World of Giants

For years, I remembered my father and I watching episodes of this series when I was very young. The main titles opened on a blotchy gray and white screen when suddenly something rapidly came out of the distance, and then shattered across the screen. At this point you realized that your POV was looking up and a glass vessel filled with water had fallen down and broken over a sheet of glass. The words:"World of Giants" one at a time, appeared on the screen accompanied by a voiceover saying each word out loud as it appeared. Marshall Thompson was a six inch tall man that apparently took on special jobs for the government, when a full sized man couldn't do the job. Thompson lived in the home of a full sized couple. Their job was to be liaison between the government and Thompson, and also to keep his existance a secret and provide him with a safe place to live between missions. Thompson lived in an appropriately small single story house that existed behind a painting in the couple's home. The painting was hinged at the bottom edge and could fold down to form a shelf, and Thompson's house would slide out of the wall and rest on the back of the painting/shelf. He could then interact with his full sized friends and learn about his next mission. I don't remember much about any specific missions that Thompson went on, but I recall once when a villian discovered Thompson's home and by reaching inside the tiny house, tried to grab Thompson. I seem to remember very convincing effects scenes of the giant hand upsetting furniture and even the bathtub inside Thompson's doll-sized house before the evil doer was waylaid by Thompson's full-sized compatriots. That is about all I remembered about the show. As a teenager, I tried to find referance to this show in any publication on TV or science fiction, but with no luck. I was sure that I remembered the series' title, "World of Giants" and I was also pretty sure that Marshall Thompson, whom I was very familiar with from his later show "Daktari", was the star. I asked my father about the show but he thought I was talking about Irwin Allen's "Land of the Giants", and he proved to have absolutely no recollection of "World of Giants". Over the years I talked to many people interested in science fiction films and TV but not once did I find anyone who remembered this show. Finally in a book called "Fantastic Television", I discovered a single paragraph that mentioned the show. Finally, I knew I had not imagined it, it had existed, and better yet, I had been correct in my memory of the show's title and star! Rather impressive considering I had been about five years old when I had seen the show. To this day, I have never been able to locate any episodes of "World of Giants" either in rerun, video, or DVD. Outside of the "Fantastic Television" book and this very website, I still have never found another person who remembers "World of Giants!" Mike Walters

World of Giants.

The scenes which are most vivid for me are the ones in which Arthur Franz carried Marshall Thompson around in a briefcase. Thompson was seated in a little chair inside the case. I remember thinking at the time that was a pretty cool set-up. Thompson could then hop out of the briefcase and do his espionage type work and hop back in before Franz returned to pick him (and the briefcase) up.

Seems that most of the plots had something to do with spying on the deadly red menace (although it was never named as such). But then, this program followed the all-too-real Red Scare of the fifties.

Yeah, Mike, I remember this one. However, I have never seen reference to this show in any form, except here at IMDb. Looks like at least two people saw this show.

I do remember this series. Mel traveled in a briefcase with a special chair (and later a door built into the same briefcase so he could come and go without the case being left open). I also remember his house being hidden behind a painting in the wall. I can also recall the episode where the villain attacked Mel in his house....I seem to remember that this particular story ends with Mel insisting that his fellow cast exercise as part of a fitness program. Sorry if this seems fragmented; I'm writing as I recall a series shown when I was 7 years old.

Thanks...I hope we can someday unearth this short lived (but really interesting) series.

In Chicago, I remember this show when I was very young, but I don't remember the station. I think they had a triple after school sci-fi marathon. One show was The Invisible Man, then this show WOG, which I only remember as "The Little Man", and Science Fiction theater. CBS and ABC also had after school movies, which were often horror or sci-fi flicks. I can't remember if this triple marathon came after one of those movies or were on a different channel. Does anyone else remember this?

As far as WOG, I remember the doll-like house, and his getting chased by a cat or dog?

I really hope they release all the episodes on DVD, if possible. It would also be great if they made a mini series, if they could maintain the great quality of writing and acting of the original.

From a child's point of view, I loved this show. I have very few memories of the actual episodes but instead, like other reviewers, have little memory flashes of individual scenes. I recall one of the opening credit scenes being an iron falling off of an ironing board. I too recall the falling pitcher of water. If I am not mistaken, the chair that Mel Hunter sat in when he was carried to his mission inside a briefcase was actually a jet fighter seat. If anyone questioned his partner on why there was this seat in the briefcase, the cover story was that he was a military contractor and this seat was a sample display of his company's product. I recall an episode where Mel was under a roulette table that was wired to cheat people out of their money. He took a piece of metal (a paper clip, I think) and shorted out a wire in order to foil the criminals. There was another episode where he was outside in the bushes and in order to signal his full sized partner he used a bottle cap to reflect the sunlight into his partner's eyes. Ha, that's all I have!! 2 memories. I thought I had a third, but because of the other comments, I now feel I was mistaken. I had remembered that he lived inside a record player, not behind a painting. When the lid of the record player was lifted, the view looking down was of an entire apartment without a ceiling. I have a feeling that I am mixing up memories of reenacting story lines with my toy soldiers with the actual show itself.