The Happy Critic DVD Review: Dinosaurs - The Complete 3rd and 4th Seasons
Posted by Ryan Latimer on 05.10.2007
So this is where "The Daily Show" writers once worked
“As I've noted before, nostalgia can be a dangerous thing, as shows that you previously thought were hilariously edgy and off-beat were actually just a bit ahead of their time. Whether that makes them an annoyance or a trailblazer these days is up to the viewer, I guess.”
-- Author Scott Keith, reading my mind
A funny thing happened to me last year, something that never begged explanation until now. I feel it is noteworthy. I promise to be blunt, and I swear it goes somewhere.
Last May I picked up the debut DVD set of one of my favorite childhood shows, Dinosaurs. Bearing an inner-child of nostalgia and being a Jim Henson fan, it was only natural that I add the 1st and 2nd season box set to my collection. To this day I have not finished watching the set. I bought it 12 months ago. For those wondering, I am not lazy, and I have not had better things to do with my spare time.
So, why is that? I’ve never really known. For months this thing has sat on my shelf (I’m looking at it now) and it has yet to be finished or become FYE store credit. This is very much unlike me. Consider the fact that I own ever season/volume of Alf, Garfield & Friends, Batman: The Animated Series, Fraggle Rock and The Muppet Show ever released. Family and children’s shows are enjoyable to me. I’m a big kid. Ask anyone. I own a Simpsons wall clock and an Alf plush doll. Joey from Full House has nothing on me. There is a reason why I agreed to review Dinosaurs - The Complete 3rd and 4th Seasons. I was the perfect loser to do so.
For those unaware, Dinosaurs was a live-action sitcom about a domesticated dinosaur family - played by giant puppets created by Henson Productions - in 60 million B.C. It was, shall we say, not your typical family sitcom, but then again, anything the Henson family wasn’t typical. Megalosaurus Earl Sinclair (Stuart Pankin) works as a tree-pusher for Wesayso Development Corporation run by the dastardly but admittedly entertaining Mr. Richfield (Sherman Hemsley). Get it? “We-Say-So.” It’s a corporation, and it’s evil. Also, no points for identifying oil company names. There is humor here, but it is subtle. Just dig a little.
Earl’s wife Fran (Jessica Walter) is a homemaker mom who raises the little dino kids, the rebellious teenage son Robbie (Jason Willinger); brat daughter Charlene (Sally Struthers); Fran's mother Ethyl (Florence Stanley), and last but certainly not least, Baby (Kevin Clash), the family’s pain-in-the-ever-loving-ass tyke and eventual catchphrase go-to character. Think Bart Simpson here. Those unfamiliar with the show may at least be familiar with the trademark “Not the Mama!” phrase that brought the show its first taste of notoriety. For full effect, imagine the sound of a frying pan smacking against Earl’s head following the line. Nothing yet? Perhaps “I’m the Baby, gotta love me!” If none of this is ringing any bells, consider yourself indifferent.
So one year later we are treated with the 2nd and final set of the show. With a fresh viewing of this new set, I now see why I’ve yet to finish the first box set on my own time, and why I likely won‘t anytime soon. The show, for all intents and purposes, isn’t very “good,” and it certainly hasn‘t aged well. No doubt there are horrified and insulted Henson fans readying their Outlook Express or Yahoo! accounts to unleash their disgust at me for stating such a thing. How could you, Mr. Latimer? You call yourself a reviewer? A child of 80s and 90s pop culture? A man who even remotely understands what the hell he is talking about? I wonder, actually. I really do. Some may simply brush off my comment with the standard “that’s your opinion, Jack” snipe. Well, indeed it is. It is my opinion -- it is my opinion that Dinosaurs was entertaining when I was 12. I’m not 12 anymore, I’m 25. And my name isn’t Jack.
The biggest problem with Dinosaurs is that it tries too hard; the writers don’t seem to have their priorities straight. Without delving into an full-blown college essay, the show’s primary objective often wasn’t to entertain but to, well, lecture. The creators have admitted more than once that this was the case. Consider one reviewer’s far-harsher take on the program, one I couldn‘t possibly top: “Watching Dinosaurs…it's apparent that this expensive production didn't improve with age. Not only is the humor forced and crude, but the so-called irony of its political and social commentary is cheap and easy -- and decidedly one-sided.” Wait, it gets better. “If you think I'm being too hard on the show, well...I am. If an entertainment show aimed primarily at kids wants to sneak in a political agenda, then that agenda – and its hypocrisies - are fair game for review.” Reading this, I managed to come to three conclusions: 1) As an adult, Dinosaurs isn’t the spectacular groundbreaker my little mind once thought it was in the early 90s; 2) As the episode number ascends, the overall interest in the program descends, causing a huge problem for the second set; and 3) Henson’s crew vote Democrat, so there’s no excuse for them to be unfunny. Ask Jon Stewart or any Saturday Night Live sketch writer.
