IggyTheSmidge

Parents would find their baby child had been replaced by odd beings who were almost but not quite human.

However strange appearances aside it was their behaviour that marked them out - changelings were said to be either extremely badly behaved - constantly crying and prone to violence, or at the other end of the spectrum strangely docile, often mute and seemingly unable to comprehend anything about the human world they had been left in.

https://www.hypnogoria.com/folklore_changelings.html

Yep, totally a brand new thing that hasn’t appeared throughout human history.

I suspect that they were trying to reference the ‘bright young things’ of the 1920s. I doubt anyone at M&S even considered that:

(a) that reference wouldn’t be obvious to everyone, or

(b) what it may seem like without the context.

Toads are actually a subspecies of frog, so they’re technically correct - even if by accident.

It comes from bonehead, iirc - a boneheaded mistake.

I saw an early screening of that episode at a post-con event at a Star Trek pub in London.

When that scene came on a ripple of ‘FFS - really‽’ laughter went round the room, just because of how blatant it was.

That’s Fergus Wilson - frankly, I’d prefer the leech.

I had a hunch that the original image would be Nyarlathotep related, aaaand:

I think someone’s been feeding them Call of Cthulhu game module plots. I hope they do Beyond The Mountains of Madness next.

Clearly they used methane.

Crowds of farm labourers during flood season, all lined up just waiting for their turn to fart into the balloon.

England - never been a line. The only thing I’ve ever had to wait for is for the bod manning the polling station to find my name on the list and hand me a voting slip. In and out in a couple of minutes.

The problem with knowing any amount of history is that any time anything happens you’re just like:

‘Oh. This again’.

It’s somehow both tedious and horrifying.