousetrap, then sits down to eat some more. A giant mouse (well, a man in a mouse suit) bursts out of the wall and tackles him, presumably not being satisfied with the tiny tip of one chip.
▲* Orkin's series of Giant Creepy Crawly extermination-service ads now includes one in which a family comes home from a trip to find scruffy human-sized rats hanging out in their living room.
▲* There's a commercial for extra-durable work pants which demonstrates their toughness with a giant cartoon beaver, which loses its teeth trying to bite through a pair.
* [[Trope Namer|Named]] after the R.O.U.S. from ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]''.
* The movie adaptation of H. G. Wells' ''[[The Food of the Gods]]'' features giant rats besieging some people in a cabin. Or rather, it features normal rats romping around a miniature set, and a few prop rat-heads that make "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" look like ''Aliens'' by comparison.
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* ''[[The Killer Shrews]]'' features giant shrews. (Well, giant for shrews, at least. Theyr'e played by German-shepherd-sized dogs in cheap prosthetics.)
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''
* The [[Stephen King]] short story ''Graveyard Shift'' has a lot of rats of usual size...{{spoiler|until you go down to the sub-basement where there are not only rodents of unusual size but they're mutated as well, the "queen" of which is big enough to eat a man}}(appears in the collection ''[[Night Shift]]'').
* The James Herbert trilogy of novels: ''The Rats'', ''Lair'' and ''Domain''.
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* ''[[The Underland Chronicles]]'' has these as main characters- not to mention the giant insect and bats....
* Ratmen (and a genius ratgirl) play a part in Glen Cook's ''Garrett P.I.'' series. It seems the wizards of a few generations back had quite a fad for the creation of new sentient lifeforms, and they shared real-world scientists' preference for using rats as research subjects.
* Like other mammals, rodents were well-represented in the ''[[Spellsinger]]'' novels, although rats and mice were treated like second-class citizens, forced to wash floors and so on.
** It seems to be a common subversion that if rats ''aren't'' the monsters or the bad guys, they're the [[Butt Monkey]] race.
* The rats in ''[[Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH]]'' were Rodents Of Unusual ''Smarts''.
** Brutus, while certainly not giant, was described as being rather large as rats go.
* The only non-mutant human creatures seen in the future in ''Mindwarp'' are giant rodents the size of a capybara. It is hinted they are descended from rats.
* The children's novels ''The Castle in the Attic'' and ''The Battle for the Castle'', by Elizabeth Winthrop, are about a kid with a magical miniature castle. Through use of a magic token, he can become small enough to enter the castle—and the entire medieval world beyond it. ''Battle'' features a battle with giant rats, which makes sense if you think about it, since the rats in the attic don't have magic tokens...
* Lampshaded in the Russian play "The General Inspector" by Gogol. One character ''dreams'' of two "Rodents of Unusual Size" the night before becoming a letter that said inspector is secretly coming to his town - and since he is an [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]], it's a very bad thing indeed.
* ''[[Redwall]]'': In ''The Long Patrol'', [[Big Bad]] Damug Warfang is a Greatrat, described as twice the size of a normal rat.
* While the titular rodents of Paul Zindel's ''Rats'' are generally of normal size, the book also features the Rat King ([[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|no, not that one]]), which is described as being even bigger than a capybara.
* The race of Rumbles in ''The Borribles'' are described as rat-like, and are the size of human children.
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* ''[[Parrish Plessis]]'' has canrats, rat-dog hybrids that are both vicious and intelligent. One of them, the Big One, is the size of a doberman.
* The H.G. Wells' novel ''The Food of the Gods'' features giant rats, about the size of wolves, as part of the mutated ecology that the titular food's unleashed. Unfortunately for humans, the rats also have the carnivorous temperament of wolves and quickly become the dominant pack hunters in the hot zones.
* The Changelings from ''[[The Amazing Maurice
* The Lemming-Men of Yull from Toby Frost's [[Space Captain Smith]] books have armed and industrialized themselves, but still retain their love of jumping off cliffs.
* The Doormouse is a once-human businessman in the [[Nightside]], who had himself changed into a giant bipedal mouse because he likes being cute and fuzzy. Not a ''dor''mouse; his name came about because he's in the business of renting out use of his [[Cool Gate]] collection.
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* The Rh/attes are an aptly-named alien race from ''Chess With A Dragon''.
== [[Live
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'', "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" (considered a [[Special Effect Failure]] in actual execution though)
* ''[[The New Avengers]]'' episode "Gnaws".