True, Dinosaurs was significantly political - far more liberal in nature than otherwise - but this isn’t why the show doesn’t hold up after a handful of episodes, the very problem I found myself with. The show fails to hold up because once the appeal of the impressive sets and Henson's creations wear off, you’re left only with nostalgia and valuable life lessons of saving the planet (a number of episodes), immigration (“Green Card”), repressive governments and political correctness (“Baby Talk”) or discovering the ills of religion (“The Greatest Story Ever Sold“). Wonderful, but once nostalgia wears off, you realize the sad truth: the show isn’t often funny, it’s unique, and unique only doesn’t necessarily mean entertaining, much less worth buying a $40 DVD set. You may, however, find yourself planting more trees and questioning Republican authority more in your spare time, and considering the current politcal climate, that's priceless.
During the tail end of the show’s run, there were apparently a number of episodes that went unaired, with the fourth and final season bearing a mere 7 episodes (all other seasons had triple this number). I was unaware of this until now, but it certainly puts things into perspective, not to mention provides an appropriate metaphor for the DVD set that helpfully included the lost eps: they weren’t good enough to air on TV, but here they are now, right next to the ones that apparently were. I intended on finishing this set along with the review, but alas, the lure of FYE store credit was too great.
The episodes included are as follows:
Season 3
- Nature Calls
- Baby Talk
- Network Genius
- The Discovery
- Little Boy Boo
- Germ Warfare
- Hungry for Love
- License to Parent
- Charlene’s Flat World
- Wilderness Weekend
- The Son Also Rises
- Getting to Know You
- Green Card
- Out of the Frying Pan
- Steroids to Heaven
- Honey, I Miss the Kids
- Swamp Music
- Dirty Dancing
- If I Were a Tree
- We Are Not Alone
- Charlene and Her Amazing Humans
- The Clip Show II
Season 4
- Monster Under the Bed
- Earl, Don’t Be a Hero
- The Greatest Story Ever Sold
- Driving Miss Ethyl
- Earl’s Big Jackpot
- Terrible Twos
- Changing Nature
Unaired
- Scent of a Reptile
- Earl and Pearl
- Life in the Fast Lane
- Variations on a Theme Park
- Working Girl
- Into the Woods
- Georgie Must Die
5.0
The Video
Crisp and clean transfer, about as good as I remember it when it initially aired. Digitally Remastered full-screen presentation.
8.0
The Audio
See above. Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Sound. Closed caption option.
7.0
The Extras
Similar to the first set, the extras serving here is enough to moderately satisfy. I’m the Baby Gotta Love Me! is a quick 5-minute focus on the character of the baby, and if you ever wanted to know what the voice behind the little high-pitched brat looks and sounds like, there you go. A lot of people are unaware that Kevin Clash is also the voice of Elmo from Sesame Street and is in fact a black man looking more the part of a football linesman than a puppeteer, but you know what they say about assuming.
The second featurette, Creatures with a Cause, details the aforementioned political nature of the show and why and how it went about it. Particularly amusing is an admission from Brian Henson that the creative staff was primarily composed of “lefty writers,” so they promoted liberal causes such as environmentalism whenever they could and really tried to hammer the point home. What is so funny about Henson’s statement was that it came seconds after one staff member claimed that they show “took on all political sides,” which anyone who understood the show even in the slightest knew that was probably a bunch of crap. Hey, I’m not dumping on liberal agendas (I adhere to my share), but the notion that this show was a perfect mixture of ideological points of view is perhaps stretching it. I could of course be wrong, and I usually am.
Rounding it out is audio commentary on two episodes, “Nature Calls” and “Into the Woods,” and even with Henson and Company taking part it would be considered beyond kind to cite it as even remotely necessary. “Into the Woods” makes my point completely when the entire crew goofs off for half of the 22 minutes, and at one point a crew member half-jokingly suggests that everyone be quiet so they can just watch the episode, and if anyone isn’t interested in the commentary they can just turn it off. Honesty is greatly appreciated, thank you. You know what? I changed my mind. The extras are not very good. But they do contain all the unaired episodes, so it gets a bonus point.
5.0
The 411: Not needed. The casual fans already have their fix in the first set also loaded with episodes, and only dedicated Henson and Dinosaurs fans get a recommendation to pick it up if the price is right. Caution: Republicans need not apply.
