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Dinosaurs Finale

How did the Dinosaurs finale affect you?


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    19

mupcollector1

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The final episode just re-affirms my theory that Richfield is one of the most evil TV villains ever. I mean, they established as early as Season Two (specifically Endangered Species) that he was a villain, but he just got more and more evil as the series went on.
Yeah, he's totally a scary character. Though I loved when he went on the happy leaf thinking he's Jimmy Hednrex and banging his head until the celing. lol

Plus the voice of him is George Jefferson which makes it funnier. Amazing how The Jim Henson Company managed to get him. A Sitcom legend.
 

mupcollector1

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And before Dinosaurs and South Park was Britian's Spitting Image. AMAZING Show. It's one of my top favorites. I must be the only American who knows about it. I own almost every episode but it's such a rare show. And it was huge on Britian. It was from 1984-1996. And the only thing simular to the show that's still strong from 1988-today is French's Les Guignols De L'info. Amazing show, I watch it all the time on their site. I only wish I understood French. But the puppets are amazing and the visual satirie is dark and strong like Spitting Image, though Spits was more sillier. So if you like silly british humor and political, social and celebrity satire, I strongly recommend it. One of my all time favorite quotes was there was these two shakeshear actors they lampooned on the show. Larry and Johnny. Johnny has a duck by his feet saying hello to his friend Larry who's reading a newspaper at the park. "Johnny, Dear Johnny, Dear Dear Johnny, what are you doing here at the park today?" "I came to throw ducks to the bread" "No, it's throw the bread to the ducks!" "Really, I thought it was expensive." And I was just bursting with laughter. That's totally my kind of humor. lol



Well I think there was some sort of controversy with Ethel being thrown of a cliff by the Senoirs of America or something like that who didn't bother watching the ending of the show. The early episodes are funny, plus they swear more, usually just the H and D works, maybe the A word once. I remember Robby saying "Jesus Christ" and I was laughing. But the later ones, they didn't swear. Perhaps Disney got mad over that or something, I was amazed Disney allowed it to be satirical. Thumbs up for them on that.
But yeah the social satire is genius and totally one of my strongest influences in my comedic work. But my favorite thing about Dinosaurs was DinoTV and the hand and rod puppets. Lizzard Skizzard cracked me up, the Guns N Roses satire. "Welcome back to DTV, your in the middle of macho idiot rock, that's right, all weekend long, adalesent males shouting out meaningless songs. this weekend is brought to you by Beer! Now for our smashingly new band Lizzard Skizzard, they won the DTV award for fasted editing." lol Again, totally my sense of humor. There's so much detail in how those lines are written. And I'm still trying to master writing like that. I love it. Plus Steve Whitmire's Axl Rose sounded great. "I'M BETTER THAN YOU! YOU THINK THAT YOUR BETTER THAN ME-HE BUT I'M BETTER THAN YOU-HOO WOOOOW!" lol I wonder if Axl ever seen that. lol He seems like a guy who can't take a joke. How people can get mad at puppets and cartoons is beyond me. They can get away with more than humans could because they look so innocent plus they're a work of fiction. lol
That's why I love this industry and want to be a part of it someday.
I think Dinosaurs was probably the greatest alternative project from The Jim Henson Company besides The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

I still need to put some Dinosaurs episodes back on my ipod so I can watch while I'm working out at power fitness lol
I forgot to mention that I did research on the writer who wrote my favorite Dinosaurs episodes, including my #1 fav episode "Network Genius", I forgot his name but he was a sitcom writer who wrote for Ellen which I was surprised he didn't do more satirical work. The writing was genius. I would love to write him a letter and ask for satirical writing tips :smile:
 

minor muppetz

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The early episodes are funny, plus they swear more, usually just the H and D works, maybe the A word once. I remember Robby saying "Jesus Christ" and I was laughing. But the later ones, they didn't swear. Perhaps Disney got mad over that or something, I was amazed Disney allowed it to be satirical. Thumbs up for them on that.
I remember the first time I noticed a swear on the show, in The Mighty Megalasauras Earl said to Fran "I don't give a **** about your day". I later watched it on The Disney Channel to see if it was cut, and it was cut. Then I noticed a few other swears, I think also in that same episode (Fran: "We care just as much about this egg as we do you and Robbie" Earl: "How in the **** could this have happened?"), but can't remember if they were cut in syndication or on The Disney Channel. Aside from editing the beginning of seasons 1 and 2 into cold opens and repalcing the earlier openings, I can't remember any other episodes besides Mighty Megalasauras being cut (I recall in syndication they also shortened the scene with Earl acknowledging that Arthur Rizzo was going to be his dinner and was now his bosses assistant).

