30 Years Since ABC's "Dinosaurs" Went Extinct

I'd imagine the hardest part of any good television series is figuring out how to end it gracefully.  Do you go out with a memorable ending, like Dallas or Newhart?  Or do you finish up without any real fanfare, like a series that the entire country tuned out of at the same time, like The Walking Dead?  

Some folks prefer cliffhangers or vague endings, like The Sopranos, but I like it when shows wrap up with a nice little bow, giving a sense of finality and conclusion to the story.  When a series ends, the inability to revisit these characters is always bittersweet to me, but today's fixation on reboots, prequels, and sequels gives us hope that maybe we'll get to see some of our old favorites again.  

No show prevented the possibility of a reunion or sequel from ever happening better than ABC's "Dinosaurs."  As we approach the 30th Anniversary of the show's finale on July 20th, I thought it's high time we included this great television show in the catalog here at YesterYear Retro.  

You might be wondering what ABC's Dinosaurs has to do with summer and Camp YesterYear, so I'll happily tell you.  When this show was on, I was enthralled!  I loved this show, and like many shows, I always begged and pleaded for the toys.  Usually, I'd get one or two figures from each line of whatever I desired, but this time, perhaps because this was also a show my parents enjoyed, I was able to coordinate the purchase of the entire line!  

A while back, my pal Mickey from Retro Ramblings had an event for us nostalgia bloggers he called "Show and Tell." Participants were given a topic and then asked to write a bit more personally about that week's topic.  I wrote an entire article about how, one particular summer, the Dinosaur figures kept me company during our annual summer trip to Maine.  You can check that article out here.

I really loved this show, as did my whole family.  It was one of a few shows we all watched together and one that my brother and I didn't understand the adult humor and themes prevalent in older sitcoms.  We thought Baby Sinclair was hysterical, especially while bashing his father Earl with a frying pan and yelling, "Not the Mama!"  

Our family still laughs about "the hurling" episode.  In it, the elderly dinosaurs are brought to a cliff and thrown off in a celebratory end-of-life event they called "the hurling."  My parents were quick to suggest that's what we'd do to them when they were of age, and from then on, the "hurling" meant more to our family than just vomit.  

ABC's Dinosaurs ran from 1991 to 1994, using creations from legendary puppet creators Jim Henson Productions.  The show starred a family of dysfunctional dinosaurs living on prehistoric Pangaea.  Although Henson passed away a year before the show aired, it was the creator's final project, as the promotional materials stressed how involved he was in the development of the sitcom before his death.  His son Brian continued with Jim's idea, pitching the "domestication of dinosaurs."

Looking back with today's eyes, the show was perfect for the early 90s.  It wouldn't fit in today's world, where family sitcoms don't exist.  It wouldn't likely have worked a decade earlier in the 1980s when the focus of the decade was on money, glitz, and glamor.  However, with shows like Roseanne and Home Improvement, the focus for sitcoms of the early 90s moved to lower-middle-class families, such as the Sinclair family on Dinosaurs.  

The cartoonish designs of the dinosaurs make one think more of Homer Simpson than Jurassic Park's Velociraptor.  Despite the cartoonish appeal for children, the show used its platform to deal with numerous "serious" topics during "very special episodes," ranging from drug abuse to body image to racism.  Environmentalism was another subject tackled by Dinosaurs and played a significant role in the finale we're here to celebrate today.   

The live-action puppet sitcom debuted on ABC as part of the TGIF comedy block on April 26, 1991.  Dinosaurs' Executive Producer and co-creator Michael Jacobs (Charles in Charge, My Two Dads, Boy Meets World) stated in an interview with Variety that Disney-owned ABC responded immediately to Brian Henson's pitch for the show.  With children typically loving dinosaurs and TGIF being a "safe space" for families, Disney jumped at the chance to bring sitcom veteran Jacobs on board to run the project.  

Jacobs claims that when they asked for his take on the idea, he said, "What if we take his dad's idea... that dinosaurs domesticated, got married, fell in love, and had children—and what if that was the reason they went extinct?" This set the wheels in motion for the series finale before the show had even been greenlit.  

The show used a handful of now-famous names to voice the loveable dinosaurs, including Stuart Pankin, Jessica Walter, Sally Struthers, and Kevin Clash (the voice of Elmo) as Baby Sinclair.  Other celebrities, such as Julie Louis-Dreyfus, Sherman Hemsley, Christopher Meloni, Tim Curry, Jason Alexander, Jeffrey Tambor, and Richard Simmons, contributed their voices throughout the show.  

The show became something of a cultural spoof during its four seasons on air   Michael Jacobs liked to call it a "old-world family with new-world problems."  Jacobs wanted the show to be more "biting" in its satire, going after oil companies and corporate America: "I don't think (the network) knew its what we were doing in the beginning.  I think you're allowed to do anything on television as long as they don't understand what you're doing until it airs." 

Throughout its run, critics were mixed, but the show premiered with a huge ratings share of its all-important family demographic.  Dinosaurs may have been a ratings hit for ABC, but before the show reached its fourth and final season, the ratings began to slip.  Much of this was due to its time slot continually shuffling before landing between 90s sitcom royalty Family Matters and Full House.  

The pricey puppetry didn't help matters with Disney, according to a Vulture Mag interview with Stuart Pankin, the voice actor of Earl Sinclair   He said "It was the most expensive half-hour tv show, at that point."  ABC cut its losses and ended Dinosaurs when the ratings no longer supported the cost.  

