Dinosaurs! A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time (1987)
- J. Karson Key
- Jun 11, 2015
- 10 min read
“Give me a Mesozoic Mind, Bring me away from all mankind. You can keep your Cenozoic. I’ll take the Mesozoic.”
When one takes an award-winning claymation film by noted director and animator Will Vinton, mixes in pre-Wonder Years Fred Savage, and finishes it off with a dinosaur-themed rock anthem from obscure Atlanta-based band, Charmer—the very foundation of pop culture in 1987 was put on notice. Well, the good folks at Golden Book Video had hoped so, at least—and who could blame them? In the mid 1980’s, dinosaurs were hot—and Dinosaurs! A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time was positioned to capitalize on this trend in consumerism as it blended entertainment and education aimed at the ten and under audience. When looking back at this now quasi-iconic thirty minutes that graced every elementary school science class through the early parts of the following decade, it can be challenging to pick apart the timeless artistic touches from the dated elements. Though, it could be argued that the real beauty of this piece is just that—you can watch it thirty years later and ignore the scientific missteps and misrepresentation; and you can get entirely lost in a “fun-filled trip back in time”.
The viewer enters the world of Dinosaurs! with graphics and a backdrop (splatter paint, anyone?) befitting the times—and serenaded by a soothing Berlin-esque melody. This can only lead to good things, my friends. As you pan around what is quickly identifiable as a child’s room, you can’t help but notice the pantheon of prehistoric toys—and some not-so-subtle foreshadowing courtesy of a few claymation-like dinosaur figures. The camera focuses on our befuddled protagonist—Phillip—portrayed by 11-year old child star, Fred Savage. Phillip sums up his quagmire with the simple line – “Science projects—who needs ‘em?” Oh, Phillip. So our lead boy is having a really difficult time coming up with a topic for science class report. I mean, it’s not like your room is decorated in dinosaurs, your bedspread is covered in dinosaurs, and you’re wearing dino pajamas—where o’ where is inspiration when you need it? Phil could really use him some Winnie Cooper right about now. Granted, Phil does have his taskmaster of a mom yelling at him through the door to turn down his music and go to bed—so I guess we can cut him a little slack. What type of mom doesn’t want her son to complete his science project? At this point, you are probably starting to compare her to the upper echelon of fictional villains—somewhere in between HAL and that lawyer from Jurassic Park. Naturally, Phillip’s journey begins for the much sought-after answers in a smoke-filled existential dream sequence set inside a classroom cursed with endless blank paper emanating from a three-ring binder. Our hero awakens from this nightmare—jolted by the realization that he is probably going to flunk science. His totalitarian mother continues to badger him about the decibel level of his music, presumably from her sinister lair somewhere outside his bedroom door—but her protesting is quickly forgotten as the scene bleeds seamlessly into one of most memorable moments of dinosaur-related pop culture.
The true gem of Dinosaurs! is the Charmer-fronted rock song, Mesozoic Mind. The tune is more than an earworm of epic proportions—it serves as a plot accelerator. It informs us as to what exactly happened to Phillip after he escaped his subconscious imprisonment in the sleep-induced classroom of doom. I’m not complaining because, after all, who needs live action story advancement when you have an animated four-piece rock band featuring a Tyrannosaurus lead guitarist and vocalist, a pink Triceratops tickling the ivories, a cool-looking Parasaurolophus on bass, and an unidentifiable theropod on the drums—and providing the harmonies with our tricera-chick? We learn that Phillip fell out of the bed at some point in the night—but managed to miss the floor entirely and slip through time itself. Don’t you hate it when that happens? The song is beyond memorable—catchy and very much of its time musically. The juvenile-focused animation doesn’t necessarily jive with the lyrics; age groups that would respond positively to the artwork probably aren’t confident in their mastery of terms like Cenozoic or Corythosaurus. I truly feel, however, that the creators viewed this perceived disjointedness as an opportunity to ask the more pertinent question—why can’t they be comfortable with this level of knowledge? “Mesozoic Mind” was challenging the youth of the 1980’s to be able to do more than just regurgitate the names of four of five popular dinosaurs; kudos to them.
