Cliché Corner Special Edition   

Honey, I Blew Up the Gorilla

"Texas Instruments remains the 500-pound gorilla of calculator manufacturers..."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Pear-shaped, balding, superstitious about his success yet widely feared inside a certain circular tower at Hollywood and Vine, [Garth] Brooks is the music business' own 600-pound gorilla."
Los Angeles' Daily News

" '[T]here's always concern about the 700-pound gorilla, which is Dane County,' she said."
Wisconsin State Journal

"That is not to say [other studios are] avoiding competing with 20th Century Fox's 'Phantom Menace,' but certainly all have had to take the weighty presence of this summer's 800-pound gorilla into account."
San Francisco Chronicle

"Big-time receiving talent has been the Aggies' 900-pound gorilla. It's weighed them down in the biggest games."
Houston Chronicle

" '[L]ook at the Aetnas, the Cignas, and now the Anthems. We are no longer the 1,000-pound gorilla.' "
Maine's Portland Press Herald

"In Europe, Bertelsmann has vigorously joined with America Online, the 1,100-pound gorilla of Internet services."
Baltimore Sun

"The Justice Department..is right to step forward in its role as the government's 1,200-pound gorilla to set things right."
Atlanta Journal and Constitution

" 'They are the 1,300-pound gorilla of the business, and anybody that's got an interest in anything to do with computers has got to look over their shoulder at [Microsoft], no matter what it is,' Kaplan said."
Los Angeles Times

"Turzanski..likened the discussions to being invited to chat with a '1,400-pound gorilla.' "
Philadelphia Inquirer

"The marina, of course, is the 1,500-pound gorilla living at the foot of this neighborhood of older brick and wood homes surrounded by flowers and well-kept lawns."
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"Despite the speculation--and Monday was a banner day for that--there's no reason for this 1,600-pound gorilla to pounce."
Hartford Courant

Compiled from searches of Lexis-Nexis' entire U.S. news database. The metaphorical gorilla of choice, by a heavy margin, weighs in at 800 pounds. An actual male gorilla weighs a scant 450 pounds, according to the Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Third Edition.