In the final episode, titled "Changing Nature," the Sinclair family is awaiting the annual arrival of the Bunch Beetles, a species that arrives every year to eat all the weed-like cider poppies that grow rapidly every spring.  When the Beetles don't arrive, everyone is confused, and within days, the poppies have completely grown out of control and are overtaking Pangea.  

As Earl and his best friend Roy try to trim the cider poppies, a lone Bunch Beetle named Stan arrives.  He explains that he was lost on the way to the mating ground but needs to get there now since he has such a short lifespan.  Charlene offers to help Stan, but when they get to the swampy mating ground, they discover a FruitCo factory.  FruitCo, a subsidiary of the WESAYSO Corporation (one of the many on-the-nose gags in the show), has built a wax fruit factory overtop the mating ground.  They also find out that any Bunch Beetle that arrived at the site of the new factory were sprayed with insecticide, leaving Stan the last of his species.  

Charlene takes the news of the Beetle extinction to DNN (the Dinosaur News Network) and points out how the WESAYSO corporation is responsible for the cider poppy crisis.  A worried and embarrassed Earl takes over the interview and attempts to defend the company, claiming it was just in the name of progress.  Having seen the interview, his boss, BP Richfield, knows it spells trouble for WESAYSO and names Earl to be in charge of fixing the public relations nightmare.  

When Earl and Roy are interviewed about the new task force, they explain that they plan to spray all of the cider poppies with poison, but they assure everyone that it is safe.  Charlene and Robbie suggest that they just trim back the poppies and live with them until nature restores the balance, but Earl claims that takes too long.  

The poison is sprayed, and the defoliant does its job of getting rid of all cider poppies.   Unfortunately, it has killed all other plant life on Pangea, resulting in famine worldwide.  Earl reassures everyone that Mr. Richfield has found a way to bring back the plants, but later on, we see that Earl, Roy, and Mr. Richfield are struggling to find ways to revive the plants.  Richfield says that they'll need rain, which comes from clouds, and to create clouds, they'll need to bomb a bunch of volcanoes.  The explosions will cause the volcanoes to produce clouds, which will cause rain.  Except, as we know, volcanoes produce smoke, not clouds, and it just sounds like a bad idea.  So bad, that Earl is reluctant, especially since their last idea failed.  Richfield threatens and convinces him, and they go ahead with the plan.  

The bombs are dropped into volcanoes simultaneously around the world, creating a giant thick black cloud over the entire planet.  On the news, news anchor Howard Handupme (get it?) reports that the thick clouds are blocking the sun and the global temperature is dropping rapidly.  

Earl tries to stay upbeat, claiming the sun will come out and melt the snow, producing water for the plants to grow.  Handupme reports that due to the thickness of the clouds, scientists predict it will be tens of thousands of years before the sun shines again, creating an "Ice Age."  

While Earl panics, Mr. Richfield is excited because everyone is panic-buying WESAYSO products like heaters, blankets, logs, and cocoa mixes.  As Earl frets about the coming apocalypse, Richfield claims his only problem is what to do with all the money he's made.  

Earl apologizes to Stan the Beetle for destroying his mating grounds and the extinction of the Bunch Beetle species.  Then, he goes home and apologizes to his family for his unintentional part in WESAYSO ending the world.  He blames his overdependant faith in progress, convenience, and technology for his disrespect of nature.  

Baby Sinclair asks if the family will have to move, but Earl replies that there's nowhere else to go.  Baby asks what will happen, but Early sadly tells his family he doesn't know.  Assuring his family that dinosaurs have been on Earth for 150 million years, he urges them to have faith that their species won't... can't... go extinct.  

As the show comes to a close, the Sinclairs look out the window in fear, together as a family, as the snow slowly buries their home.  With one final glimpse of the snow-covered factory that started the disaster, Howard Handupme on DNN signs off for the last time by saying a final goodbye, ending the series on a somber note.  

You can watch the final scene in the below video:

When the show aired, it received a mostly negative reaction from fans who were upset that their favorite family of dinosaurs had been killed off.  However, as Michael Jacobs said, "We certainly wanted to make the episode educational to the audience.  As people knew dinosaurs were no longer alive, the show would end by completing the metaphor and showing that extinction." 

President of ABC, Ted Harbert, expressed his discomfort with the ending with a call to Jacobs.  He said, "Over my dead body, are you killing that baby dinosaur!"  Jacobs responded, "Ted, they went extinct.   I didn't do it.   If you're going to cancel the show, I'm going to cancel the dinosaurs."  The end result was they put together one of the most memorable finales on television.

The voice of Earl, Stuart Pankin, stated that the ending "shocked" everyone, but "it was more of a reaction to the show ending."  Pankin thought that the audience understood the creativity in the final episode and that people, in general, were sad at the predicament of the story that was represented to them.  He did not remember anyone being angry about the ending but said (correctly) that it definitely would have trended on social media had it been released today.

It may have been thirty years ago, but to me, it feels like yesterday.  Looking back on those thirty years, I think this show's blend of humor, heart, and social commentary hasn't been matched.  The series ended with a bang (or an ice age, really), and its impact is still felt by new fans around the world.  As each new generation finds this show, falls in love, and is shocked by the ending, we all share the laughter and lessons from our favorite prehistoric family!