there is no way I would try installing it again because of the HUGE number of other modules it brought in.

If this (the total number of dependencies) is important to you, then you might find it useful in future cases to look at deps.cpantesters.org where you can see the full dependency tree of any module. You can then judge whether the installation would be worth the effort.

asking me EVERY SINGLE TIME it found yet another dependency it thought it needed to install. Absolutely ridiculous!

Of course whichever utility you have used to perform the installation will have an option to automatically install all the dependencies without asking this question every time. Since you have not said which utility you used, I cannot advise you further. If you consult the documentation (even the usage message) for that utility it should be clear enough which option to use.