Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Dinosaurs: Cast Photo

Dinosaurs aired fom April 1991 until July 1994 on ABC.

Modern day life and its foibles were seen through the eyes of a domesticated family of dinosaurs in this unusual comedy, conceived by muppet creator Jim Henson before his death. The puppet-like figures were brought to life by a complex process called " audioanimaltronics" at Henson productions creature shop in London by his son Brian Henson, and the same craftsmen who created The Muppets and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The puppets were funny and strikingly realistic, but the plot was Stone Age sitcom, derived from The Honeymooners by way of The Flintstones. The year was 60,000,003 B.C. on the Super-continent of Pangaea. Earl Sinclair ( Stuart Pankin) was a henpecked, blustery, cigar-smoking megalosaurus who worked as a tree-pusher for the Wesayso Development Corporation, which leveled forests to make way for suburban tract homes like his own. His sensible wife Fran ( Jessica Walter), a ten-ton allosaurus, ran both the household and Earl's life. Teenage son Robbie( Jason Willinger), was in his rebellious stage, but also the most enlightened member of the family, questioning all the foolish dinosaur customs and was alone in his believing that the comically inept cavemen might have a bright future. Charlene ( Sally Struthers), was his shop-till-you-drop daughter and Baby ( Kevin Clash), the most recently hatched member of the family, a smart-mouth brat who got on Earl's nerves by hitting Earl on the head with a frying pan and saying " Not the mama." Everyone, in fact, got on Earl's nerves, especially his nagging mother-in-law Ethyl ( Florence Stanley), who despised him, and his tyrannical boss B.P. Richfield ( Sherman Hemsley), a triceraytops with farsome teeth. Earl's best friend, a confirmed bachelor tyrannosaurus who lived in a condo at the marina, was Roy Hess ( Sam McMurray). ( Notice how everyone here seems to have a name derived from an oil company? There were many levels of parody in Dinosaurs). Occasionally, for comic relief, a few cavemen humans were seen scampering around like wild animals trying to invent the wheel. Although the series ended its regular run at the end of the 1992-1993 season, a few additional original episodes were aired during the summer of 1994. The series ended with perhaps the most chilling episode of any sitcom, the construction of a Wesayso factory which led to the ice age and the extinction of the dinosaurs. 65 episodes were produced.

An Article from The New York Times

TELEVISION; All in the Modern Stone-Age Family

By EVE M. KAHN;
Published: April 14, 1991

For nearly a year reporters have been hounding Brian Henson with the same question: Can he handle Jim Henson Productions, the Muppet-based entertainment empire he took over soon after his father, Jim, died unexpectedly in May?

Tall, lanky and gentle -- a beardless, fair-haired version of his father -- Brian Henson gives a similar response every time. "Jim Henson Productions was not all Jim Henson," he says. "My father surrounded himself with many, many very talented people. When it all gets too much for me, I lean on them a little more, so the legacy keeps going."

He is 27, the third of five children and the oldest son; he has been puppeteering professionally since he quit college at age 18. Complicating his transition to company president was a buyout effort by the Walt Disney Company that was underway when Jim Henson died. The deal fell through in December, reportedly in part because of an overblown asking price, leaving Henson Productions with a long list of co-production schemes that had to be scrapped. So Brian Henson's challenge is not only to lead the company, which has 100 employees, and offices in New York, London and Los Angeles, in new directions, but also to dig it out of a quagmire.

"We just want to get back to work, to get back into the groove," he said in a recent interview at the CBS/MTM Studios in the San Fernando Valley. He was taking a brief break from taping "Dinosaurs," the company's first major effort unguided by its founder.

The half-hour ABC situation comedy will have its premiere April 26, and it stars the Sinclairs, a family of protoreptiles powered by animatronics, a combination of puppetry and electronics. Cynics have dubbed the show "The Flintstones Meet the Simpsons," but Brian Henson calls it "very ambitious and very unique" as well as "a show my father would have loved."

He was talking with a visitor in a scriptwriter's office; a relatively firm lid is being kept on "Dinosaurs": sets and scripts are off-limits. In nearby buildings, about 100 people were working nearly around the clock to complete the 13 episodes that ABC has commissioned. In adjacent offices, Michael Jacobs, executive producer, and Bob Young, co-executive producer, were supervising six writers who were churning out scripts designed to attract children and entertain adults.

This much is known about the show: the head of the Sinclair household, Earl, is a blustery but lovable megalosaurus who makes his living knocking down trees, squandering resources, so that dinosaur suburbias like his own can spread. His allosaurus wife, Fran, is patient and forgiving; their teen-age son, Robbie, is rebellious; Charlene, the pre-teen daughter, is spoiled, and the freshly hatched baby cries constantly.

Early episodes will deal with such issues as neglect of the elderly and teen-age angst: Earl will set about tossing his mother-in-law into a tar pit, and Charlene will fret over her tail, which refuses to grow and which she will someday need to seduce male dinosaurs.