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* SPG, the pet hamster of Vyvyan on ''[[The Young Ones]]'', was usually played by a puppet the size of a guinea pig rather than the size of a real hamster. In one episode, he scarfed down an entire potfull of lentils and swelled up to volleyball size.
== [[Music]] ==
* The ''[["Weird Al" Yankovic|Radioactive Hamsters From a Planet Near Mars]]''.
* Green Day had an album cover where a gigantic Hamster was attacking society.
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* The [[World War I]] song "The Quartermaster's Store" mentions "rats, rats, as big as bloody cats" (see also [[Real Life]]).
== [[Newspaper
* This is an [https://web.archive.org/web/20110811203152/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1981/09/20/ occasional] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110811204848/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1983/12/10/ gag] in ''[[Garfield]]''; Garfield will be pretending to mouse, or maybe teasing a mouse and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20111113133145/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1987/11/22/ mouse] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110811202633/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1989/04/03/ will be] [https://web.archive.org/web/20111113134536/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1991/11/08/ larger] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110811205423/http://garfield.nfshost.com/2000/07/21/ than] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110811220935/http://garfield.nfshost.com/2002/11/16/ normal]. Then there's the [https://web.archive.org/web/20111113140923/http://garfield.nfshost.com/1984/12/18/ Training Mouse] from the arc where Garfield got locked out and found his way back to where Mama Leoni's used to be.▼
* In an early issue of ''[[Phil Foglio|What's New? With Phil And Dixie]]'', Phil distracts a giant monster rat by throwing a live cat at it.▼
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
* There's a Japanese legend called "The Boy Who Drew Cats", in which a city is plagued by a giant demonic rat. Which is eventually killed by the titular drawings of cats. [[A Wizard Did It|It's magical, okay?]]
* Also from Japan: Tesso (Iron Rat), a former human noble with [[Jerkass]], ungrateful parents who was cursed by a monk. He's a man-rat hybrid that raids the temples and the houses with a horde of smaller rats and devour everything on his path.
==
▲* This is an [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1981/09/20/ occasional] [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1983/12/10/ gag] in ''[[Garfield]]''; Garfield will be pretending to mouse, or maybe teasing a mouse and the [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1987/11/22/ mouse] [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1989/04/03/ will be] [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1991/11/08/ larger] [http://garfield.nfshost.com/2000/07/21/ than] [http://garfield.nfshost.com/2002/11/16/ normal]. Then there's the [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1984/12/18/ Training Mouse] from the arc where Garfield got locked out and found his way back to where Mama Leoni's used to be.
* The infamous "Moon Hoax", a series of articles in the 19th century New York ''Sun'', included fanciful accounts of giant civilized beavers living on the moon.▼
▲* In an early issue of ''[[Phil Foglio|What's New? With Phil And Dixie]]'', Phil distracts a giant monster rat by throwing a live cat at it.
* Some people think that the [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] universe contains the Skaven, three-foot tall ratmen, using giant rats and rat-''ogres'', [[Flat Earth Atheist|but they are of course mad]].
** Or form Middenland, since you know you have been attacked by a ''massive'' army of said three-foot ratmen with [[Schizo-Tech|lazer cannons]]
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*** [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|Rat...]] [[Bleach|MORNING]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|STAR!]]
** One highly popular adventure from the early days of ''Dungeon'' magazine shrank the PCs down to the size of gaming miniatures, making ordinary rats appear enormous by comparison. Other humanoids, who'd previously fallen victim to the same magic, used rats as steeds.
* [[Magic: The Gathering]] has 'Rat' as a creature type, from the classic [
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20081002213358/http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=135236 Relentless Rats] was designed and printed to allow people to enjoy plague rats without the four-of-rule, explicitly stating that it ignores it. Also is much better.
** The original art of [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=153 Giant growth] featured a giant rat. Now it's a bear.
* An enemy from ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' is called a Ghoul Rat. It is the size of an Irish Wolfhound.
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* [[Mortasheen|Morta]][http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen.htm sheen] has a few, including the amoebic; thieving [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/gravesnitch.htm Gravesnitch] , the oddly-toothed [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/gnawful.htm Gnawful], the cold-loving [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/abomignash.htm Abomignash], and the absolutely disturbing [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/vermoeba.htm Vermoeba] (Which is based on the Rat King detailed below)
==
* ''[[Pokémon]]'' has quite a few of these, often [[Com Mons]]. Examples include Rattata, Pachirisu, and of course, the Pikachu family.▼
** ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' has very scary implications if it weren't for the fact that the characters are trophies. Imagine, if you will, dropping a life-sized Pikachu on [[Kirby|Pop Star]] or [[Pikmin|Hocotate]]. A malicious, normal-sized Pikachu
▲* [[Pokémon]] has quite a few of these, often [[Com Mons]]. Examples include Rattata, Pachirisu, and of course, the Pikachu family.