I sort of noticed a subtle difference in the seasons. It seems the first seasons morals were hardly preachy, and the episodes sort of have a raw feel (like the early episodes of many shows). Then in the second season it seemed to start getting a bit preachy. And then in the third season it seems they reinforced the morals of the episodes a few times, often with a character seeming to learn a lesson early on but not really doing anything about it until later. And then most of the last season episodes sort of feel like a weekday afternoon series (or course it was about to have 65 episodes, enough for syndication).
 

mupcollector1

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Dinosaurs was kind of like where The Simpsons were plus there was a bit of riff-raff between them, either it was The Simpsons like "Hey, you ripped us off, your gonna get it" or it was just silly satirical fun because Matt Groening did say in a commentary "Dinosaurs, I LOVE THIS SHOW!"
For example The Simpsons did an episode where Homer, Bart and Maggie are watching Dinosaurs, and they have the personalities of The Simpsons. Homer: Cute! (Taking to Maggie) Bart: It's like they seen our lives and but it right on screen.
And then Dinosaurs slammed them back. Earl: It's like TV shows are constaintly ripping off of each other. Baby: Don't have a cow man! lol
That's one of the great things of the business is making fun of everything and it's all in fun too. Simpsons did that sort of thing all the time and so did Dinosauars.

Yeah for me the first episodes where just the Sinclair family and it was sort of a serious dark gloomy sort of setting. I think there was much DTV except for Howard Handupme. Though I do remember I think it was Hawling Day where Howard says "And the mean time there seems to be no end in site for the crankiness among males, and now here's Dwaye with Sports." Then Steve Whitmire's character comes running in "Great, Great, throw me in with only 20 seconds left" Howard and Dwayne start growling, Dwayne wacks Howard in the face and Howard stands closer to him looking taller than him (perfect joke on how Animals really fight) then the shot cuts to Earl and you hear Dwayne lightly say "Come over here, I'll bite your little leg off!" LOL I was cracking up. Also the joke on Transgender related subjects in Cross-Eaters, which was a TV ad.

Then of course the show within a show stuff got more satirical and sillier which I love like Exploding Cop, Hidden Predator, DTV, and of course who can ever forget Mr. Lizard. "WE GONNA NEED ANOTHER TIMMY!" lol
 

minor muppetz

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After all the plants are distroyed, Richfield says that they've got to make it rain so the plants would grow back. But I wonder if it was that easy. Wouldn't seeds need to have been planted into the ground? Somehow I doubt the old seeds would still be able to grow plants again. I wonder if the world had plenty of seeds for plants.
 

RedPiggy

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It would probably depend on what died and what the poison actually did and when in the growing season it happened. I mean, there's the possibility that plants that had already seeded could have the seeds lie dormant for quite awhile. On the other hand, a million-year-old nuclear winter will mean those won't grow anyway.
 

Xerus

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All that Mr. Richfield cared about was all the money he was getting out of destroying the world. He soon might realize that all that money isn't going to do him any good once everyone in the world dies, including him.
 

RedPiggy

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I get Richfield's personality and how he enjoys the mountain of money he's playing with at the end, but there's a thing I can't believe they didn't bring up: Wendy. Supposedly, his daughter is the one thing he arguably cares about ... and yet there's no mention of her at all.
 

minor muppetz

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I get Richfield's personality and how he enjoys the mountain of money he's playing with at the end, but there's a thing I can't believe they didn't bring up: Wendy. Supposedly, his daughter is the one thing he arguably cares about ... and yet there's no mention of her at all.
Well she was only seen and mentioned in one episode. Dinosaurs didn't seem to have much continuity, events from past episodes were rarely mentions (one notable exception being at the begnning of "And the Winner Is..." while in "Working Girl" when Charlene applies for a job at the newspaper some of the headlines in the backgroud concern past events from the show), backstories mentioned in some episodes seem to contradict later things (in "Career Opportunities" it's said that the Job Wizard picks jobs for dinosaurs, while in "Scent of the Reptile" the male destined to be Charlene's husband mentions he's going to night school to become a tree pusher, apparently his own decision).
 

mupcollector1

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while in "Working Girl" when Charlene applies for a job at the newspaper some of the headlines in the backgroud concern past events from the show), backstories mentioned in some episodes seem to contradict later things (in "Career Opportunities" it's said that the Job Wizard picks jobs for dinosaurs, while in "Scent of the Reptile" the male destined to be Charlene's husband mentions he's going to night school to become a tree pusher, apparently his own decision).
Wow I didn't catch the headline gags. And I just watched Working Girl and Scent of the Reptile last night lol How ironic. lol
 
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