However, one complaint—strike that, the only complaint—that I have with Mesozoic Mind, is in regards to their rapid fire dino descriptions that make up a large part of the diddy. These errors aren’t due to the advancements in paleontology post-release—they are just misfires caused by sloppy research. The most glaring occurs when it depicts “monsters fill[ing] the seas”—yet, the dinosaurs in the scene are land-bound lizard-hipped theropods. Inexplicably, they also showcase what appears to be an Edaphosaurus—which isn’t a dinosaur (I guess it’s still a “monster”) nor is it from the Mesozoic Era (Paleozoic, baby!). The Edaphosaurus isn’t the only non-dinosaur in the song. Pterosaurs (condensed down in the song to the fictional singular species “Pterosaur”) were not dinosaurs either since they fall outside of the taxonomical groups of Saurischia or Ornithischia. Also, apparently hordes of Allosauruses liked to chase Corythosauruses across the prehistoric landscape. But, my guess is that Mr. Corythosaurus in the song was less scared of the Allosaurus’ saw-like teeth than it was of the fact that the Jurassic Period hunter died out seventy-five million years before the existence of the large Cretaceous hadrosaur. That can be quite unnerving—even to a three-ton, thirty-foot long duck-billed behemoth. But, at the end of the day, even the most buttoned-up paleontologist can’t discredit the toe-tapping rhythmic genius that is Mesozoic Mind.
Upon the song’s conclusion, we are whisked back to Phillip’s room and he rejoices that his search has come to an end—his report will be on dinosaurs! Seriously, who saw that coming? The camera then focuses on some dinosaur toys to hammer home the point—as well a fish tank-dwelling sea monster and a 1985 Imperial Godzilla plastic toy. Close enough. He then proclaims that “they will go crazy over it”—let’s tap the breaks there, Phil. Don’t get cocky. He then proceeds to go back to sleep—again. Enter some haunting music and we are in dreamland again. Phil is now in a creepy subterranean den—and he asks some pretty interesting questions such as “what were dinosaurs?” and “hello, any dinosaurs in here?” I know he fell through time and space but these are probably questions that he should know considering he is, you know, a dinosaur nut and all. Just saying. Oddly, his seemingly sophomoric questions are addressed by the sumptuous voice of veteran actress Josette DiCarlo (Star Trek: Enterprise, ER). She explains to him that dinosaurs are all around him—even under his nose. Phil doesn’t understand. Then the omniscient god-woman inexplicably tries to kill him by collapsing the cave. Maybe there is a deeper point being made here—but it’s lost on me—I just think Phil is annoying her with his whining. He is forced into a mysterious dark room with a single Greek column propping up a rock and some paleontological tools. The voice encourages him to “do some detective work” and he is very excited to learn that the rock contains a fossil. He then proclaims—“Wow! A fossil! But what’s this got to do with dinosaurs?”
Oh, Phil.
Josette then takes us on a 2D voyage across the rich tapestry that is the history of dinosaurs. Phil tries to derail her lovely narrative by suggesting that fossils helped explain Godzilla. Yes, Phil, in 1954, Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya were sitting around Toho Studios—completely ignorant of a hundred years of dinosaur discovery—and said, “let’s make a movie explaining what these rocks are all about!” You are officially killing me now, Phillip. The colorful stills are beautiful and striking—albeit, very dated with obsolete renderings of these gigantic beasts. The film returns to haunting background music as the camera navigates the dense foliage of a temperate Cretaceous forest. It bobs and weaves—narrowly missing motionless dinosaurs—until it finally focuses on a museum diaroma featuring a Tyrannosaurus standing over a fallen Triceratops. The image morphs into a postcard from the Milwaukee Public Museum—which Phillip glues into his report and claims yet again, “they are going to love it!” What did I tell you about being cocky, Phillip? I didn’t even see any construction paper or pipe cleaners.
We then see the outside of Phillip’s school—and that effectively ends our time with Fred Savage. However, the real magic is about to begin.
The foundation of Dinosaurs! A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time is the repackaging of the seven-year old (at the time) animation short, Dinosaur, by director Will Vinton. The 14-minute Dinosaur had already captured the coveted Gold Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival and the Gold Award and the Houston Film Festival in 1980. As silly and approachable as the inserted lead-in material is, Vinton’s claymation piece has truly survived the test of time—including regular showings at The Smithsonian and Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. The piece isn’t perfect—but it’s humorous, engaging, and ahead of its time (at least in the realm of children’s educational programs).
The short opens up close and personal with a classroom chalkboard. We hear Phillip’s voice—obviously different than the Fred Savage portrayal since it predates that footage by seven years—and his teacher lets us know that she asked him to give the report. As a viewer, we must look past this blatant continuity error—because, after all, it’s a show with claymation dinosaurs. Within seconds, you realize that the stars of the short are the peanut gallery commentators, Richard and Margaret. Richard makes dastardly claims about Margaret’s mother—and Margaret’s appearance; Margaret returns fire insulting Richard’s intelligence. The dialogue would have been flagged by every anti-bullying group in the country had this been made in the present time. Luckily, social media didn’t exist in 1980 and classroom shenanigans seemed to have a bigger place in mainstream comedy at that time.
