Professor Nutty Fruitcake, living alone in his secluded mountain observatory, has taken to a unique hobby: growing giant fruits and vegetables. When the novelty of giant watermelons and tangerines wears thin, the Professortakes to breeding giant animals – in particular, giant snails. Snails, he reasoned, always seemed such placid creatures. And so they were…until they grew to be giants! Exactly one million mammoth snails – count ‘em – one million spawned from the bed of eggs in Professor Fruitcake’s oversized incubator! En masse, they crawled from their overcrowded mountaintop and surged toward the helpless cities below! Army, Navy, Marines – all were powerless to stop the onslaught. One boy, one little robot boy, armed with nothing more than a bag full of chemicals, finally succeeded where all others failed. The robot boy, of course, was Astro Boy. The bag of chemicals that stopped the fresh-water snails in their tracks was NaCI. Salt! Common table salt.