Cereal news

I should mention that an interesting GG related factoid emerged just recently during the Great Tobacco Jihad and Trials now going on in the U.S. Apparently, during the promotion phase of Giant for a Day, Derek offered RJR/Nabisco the rights to the Giant-head Logo to help introduce a new cereal. It was to be a varitation of that mouth-hurting favorite Cap'n Crunch: Cap'n Crunch with Shulberries. Unfortunately, the executives of the company all thought that "shulberries" sounded like a hygiene problem and the whole thing was dropped!

- Dick Dammit

Further products

Hail y'all! I was intrigued by the recent discovery of the files disclosing Derek's attempt to tie-in Cap'n Crunch with the band. I dug a little deeper in various web-sites and found that Cap'n Crunch w/ Shulberries was only the beginning of Derek's attempts at the time of Giant for a Day to score some "synergy". In fact my list of proposed GG related merchandise just keeps on growing! Among my finds are the following concepts all of which made it to various stages of the "Focus Group" process before ultimately being rejected:

1) Free Hand Bathroom Tissue "the giant roll thats oh! soooo gentle on the skin."

2) PLAYING! - the game. A board game with plastic musical instrument pieces. From what I can figure out, it seems the goal was to get out from "backstage" and arrive safely "ON-stage". Various roadies and A&R men interfere.

3) Pugwash - An acne-fighting facial rinse.

There are undoubtedly more! Each shepherded before various panels of "average citizens" and all failing for pretty much the same reason: As Derek put it at the the time "they all display an almost willful insistence on equating Gentle Giant with some bloody-stupid dancing bear or other on American telly!"

One account even has Derek losing all patience and yelling at one group "I wonder if we might all TRY a little harder, hmmm?!" Eventually the band was forced to forgo all dreams of a product tie-in and settled for a product tie-ON instead. Hence the "Giant mask" on the detergent box styled cover of Giant for a Day. However...the damage was done. Derek is reported to have vowed to "find a band with some TINY possibility of profiting from [his] efforts!" The rest is history.

- Dick Dammit