Venues
Events
MediaLocal Culture
Walk Among Us
Dinosaurs come to life at Madison Square Garden from July 21-25
Photo: rocketrobbie, via Flickr
| | More
I can hear the Jurassic Park theme already.
From July 21-25, Madison Square Garden will host “Walking with Dinosaurs,” an arena spectacular based on the award-winning BBC series. But this won’t be a cheesy roadside attraction; renowned designers and scientists came together to create 17 life-size dinosaurs, including the forever terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex, who roar and walk as if they were the real things.
I’ve never known a person to not be fascinated with dinosaurs, and “Walking with Dinosaurs” is the closest we’ll ever get to experience life with the prehistoric beasts roaming the Earth, or at least on the same court as the New York Knicks. Tickets range from $35-$99, and to see a full performance schedule, please visit TheGarden.com.
Below is a guide of how TV has gone from The Flintstones to “Walking with Dinosaurs”:
But first, some history: In 1854, the first large-scale dinosaur reconstructions became accessible to the public. Thanks to Richard Owen, who coined the term “dinosaur,” the world was able to view the Crystal Palace sculptures in Crystal Palace, London. The models have since been proven to be inaccurate, but considering Owen pre-dated Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by six years, you’ve gotta give the man some credit.
The first animated movie dinosaur was 1914′s Gertie the Dinosaur. Forty six years later, the world would meet the Flintstones’ lovable pet, Dino. In the years between, there were very few friendly prehistoric creatures, so it was actually quite revolutionary to see a dinosaur acting like a dog, rather than ripping humans to shreds.
In 1974, both Land of the Lost and Valley of the Dinosaurs first aired, although only one has been made into an underwhelming Will Ferrell movie. Land was created by Sid and Marty Krofft and aired on NBC; Valley was a Hanna-Barbera production and a Saturday morning staple for CBS until 1976. Oddly, both have basically the same plot (family trapped in an alternate universe, which strongly resembles prehistoric times) and both had their first episode on September 7. See, people were running out of original ideas even in 1974.
Three years later, the Japanese/American hybrid The Last Dinosaur would air as a made-for-TV movie. Truth be told, I’ve never seen it, although I’m intrigued by the movie’s theme song, performed by Nancy Wilson…but not the Nancy Wilson you’re thinking of.
Not much happened for TV dinosaurs in the late-’70s and throughout the 1980s, so let’s skip to 1991′s Super Mario World. Similar to Dino, Yoshi is another of pop culture’s most beloved dinosaurs, and if not for this show, which only ran for 13 episodes, the world would never know The Yoshi Shuffle. In case you’re wondering, that’s bad.
It’s tough talking about Disney’s Dinosaurs. It’s one of those shows that I watched sporadically when I was younger (it began in 1991, when I was 4), and probably thought it was funny every time Baby Sinclair said, “I’m the baby, gotta love me.” I also vaguely remember seeing the final episode in 1994—but then I watched it again a few years ago. With all due respect to Six Feet Under, Dinosaurs has TV’s most depressing series finale. The father, Earl, literally causes the Ice Age and apologizes to the rest of the family for accidentally killing them. Watch it here, and get ready to cry.
Also in 1991: the one-and-only Reptar from Rugrats. All these years later, I’m still wondering what’s a dinosaur to do with kids on the ice?
The less said about Barney & Friends, which has been making parents want to smash their televisions since 1992, the better.
Before terrifying young children and adults in person, Walking with Dinosaurs was a 1999 six-part miniseries on the BBC (with narration by Kenneth Branagh!). It was a massive success and later won three Emmys after being rebroadcast by the Discovery Channel in 2000. Also, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Walking with Dinosaurs is the most expensive documentary series per minute ever. I’m as shocked as you are that the record doesn’t belong to something by Ken Burns.
Is it a rule that if something ends with -topia, it’s probably going to stink? See: Dinotopia, Fruitopia.
The Land Before Time is mainly known as a film series, which makes sense considering there are 13 of them. But in 2007, Canada’s YTV adapted the never ending tale of Littlefoot for a 26 episode season. After the release of the straight-to-DVD movie, The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers (I wish I was kidding), Cartoon Network aired the show in the U.S. Needless to say, it wasn’t a major hit and the producers of the series went back to making films with long titles.
One of the best episodes of 30 Rock‘s fourth season, “Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land” is more a spoof on adult films, rather than having anything to do with dinosaurs. Still, it’s really funny—and I couldn’t actually end this post on The Land Before Time.