Cane Toads: An Unnatural History

Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, 1988 6/10, 13th best movie of 1988, 93rd best of the 80's, 613th best overall This was actually a pretty decent movie. Apparently back in the 30s there was a huge problem in Austrailia with some bugs that ate sugar cane. They brought in cane toads from Hawiaii to eat them. The cane toads didn't eat those bugs, but they did eat everything else. And they soon spread over much of eastern Austrailia. Anyway the movie discusses how the movie effects the nation of Australia and the people that inhabit it. It introduces many interesting characters and lets them share their stories of how the cane toads have effected their lives. Now let me be honest with you for a second. If I had sat down and watched a two hour movie about cane toads, I probably would have gotten very bored, and in turn given this movie a bad review. However, this movie is not 2 hours long, it's actually only about 45 minutes long. Just enough time to get you interested, keep you interested, and than end. Was I doing back flips in my chair because I was having so much fun watching this movie? No, but it was still interesting, informative, and overall, a pretty good movie.

"When you look at our imports, what we brought into Australia, this must have been a great country long before the white man came to the joint. We brought in foxes and hares and then to cap it all off, we bring this monstrous thing called a toad in."

Great footage of these fascinating creatures breeding and eating, informative, and another tale of mankind mucking around with the natural order of things without proper consideration, to disastrous effect. The hubris of believing in the simple fix prescribed by entomologist Raquel Dexter at a conference in Puerto Rico in 1932 to help the sugar cane industry, and the long-lasting consequences, are depressing to consider. It's also ironic that the cane beetle problem was not addressed in the slightest in this importation of a new species, and was later handled with pesticide. While it's interesting that many of the residents of Queensland view the toads as friends and live harmoniously with them (like Elvie Grieg, that elderly woman who feeds them and says that if anyone tried to hurt one around her, there "would be a lot of noise, and they would realize I wasn't a lady"), the clear-eyed views of others, pointing out that native species die off from the deadly toxins emitted by the toads, is sobering. As predicted, the situation has gotten worse in the 35 years since this film was made. This one packs a punch in its 49 minutes.

I ignored this title for years at my local whacked-out video emporium. When I finally broke down and rented Cane Toads, for the first thirty or forty minutes I watched politely as Mark Lewis unfolded his little story of toads, Australians, and Holdens of every year, color, and condition swerving to avoid/hit one of God's little jokes on the open road. I mean, it's OK, but why has this thing been in print for a decade and a half?

Then about 2/3 of the way through I got the giggles. This is DESPERATELY messed up. If you hang out with any biology majors, Cane Toads is absolutely required reading. If you don't, just think how wrecked you'd have to stay on Foster's before you'd let your terminally cute four-year-daughter play Barbies with a creature from Hell itself that comes pre-loaded with 10cc of hallucinogenic toxins in its skin.

Cane Toads is what Fast, Cheap and Out of Control should have been. Proof that sometimes it's a lot more effective to speak quietly than yell.

"Cane Toads: An Unnatural History" still ranks as one of the funniest movies I've seen. Don't get me wrong: in Australia's tropical North, cane toads themselves are no laughing matter, especially among despairing conservationists. This short film stands as a memorial to human folly in importing the beast from Hawaii in the first place to deal with a sugarcane beetle which in the event it had zero impact on, preferring to lay waste to the local fauna instead. It is also a monument to human eccentricity - less about the despised, amazingly opportunistic cane toad than the reactions it has inspired among the human populace. I still treasure the memory of the local resident who wanted his town council to erect a memorial to the outstandingly ugly amphibian in the main street - presumably on the grounds that nobody could think of anything else worth memorialising there. (Inexplicably, his visionary proposal received scant support.) Overseas viewers may not appreciate that to other Australians, the movie's eccentric cast of characters came as no great surprise. North Queenslanders actually take some pride in being a little different. I'd like to think that the lesson has been learned, but the news that ravenous 400-lb carp are being released into a Texan lake in order to deal with a water weed infestation gives me no confidence.

Woah, population explosion of giant poison toads invades Austrailia! No, it's not a late-night 70's B sci-fi, it's real life eco-bizarrity complete with mad scientist wielding a v.w. bus. This is perhaps the funniest piece of celluloid ever to give you the shivers about the seemingly limitless expanse of human stupidity. It traces the history of the cane toad in Australia from the seemingly innocent introduction of forty individuals into an eastern pond to the hopping copulating frenzy that now covers something like a third of the country. This movie gives you the works; their life cycle complete with in depth look at their, shall we say, unique sex lives, a magnetically grotesque interview involving doll clothes, and charming soundtrack integrating late-night 70's B movie effects with bouncy bluegrass. (An extra treat for all you Crowed House fans will be Neil and Tim Finn's piece sung from the point of view of the great cane toad himself.) Some people keep them as pets, put out bowls of catfood, and toad-watch for pleasure, others hate them with a white hot rage. Hear the facts, see the toads, and decide which side of the fence is for you. Either way, nicely paced, scientifically interesting, and well shot; Cane Toads is a feindishly hilarious black comedy of documentary, sure to please.