▲** [[Super Smash Bros.]] has very scary implications if it weren't for the fact that the characters are trophies. Imagine, if you will, dropping a life-sized Pikachu on [[Kirby|Pop Star]] or [[Pikmin|Hocotate]]. A malicious Pikachu (or however many more) in either of those settings would be a Cthulhuesque horror upon the populations of those worlds, as it fits ALL of the ROUS criteria without the use of [[Super Mario Bros.|Super 'Shrooms]].
*** Somewhat justified because they are usually cute, big eyed and not very menacing. Not even those with teeth bared are all that terrifying.
* ''[[Ultima Underworld]] II'' features giant rats of various types.
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** ''[[Fallout 3]]'' has a robot you can activate in the Old Olney Tunnels that mentions something during its startup sequence about an infestation of rodents of unusual size. {{spoiler|It is usually torn to pieces soon after by the 10 foot tall Deathclaws infesting the tunnels}}.
** ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' has a direct quote from ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]'' (see quote at top) when doing the Debt Collector quest's final part in Broc Flower Cave, which is of course filled with [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Rodents of Unusual Size]].
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind]]'' had giant rats, and in an expansion, tamed giant rats that carried extra stuff for your character.
** ''[[The Elder Scrolls
*** There's also a woman in one of the cities that keeps pet rats. Her rival hated them, and so put out meat to lure them, which had the effect of attracting mountain lions which came and killed a few of the rats. The lions were surprisingly weak in battle compared to the ones you usually fight in the wild.
**** That's because they were starved.
** In ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' they're called skeevers. They're so big that people lay down bear traps to catch them. One crazy guy underground tried to create an army of them.
* Twitch, a champion in ''[[League of Legends]]'', was a sewer rat who gained sentience and bipedal form from magical runoff. [[Single
* In the 1990s PC fantasy kingdom sim ''Majesty'', giant rats were generally the first monsters to show up in your kingdom.
** And rat-men were another common annoyance, though they were at least one of the few enemies your city guard could handle competently.
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* [[Mirror's Edge]] breaks realism to include one, if you fire at a certain sign with a sniper rifle.
* The second ''[[Resident Evil]] Out Break'' game features those rats that spread the T-Virus attacking one of HUNK's men after he'd been felled by Birkin. There was also artwork showing muntant rats that didn't make the game.
* ''[[EarthBound]]'' features a Sanctuary Guardian called the Plague Rat [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|of Doom]].
* In the Human Noble origin in ''[[Dragon Age Origins]]'', you fight a bunch of giant rats who got into the kitchen larder.
* ''[[Dark Cloud]] 2'' fills several levels of its sewer with them.
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** There's also "Big Bad Blag" which is a giant, fat anthropomorphic rat even larger than the toads themselves.
* ''[[Duke Nukem Forever]]'' has regular-sized rats attacking Duke... after he's been hit by the effects of a [[Incredible Shrinking Man|shrinking device]]. Duke then quips "''Talk about your rodents of unusual size!''"
* ''[[NetHack]]'' has giant rats and rabid rats are common early-game enemies, and ROUS are one of the many hallucinatory monsters. Many variants such as ''[[UnNetHack]]'' and ''[[EvilHack]]'' include the enormous rat and actual ROUS as stronger variants, while ''[[SpliceHack]]'' also includes humanoid rats.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Giant mutant rodents are the signature creation of ''[[Narbonic]]'''s Helen Narbon. Of course, Helen being a young girl at heart, they happen to be giant mutant ''gerbils''.
* The trope name is evoked in the title of an ''[[8-Bit Theater|Eight Bit Theater]]'' [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2005/07/12/episode-575-rats-of-unusual-size/ episode] which discusses dire rats... but the resulting rodent isn't one, just an [[Ax Crazy]] dwarf disguised to chase for it.
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* In ''Yamara'', Tim the paladin is turned into a vampire, but messes up his first attempt to turn into a bat, becoming a giant flying squirrel instead.
== [[Web Original]] ==
* Actually older than [[Web Original]], as it goes back to Usenet,
▲* Actually older than [[Web Original]], as it goes back to Usenet, the [http://cgi.cs.indiana.edu/~oracle/ Internet Oracle] has as his arch enemy Woodchucks. The reason is the infamous Woodchuck question he is constantly asked, "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?". Some of his enemy woodchucks were rather large. After ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]'' came out, they were given the official name of "R.O.U.S.".
