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What if “The Muppets” combined “Godzilla” with “The
Honeymooners” or “All in the Family”? It might be a bit
like “Dinosaurs”. It certainly makes sense because this
is a Jim Henson Productions series. The show initially attracted
attention when it first appeared probably as much due to
the novelty of the convincing combination of puppetry and
animatronics which brings the characters to life (and the
terrific voice casting/acting for the series). Created by
Bob Young (“My Two Dads”, “The Facts of Life”) and Michael
Jacobs (“Charles in Charge”, “Boy meets World”, “The Torkelsons”)
the series managed to last four seasons on network television.
Interestingly there were also six episodes that aired only
in syndication as the network had already cancelled the
show including the second part of “Nuts to War” which aired
during the second season. ***
So what if Dinosaurs truly ruled the Earth much as
man does today with a society, homes, mechanical devices
and the same politics of our world? The result would be
the life of Earl and Fran Sinclair (Stuart Pankin and Jessica
Walter) along with their three children Robbie, Charlene
and the Baby (Jason Willinger, Sally Struther, Kevin Clash).
Unfortunately Fran’s mother Eth yl (Florence Stanley) lives
with Earl as well reminding him of what a loser he is throughout
the show. You’ll note also that many of the character’s
last names are the same as petroleum companies. It’s a nice
in joke that many failed to catch. ***
The show’s producers/writers/directors went for social
messages that you would never have found on “The Honeymooners”
and where the series has more in common with “All in the
Family” (interestingly Sally Struthers provides the voice
of Charlene Sinclair and Sherman Hemsley provides the voice
of B. P. Richfield Earl’s boss). We get everything from
an anti-war message (timed around the Gulf War I might add)
to episodes dealing with the destruction of nature in pursuit
of business and the careful use of natural resources. None
of these messages are subtle and within the context of the
show they make an impact but I found the biggest weakness
of the show was the lack of truly funny material. The conventional
plots, characters and situations undermined much of the
appeal of this show despite the messages and wizardry of
the Henson crew at bringing the Sinclairs and their friends
to life. Occasionally we’ll get a solid zinger (usually
from Ethyl although some of the other characters get their
due as well) but on the whole the show plays as too sincere
to work as a comedy. Fans of the series will be happy that
this show while extinct will live on in the fossilized remains
of DVD.
Image & Sound:
“Dinosaurs” suffers from a lot of image softness. Colors
are robust and digital artifacts are minimal throughout
the set. It’s clear that Buena Vista went to a lot of trouble
to clean up the show as there’s no dirt or debris. The 2.0
audio sounds fine and since this is primarily a dialogue
driven show directional effects are minimal. Overall while
this set could look better it could also look a whole lot
worse particularly when compared to other shows from the
same time on DVD. Kudos to Buena Vista for cleaning up the
image quality now if they could just sharpen up the image
a bit we’d have a nearly perfect set. ---
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