Citizen-Spy

64 The Irrelevant Expert
Life in World of Giants was a terrifying business; falling pencils and enraged cats were among the
everyday perils faced by Mel Hunter.
Red Scare programs while simultaneously foreshadowing the self-conscious
humor that marked the spy shows of the 1960s. Not quite a reverential civics
lesson, but still not quite a parody, World of Giants is awkwardly suspended
between.
World of Giants chronicles the exploits of an unlikely pair of government
agents. Agents Bill Winters and Mel Hunter work for “the Bureau,” a CIA-like
organization responsible for both domestic and international espionage. But,
as Mel tells us in an opening credit voiceover, we “are about to see one of the
most closely guarded secrets and fantastic series of events ever recorded in the
annals of counter-espionage. This is my story, the story of Mel Hunter, who
lives in your world: a World of Giants!” When on a mission behind the Iron
Curtain, Mel was exposed to a rocket-fuel explosion that inexplicably shrank
him to six inches tall. As a result, Mel is under constant threat from his surroundings,
but according to his doctors he has also been endowed with reflexes
“somewhere between a hummingbird and a mongoose.” The show literalizes
1950s Cold War anxieties about masculine frailty, and each episode sets about
proving that even a “belittled” agent like Mel is vital to state security.