The most compelling—and important—part of Vinton’s short is the direct discussion regarding the lizard/reptile/bird debate that some younger minds struggle to digest. When the film was made in 1980, the “dinosaur renaissance” wasn’t even two decades old—and radical changes regarding how the scientific community viewed dinosaurs were occurring at a rapid rate. John Ostrom and his legendary pupil, Robert Bakker, championed this seismic shift in how we viewed dinosaurs. Ostrom’s discovery of the Deinonychus antirrhopus in 1964 provided a nearly undisputable link between dinosaurs and birds—and, as of today, is almost universally accepted across the scientific community. Vinton did not resort back to the insulting “lizard” definition because kids could connect modern day lizards to the common renderings of dinosaurs with greater ease; he pushed the most recent theory of that time. He does mention that dinosaurs are, indeed, reptiles; this is true since the clade archosauria falls under the class reptilia—but he does not push further. To be fair, much of the common expansion of knowledge around archosauria did occur years after Vinton’s film. Some thirteen years before veteran New Zealand actor Sam Neil, under the guise of Dr. Alan Grant, brought the “birds as direct descendents of dinosaurs” debate to the masses, Dinosaurs! brings it to the kindergarteners of America (even though Richard swears that Margaret’s mother is the only link to the extinct beasts).
The film also address another point that typically poses some difficulty in adolescent brains—the lack of overlap between humans and dinosaurs. One of the classmates swears that dinosaurs ate people (“they’re just hanging out their mouths…they be kickin’ their legs and everything”) but it is simply addressed that there is a gap of at least sixty million years between our dinosaur friends and the earliest humans (we know it’s probably closer to sixty-five million—what’s a few million years amongst friends?).
The most publicized segment from the short is undoubtedly “Rex and Herb”. Rex, a Tyrannosaurus rex, and Herb (as in “herbivore”), a Styracosaurus, help the kids visualize that dinosaurs did not eat Sloppy Joes and Brussels sprouts. This fun romp transitions into a discussion about some of the largest sauropods. The section has a big swing and miss on the long-standing myth that certain dinosaurs had a second “helper” brain. If only Phillip would have had a “helper brain”. In addition, we know now that Brachiosaurus was not the largest dinosaur to have roamed prehistoric Earth; in 1980, though, it was an honest mistake—so we give Vinton a pass. The world had not yet been introduced to the massive Argentinosaurus or the titanic Turiasaurus or the ground-shaking Sauroposeidon. Before the film enters its claymation-heavy climax, Phillip reviews popular extinction theories of the time. He skirts around the prevailing notion of meteor impact being the catalyst for the K-Pg mass extinction; but does address the basic tenets of how severe climate shifts disrupted the food chain. There are a few outdated sidebars on cosmic rays and egg-eating mammals but they are easily dismissible in the interest of fun.
Of all of the thirty minutes of Dinosaurs! A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time, the concluding claymation sequence required the most artistic license—and that’s okay. Phillip introduces us to the “Jurassic Period”—inhabited by a hodge podge of dinosaurs spanning hundreds of millions of years; in fact, most of the beasts were Cretaceous in nature. The madness of the scene is coupled nicely with Phillip’s emotional rant; it’s a sight to see—we have a Triceratops head butting an Apatosaurus, a nod to the recently discovered (at the time) Supersaurus, potential legal action over a pine tree, a bespectacled Ankylosaurus, a Tyrannosaurus somehow picking off a flying Quetzcoatlus or Hatzegopteryx, and a passionate Phillip decreeing that “they were everywhere, man—those guys ruled the earth!” Yes, they were, Phillip…yes, they were. The Tyrannosaurus breaks the fourth wall and charges right at us—but we are saved from this interdimensional incursion by the simple wiping “on” of the chalkboard.
And Phillip thinks that “deserves a little respect.” I don’t disagree.
Our hero and educator closes the program by informing a classmate that the death of the dinosaurs opened the door to what would eventually become the rise of the mammals—and humankind. Which is good, no?
But, Phillip, to quote my favorite prehistoric rock group—“You can keep your Cenozoic.”
At the end of the day, Dinosaurs!, A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time delivers heaps of zaniness and goofiness with some pretty decent information. The inaccuracies are largely included in vignettes that are not masquerading as a lecture–which is nice; and the embrace of “newer” ideas of that time (birds as dinosaurs, for example) and focusing in on “Tier B” species such as Corythosaurus and Supersaurus are admirable. I was tempted to rate this 3 1/2 Public Domain Triceratops Heads, however, I started humming the tune to “Mesozoic Mind”–and I bumped it up. Sue me.
The Super Official “Of A Mesozoic Mind” Rating
(out of a possible 5 Public Domain Triceratops Heads)
Dinosaurs! A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube. If you want to locate a physical VHS copy, eBay is probably your best bet!
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