Wednesday, July 20, 2011

"And then I said I can't because my Dino's saur. Ha!"

Everybody at one time or another, has or even now, likes dinosaurs. Who doesn't? When I was a kid I went through my dinosaur phase as do most boys(and girls) around their young and impressionable years. Most grow out of it, while some others retain that love and either become Paleontologists, Archaeologists or some other dinosaur related career. I grew out of it myself, with the next big phase being all about insects. I was so into bugs(besides killing them of course) that if you'd have asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd probably have said an Entomologist. Well that didn't happen either, but you get what I mean.

My dinosaur phase was helped along by a few dinosaur related things that helped keep my interest in them during that time period.

Denver the Last Dinosaur: This short-lived cartoon from the late 80's was right up my alley, as a bunch of kids find....well here, I'll let the show synapsis tell what the basic premise of the show:

"A group of kids are playing in a construction site when they discover a giant egg. To their surprise, it hatches into a playful dinosaur, Denver. The kids do their best to hide him from the adults, have fun playing in a band, and sometimes even use pieces of Denver's magical egg shell to go back in time to the age of the dinosaurs."

Not too bad by 80's standards, but it only lasted one season from '88-'89. You can find this show on VHS or a DVD collection of you so choose.

Another dinosaur related concept that briefly hooked me was Dino-Riders by Tyco.

My neighbors had them, and I want them, but they wouldn't share and teased me about it. Jerks!
Basically these were humans with futuristic technology that used dinosaurs as living assualt vehicles. Kind of like a prehistoric GI Joe vs. Cobra type thing.
I never did get any dino-rider figures, but quickly grew disinterested with them anyway, so no big loss overall.

Finally, there was the Dinosaucers. What the hell's a dinosaucer you ask? The dinosaucers were basically the combination of dinoasaurs and aliens, kind of like the Transformers, but with dino's instead of robots.
They were broken into two groups; the good Dinosaucers, and the evil Tyrannos. You know, just like the Autobots and Decepticons. Except instead of the good guy leader having a cool name like Optimus Prime, this guy's name was Allo. The Bad guy's name was Genghis Rex, which isn't as cool sounding as Megatron, but still a lot better than Allo.


Like the Transformers, the Dinosaucers had alien technology and weapons since they were, you know, aliens and all. They also wore special suits that allowed them to morph or Dinovolve into whatever type of dinosaur they were, but could still talk and retain their intelligence.
Not a bad show overall, but this too didn't last very long as it also was cancelled after only one season('87-'88). There was supposed be a line of toys to come from the show, but those plans were scrapped when the show was, so no dice there.

So all in all, these weren't incredibly bad concepts, especially if you were into dinosaurs. But yeah, they haven't exactly stood the test of time either. Thank God for Wrestling, Superheroes, and the TNMT right?
I know I did.

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