Taking further liberties with prehistory, the show posits that humans coexisted with dinosaurs; the caves at the fringes of the Sinclairs' town teem with hominoid savages, who are scorned by dinosaur society. Most episodes will include a live-action scene or two of dinosaurs observing cave-person behavior. For example, Earl will stumble upon a human couple struggling to generate sparks with rocks, and he will snigger at them as he sets off his torchlike lighter.

"We're trying both to show how humans would have looked to another species, and to make people see themselves in the dinosaurs," said Mr. Jacobs, and he added, apparently taking his comedy very seriously, "We go around as if we're kings of the earth, but who knows how much time we have left?"

Jim Henson dreamed up the show's basic concept about three years ago. "He wanted it to be a sitcom with a pretty standard structure, with the biggest differences being that it's a family of dinosaurs and their society has this strange toxic life style," said Brian Henson.

But until "The Simpsons" took off, said Alex Rockwell, a vice president of the Henson organization, "people thought it was a crazy idea." The show was pitched to ABC last summer, with Disney as co-producer. (Disney had signed up to participate in the show before the acquisition plan collapsed.)

ABC took the bait the next day, and earlier this year the dinosaurs arrived from Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London. Thanks to a fast-paced production schedule, the Sinclairs will be the first of many "Simpsons" imitations to reach the airwaves: two animated prime-time shows from CBS are planned for the fall and a pilot for a Claymation series is in the works for Fox.

ABC has given "Dinosaurs" a showcase that signifies high if not unbounded hopes: at 8:30 P.M. on Friday, between "Full House" and "Family Matters," sitcoms that rank among the network's more successful prime-time wares. Since the other shows in that time period, "Guns of Paradise" (CBS), "America's Most Wanted" (Fox) and "The 100 Lives of Blackjack Savage" (NBC), are far from family-oriented, "Dinosaurs" may draw an audience.

What may also enable "Dinosaurs" to attract attention is its technique: no other network seems to be venturing into prime-time animatronics, and few other production companies could achieve the quality of Henson's creatures. Henson executives assert that the animatronics for "Dinosaurs" is more sophisticated than anything even the Hensons have produced before and yield more finely tuned facial movements.

A Disney executive agrees. "The technology has never been around before," said Dean Valentine, a senior vice president at Disney.

The puppet hero of "ALF," the NBC sitcom that was canceled last season after four years on the air, was "basically a hand puppet," said Kirk Thatcher, a co-producer of "Dinosaurs"; its mechanisms were no more complex than ear waggers or eye blinkers. The largest dinosaurs, on the other hand, are nine feet tall and five feet wide, and covered with rubber scales. A puppeteer stands inside each one, moving its limbs, while another puppeteer electronically operates its facial movements.

Jim Henson Productions had used a similar method to create beings for fantasy films, including "The Dark Crystal" and both "Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles" movies.

Those within the Henson organization hope the show will give the company some needed momentum. "We're like Walt Disney after Walt Disney died, only we're getting back on track faster than they did," Mr. Thatcher added. "Everybody had genuine affection for Jim Henson, and nobody knows Brian. It's like getting a new dad in your family; there are bound to be rough patches."

Brian Henson describes his management style as "low key -- very." He sounds comfortable with his new role, although he was never exactly groomed for it. Whether or not he would take over someday, he said, "was never really talked about" before his father died. He grew up in Bedford, N.Y., and studied briefly at the University of Colorado before realizing "I wanted a career and I wanted it fast."

He moved to London in 1984, and was a puppeteer for several movies, including the first "Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles" film. At the time of his father's death he was directing "Mother Goose Stories" for the Disney Channel. He and his wife, the British fashion designer Ellis Flyte. now shuttle between a London apartment and a house in Los Angeles.

His mother, Jane Henson, serves as president of the Henson Foundation, which promotes the art of puppetry. Lisa, the eldest child, is 30, a senior vice president at Warner Brothers and a member of the board of Jim Henson Productions; Cheryl, 28, is also on the board and is the company's liaison to the Children's Television Workshop, which produces "Sesame Street." The two younger children, John and Heather, are not involved with the company. But even three offspring in the family business might have surprised Jim Henson.

"He never pushed us in any career direction," said Brian. "But when we were kids, he sometimes interacted with us as if he were just another kid, not Dad at all, so he could understand how our heads worked. That was a real secret of his success, that he could latch into the mind of a child."

A Review from The New York Times

TV Weekend; A Simpsonish Family of Dinosaurs

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: April 26, 1991

The blue-collar worker on television series has ranged from the "real" Archie Bunker to the animated Homer Simpson. Perhaps the next step was inevitable. Tonight at 8:30, ABC introduces Earl Sinclair, a giant puppet employing the latest developments in audio animatronics. Earl, a 43-year-old megalosaur, is the family head of "Dinosaurs," based on an idea by Jim Henson. Both ABC and Jim Henson Productions, working with Michael Jacobs Productions, have a lot of bottom-line hopes riding on this one.