* Squirrels are one of the eight [[Insistent Terminology|sentient (i.e., humanoid)]] species in [[Tasakeru]]. They're the only rodent species among sentientkind; the others are canines (wolves and foxes), mustelids (badgers, ferrets, raccoons, and skunks), and lepines (rabbits).
* [http://www.kongregate.com/games/nerdook/monster-slayers Monster Slayers] features these as one of the enemies.
* [[Kizzsprite]] is a chinchilla, resurrected as a kernelsprite. Of course, much weird plot shit surrounds him. We probably shouldn't get any further than that.
* Splinter from ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' is a pet rat who was mutated into a four foot rat-man - or, in the 1987 series, a human mutated into a four-foot sewer rat.▼
▲== Western Animation ==
* [[Classic Disney Shorts|Mickey Mouse]] is a three foot tall mouse. Good thing he's not dangerous. [[Kingdom Hearts|Well,]] [[Epic Mickey|usually]].▼
▲* Splinter from ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' is a pet rat who was mutated into a four foot rat-man.
▲* [[Classic Disney Shorts|Mickey Mouse]] is a three foot tall mouse. Good thing he's not dangerous. [[Kingdom Hearts|Well,]] [[Epic Mickey|usually]]
** [[Robin Williams]] jokes that his son was traumatized by the actor playing Mickey Mouse at [[Disney Theme Parks|Disneyland]].
* Rattrap, of ''[[Transformers]]: [[Beast Wars]]'' and ''[[Beast Machines]]'', transforms into a giant rat, a choice influenced by [[Transformation Conventions]]. While not the genuine article, his personality is such that he might as well be, and he certainly seems to think of himself as one.
{{quote|Rat...robot. Rat...robot. I'm a robot ''and'' a rat! Yeah, I ''like'' it!}}
** The quote above was said immediately after all the Maximals had a breakthrough of sorts resulting in the merging of their Transformer and animal psyches. Just saying.
* ''[[Biker Mice From Mars]]''.▼
▲** Also overabundance of giant rats is apparently why Mung [[Idiot Ball|keeps poison in the spice cabinet]].
▲* [[Biker Mice From Mars]].
* [[Looney Tunes|Bugs Bunny, Lola Bunny,]] [[Tiny Toon Adventures|Babs and Buster Bunny]] [[Running Gag|(no relation)]], [[Loonatics Unleashed|and Ace and Lexi Bunny]], all from Warner Brothers.
** Actually, these are Lagomorphs of Unusual Size, since Lagamoprha is a separate Order from Rodentia. However, this [[Taxonomic Term Confusion]] is not so much [[You Fail Biology Forever]] as [[Science Marches On]]; lagomorphs were considerd to be rodents until the early 1900s.
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* One episode of ''[[Cyberchase]]'' involved The Hacker using a giant hamster called a hamborg (which for some reason resembled a capybara) as part of his evil plan.
* In the ''[[Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner]]'' cartoon "Chariots of Fur", Wile E. tries to catch the Roadrunner with a giant mousetrap. Instead, he snags a giant mouse, who then turns the tables on him.
* ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'' has a [[Recurring Character]] named Charlie the Mouse - a humanoid, overweight rat-man with a bad attitude (and a [[Brooklyn Rage|Brooklyn accent]], no less) and an anchor tattoo on his arm who likes to eat rancid cheese. He's actually [[Dark Is Not Evil|a rather charitable guy who has helped Courage more than once]].
* In ''[[The Owl House]]'', ratworms are [[Mix-and-Match Critters| giant worms with the heads of rats]]. Residents of the Boiling Isles use them in equestrian competitions, and Eberwolf (the Beast Keeper Coven head) [[Horse of a Different Color| has one for a mount.]]
== [[Other Media]] ==
▲* The infamous "Moon Hoax", a series of articles in the 19th century New York ''Sun'', included fanciful accounts of giant civilized beavers living on the moon.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* The [[wikipedia:Capybara|capybara]], the [[wikipedia:Beaver|beaver]] and the [[wikipedia:Porcupine|porcupine]] (the three largest living rodents)
* A "rat king" is the name given to a group of rats whose tails are so mired in muck and filth that they are permanently stuck together. Just as horrifying today as it was back in the sixteenth century.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Index of Exact Trope Titles]]
[[Category:Bigger Is Better]]
[[Category:Rodent Tropes]]
[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]
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