Ron Kantowski describes the uproar that ensues when preschoolers meet Bigfoot Monster truck’s bluster trumps nap time

Thursday, Sept. 20, 2007 | 7:05 a.m.

If the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is ever adapted to the silver screen and updated in the manner of "Romeo and Juliet," I am convinced that Leonard DiCaprio will lure the children from their homes by driving a monster truck through the village square.

It was a few minutes past 10 Tuesday morning when I pulled into the parking lot of the Kiddie Academy of Henderson and greatly disappointed about 160 preschoolers who were eagerly awaiting Bigfoot, the granddaddy of monster trucks (sorry, Grave Digger), which will be running over and smashing stuff at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Friday night.

"Are you the monster truck man?" one doe-eyed tyke asked after spotting my tie and confusing me for Ralph Kramden or some other grown-up who might drive a big rig.

No, I told him. I drive a Monster Gnat. I started to tell the little guy that my Chevy S-10 wouldn't amount to a blister on Bigfoot's little toe. But by then he seemed more interested in his own little toe, which didn't quite fit into his miniature sandals.

"I think I hear something," said Jennifer Somers, the director of the Kiddie Academy, who speaks softly and carries a big Kleenex.

"No," I told her. "That was just a CAT bus belching some serious diesel fumes."

I helped myself to one of Somers' business cards. Under the Kiddie Academy logo a catchphrase read : "Where Little People Do Big Things."

It was then that Bigfoot, its driver, Dan Runte, and a phalanx of mechanics who shine its chrome and feed it when it's hungry rolled into the Kiddie Academy on the back of a flat bed trailer.

Somers' business card wasn't kidding.

Even with its engine silent, the hulking Bigfoot looks like an erector set experiment gone awry on steroids. But that didn't discourage the day-care kids from putting down their little boxes of Juicy Juice in mid-sip and rushing outside to greet the motorized behemoth.

"No naps today," Somers said as Runte fired Bigfoot's 572 cubic-inch Ford engine, which, if you've never heard it, is sort of like waking up to a Ted Nugent album with the speakers cranked to 11.

"The monster truck is awesome!" cried one of the 4-year-olds, jumping up and down as if Harry Potter had just arrived with a Halloween-size sack of Snickers bars.

"Why are the wheels so big?" asked another moppet who was wearing a Dodgers cap that fit him like a soup bowl.

"Because it's a monster truck, silly," said the precocious buttercup standing alongside.

Of the 160 kids who received an autographed picture, only two seemed less than thrilled to shake Bigfoot's enormous rubber paw.

"The monster truck scared-ed me," said one frightened lad , who broke into tears when Bigfoot's 1,500 ponies began to whinny.

Later, one of the smallest kids, who looked like he could have been spit out of Bigfoot's exhaust pipe, looked over his autographed picture and, apparently confusing it with a Fruit Roll-Up, tried to eat it.

By the time Runte had signed Bigfoot's name to 160 publicity cards, roughly half of which, I estimated, would actually make it home with that day's crayon drawing, I had been hanging out with the Juicy Juicers for nearly an hour. So I asked a question that made much less sense than the one about Bigfoot's tires.

"If Bigfoot ever met the real Bigfoot in the Oregon woods, what would happen?" I said with a face as straight as a ruler.

"We'd run out of gas and he would probably keep going," said Runte, who before becoming the Pied Piper grew up on a farm in Freeport, Ill. Anticipating my follow-up question, he said, yes, Bigfoot also would make a pretty cool plow but would probably run out of fuel before you could plant the soybeans.

Runte's teammate on the monster truck circuit is Madusa Miceli, who, before she catapulted behind the wheel, was a famous professional wrestler who also "managed" stalwarts such as Ravishing Rick Rude and Macho Man Randy Savage.

"What are you going to do for your next adrenaline rush?" I asked the still vivacious blonde. "Fly the space shuttle?"

"No," she said as she wistfully patted one Kiddie Academy tyke after another on top of his head. "I think my next challenge should be becoming a mother."

But then the calm of what had been an idyllic Las Vegas morning was shattered - along with Madusa's sugar plum visions of motherhood - as Runte put his big foot on Bigfoot's gas pedal and the day-care kids reinserted fingers into ear canals.

No naps today is right.