Let's Watch "A&E's Dinosaur: The Tale of a Feather"

Get a drink for this one.

Being the final episode on a series-length dinosaur documentary is never a fun time.  Because this is The Extinction Episode -- mostly.

Because as the title "Tale of a Feather" suggests, it's also about the evolution of birds from POSSIBLY MAYBE the smallish theropod dinosaurs.  Remember, it's 1991 and this is still a pretty outrageous theory.  It's also surprisingly frustrating to watch because John Ostrom has been in this series and they never get to naming which specific group of smallish theropods gave rise to birds and ahh, you guys are so close ahh ahh!!!

But never mind that because my.  God.  The.  Ending. 😵😱😰

You're not ready for how this dinosaur documentary ends.  I sure wasn't.  Let's not keep you in suspense any longer.  Here it is:

@babbletrish

The finale of the ‘91 A&E Dinosaur series. It’s… special. ##dinosaur ##documentary ##Weird90s ##wtf ##waltercronkite ##Dinosauroid

♬ original sound - BabbleTrish

 

I reiterate: what?

The longer version isn't going to help at all but here it is anyway:

 

@babbletrish

The full ending of A&E’s Dinosaur, in case you wanted to see the full horror of Dinosaur TV.##dinosaur ##documentary ##Weird90s ##wtf ##Dinosauroid

♬ original sound - BabbleTrish

 

They really ended this with Bioparanoia / the climate and/or nuclear apocalypse is inevitable and Dinosauroids.  Completely devoid of context Dinosauroids yet!  Like we never get the usual, "here's a very weird theory this one guy has and here's the statue they made of it", we just get... this.  Whoever dreamed up this ending has Cortical folds the depth of the Marianas Trench, not least because they ended with "Somehow after humans destroy themselves the dinosaurs will take over" and thought the people watching this would all be okay.  Incredible.

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Help me feed the birds!  I want to be among the last to get eaten when they take over.

Art of the Day!  Gosh what would an intelligent dinosaur look like?  We just don't know.

Let's Watch "A&E's Dinosaur: The Tale of an Egg"

"The Tale of an Egg" turns our focus to dinosaur life-cycles and behavior.  Baby-rearing, migrating, fighting, and feeding.  All the things that are fun to speculate and fun to illustrate/animate/puppet.  It's the most kid-heavy episode as well, which makes it a lot of fun.

Somebody start a band based around David Weishampel's Parasaurolophus trumpet already.

Next time: brace yourself, it gets weird.

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(ahem...)

Art of the Day: some more current loud dinosaurs.

Let's Watch "A&E's Dinosaur: The Tale of a Bone"

This week's episode of "Dinosaur" mostly focuses on the Bone Wars.  But what I really love about it are all the interviews with dinosaur artists.  We meet Eleanor Kish and Steve Czerkas and the Dinamation crew.  And -most exiting of all- Ray Harryhausen!  We get a clip of "Gertie the Dinosaur" as well as some of Harryhausen's animation.  John Sibbick and David Norman (they of the famous "Norman-pedia") give interviews and they turn out to be mainly responsible for what the puppet dinosaurs look like here.  I thought they felt familiar.  Also, this happens: 

@babbletrish

Another wonderful moment from the ‘91 A&E Dinosaur series. ##dinosaur ##documentary ##Weird90s ##wtf ##waltercronkite ##NewYorkCity

♬ original sound - BabbleTrish

Next time: Eggs!  Like real eggs, not the one in that one confusing pain reliever commercial.

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(Polite little cough...)

Art of the Day!  A Kestrel and Barn Owl from a Museum of Science livestream.

Let's Watch "A&E's Dinosaur: The Tale of a Tooth"

July is going to be a very busy month here at Babbletrish Lodge.  So this feels like the perfect opportunity to watch a documentary series I'd never seen in it's entirety before. It's true, somehow I hadn’t watched the 1991 A&E "Dinosaur" documentary series until just this month and it is a real treasure.  It's another fantastic example of what a dinosaur documentary looked like before "Jurassic Park" and "Walking With Dinosaurs".

Look.  I know I say "They don't make 'em like this anymore" an awful lot, but they REALLY do not make them like this anymore.  We are never going to get a pure gold nugget of a moment like this ever again:

@babbletrish

I haven’t watched the 1991 A&E “Dinosaur!” series until today and so far it is a treasure. ##dinosaur ##documentary ##Weird90s ##moodwhiplash ##SingingKids

♬ original sound - BabbleTrish

Turn the volume up.  You could guess what kind of music scores this scene and you’d be wrong.  I guarantee.  (You also might just hear me chuckle.)

Part One, "Tale of a Tooth", is about the early days of dinosaur paleontology.  There's period costumes, more strange music choices, wonderful puppet dinosaurs, and Dr. Bob Bakker pulls a wooden sword on Walter Cronkite.  And there are vintage commercials, most of which I'd completely forgotten about.  Next week, the Bone Wars!

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So you may have noticed the shiny new donate button on the sidebar but just in case you didn't:

Art of the Day!  Cornell Birdfeeder sketches