Dinosauri

This show ran the gamut from really bad to really amazing. I for one never was a fan of the obnoxious baby (no, I don't gotta love you), but the rest of the characters were very well-done. Several episodes were hilariously spot-on.

Fran & Earl getting their marriage license renewed ("Earl, let's go upstairs and pretend it's Thursday" is a line I *still* quote to this day).

Robbie "coming out"...as a vegetarian. ("I can't be an herbivore! My dad's a carnivore, my mom's a carnivore..." "Well, it's not necessarily hereditary.").

Robbie's howling (featuring Robbie buying the "So You Want to Learn to Howl" 8-track).

The two-episode "Nuts to War" ("What happened to your eye?" "A pointed stick with my name on it." "Gee, what are the odds?").

And although the finale was extremely heavy-handed and depressing, I give them credit for doing a completely unexpected and serious one instead of the traditional "and they all lived happily ever after".

Best self-referential joke: Real watching sock puppets on TV. "Hey, Fran, you gotta see this. Sure, they're puppets, but they're really funny." To which Fran says, "Forget it - I'm not watching puppets." Probably the reason the show didn't make it.

Just like my favorite romance movie, the Princess Bride, or even Rocky and Bullwinkle for that matter, here's a show that's clearly written for two completely different audiences- the kids that love them, and the parents that watch with them. If you want the most cutting example of this, watch the Dinosaurs episode in which a Barney-like animal (a Hippo, if I remember right?)hosts a daytime TV kiddie show, but he's really a manipulative bad guy when the TV cameras are off. Throw in the French Resistance, complete with horrible Clouseau-like frrrrench accents, and, well, you get the idea. Absurdist humor at it's best. I guarantee you'll laugh at this one.

One other noteworthy episode is the last one- it appears that they knew that the show was cancelled, so they put together a parting shot; very different in tone from the rest of the series. Thank goodness this series FINALLY came out on DVD. Now I can throw all those videotapes away.

Watch this with your kids, if you have any. In the words of Baby dinosaur, "AGAIN!!!!!"

This show was fantastic, really funny with the baby being the funniest character, he was always hitting Earl Sinclair on the the head with a frying pan and saying "Not the Mamma". Its just a shame the cancelled it and you can't get the videos anymore.

The Dinosaurs is one of the rare gems which even today is definitely worth a watch. I even compare them to the Simpsons. Even though The Simpsons made fun of this show because superficially it looks like it. The themes this show handles might have been not the most current themes during the early 90s but if you watch it now you know that this show was way ahead of its time. With themes like vegetarism, homo sexuality, anti capitalism and more. And the last episode gives the anti capitalism theme a very dark tone. Only the picture quality, 4:3 ratio makes the show old but it really aged very very well thanks to the animatronics.

Dinosaurs is one of my all time favorite comedy shows. Especially the baby (I'm the baby, gotta love me!) is great! The best episode is the one in which the baby turns 2 years old and he becomes out of control. Earl and Fran call the babysitter and what follows is one of the best parodies I've ever seen along with Eekpocalypse Now from the Eek the Cat show (but you gotta have seen 'the Exorcist' for this one). 'The power of rice compels you!'

See it and see it again... and again... and again. (Even the re-runs are funny as hell!)