The original idea may have been Henson's, but the premiere show indicates the producers have been tuning in closely to "The Simpsons." Instead of grumpy and dopily lovable Homer, we get a giant, lumbering clone called Earl. His wife, Fran, an allosaurus housewife, is every bit as sensible as Marge Simpson. And the Sinclairs also have three children. The ages are different but the personalities remain remarkably similar.

The result? One episode does not a series make, but tonight's premiere exhibits enough dazzling technology and cheeky humor to soothe the furrowed brows of the average network executive. Like the Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtle gang, also out of the Henson workshop, these puppets have actors inside their elaborate skins and their features are manipulated electronically. Some effects are noticeably better than others. Earl's wide face is more malleable than Fran's long, narrow one, which is limited to tiny lip movements at its outermost reaches. But in general, the wizardry is dazzling, certain to charm youngsters who have participated in the dinosaur craze of recent years.

The year is 60,000,003 B.C. Next year will be 60,000,002, which prompts 14-year-old Robbie, the Sinclairs' visionary son, to wonder: "Why are we counting backwards? What are we waiting for?" The Sinclairs are only beginning to experiment with family life and rough patches remain in the overall concept. Earl recalls for Baby, the youngest child, a period when all dinosaurs lived in the forest and ate their children. "That was a golden age," Earl says, only half-joking.

Deciding in a flashback to ask for a raise at Wesayso Development Corporation, where he's worked for 24 years, Earl is told by his boss: "You don't need more money. You need less family." Earl returns to the forest where, he thinks, "my spirit belongs and my soul longs to be." With Fran's help, he learns otherwise and returns home. "No matter how low you go in this world," he discovers, "as long as you have a family to come home to, they're lower." Beneath his crust, of course, beats a huge heart, which melts as Baby is born, popping out of his shell and announcing, "You gotta love me, c'mon!"

Prime time has difficulty dealing with working people and their concerns and increasingly seems content to approach the subjects indirectly, abstractly. Mustn't be too preachy, you know. Apparently, "Dinosaurs" is one way of making the homeless and the environment and the very future of man more palatable for audiences who prefer escapism. ABC is offering unstinting support, putting "Dinosaurs" in the middle of its most succesful block of programs, between "Full House" and "Family Matters," -- shows created by Mr. Jacobs, the co-executive producer. If it can't make it there, it can't make it anywhere. Also of Interest

A Review from Entertainment Weekly
Published May 10, 1991

TV Review
"DINO" SO-SO
THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND ABC'S DINOSUARS IS COOL, BUT THE CHARACTERS ARE HARD TO WARM UP TO.

By Ken Tucker

If ever ABC thought it had a hit, it's Dinosaurs (Fridays, 8:30-9 p.m.). After the runaway success of Fox's The Simpsons proved that audiences of all ages enjoy kiddie shows with a sarcastic streak, the prospect of a sitcom with talking dinosaurs created by the late Jim Henson's special effects team must have struck ABC as surefire. And it is, sort of. As you probably know by now, Dinosaurs isn't a cartoon; its prehistoric creatures are moving figures, marvels of technical design. A top-secret combination of up-to-the-minute electronics and costuming, they make Alf look like a paper-bag puppet. Dinosaurs fits right into its cushy Friday-night showcase spot nestled between the hits Full House and Family Matters. It's a family sitcom about the Sinclair clan in 60,000,003 B.C.: Beefy papa Earl, a massive, cigar-chomping megalosaurus; his wife, Fran, a prim, tall, blue allosaurus; and their trio of attractively scaly children, 14-year-old Robbie, 12-year-old Charlene, and the newly hatched Baby, who in the premier episode scrambled out of his egg yammering, ''Love me, love me, love me-c'mon!'' Not so fast, kid. At this point, Dinosaurs is easy to admire, tough to love. Its premise-working-stiff Dad coping with his wiseacre family-crosses The Honeymooners with Married With Children, and the banality of this setup befits a show whose executive producer is Michael Jacobs, the man who gave us My Two Dads and Charles in Charge. There's nothing new about the attitude the show takes toward family life: It's hell (or, in early prime time, heck). Trying to weasel out of doing his math homework, Robbie moans, ''I don't get it: If this is 60,000,003 B.C., why is next year 60,000,002? Why are we counting backwards? What are we waiting for?'' Much of the humor on Dinosaurs is of the Flintstones sort-gags that cast modern items in prehistoric terms. While making dinner, Fran watches the Dinosaur Shopping Network; Earl wears a hard hat and labors as a ''tree pusher''-he clears forests for new dinosaur condominiums. Whenever Earl reaches into the refrigerator for a beer, he has to wrestle it away from the food supply: live animals being kept in there on ice. ''Where are the vegetables?'' daughter Charlene asks at one meal. ''Dinner ate the vegetables, dear,'' replies her mother. Among the performers supplying the dinosaurs' voices are a few well-known actors. It's easy to pick out Sally Struthers' whine as Charlene, for example, and Amen's Sherman Hemsley is a terrific grouch as Earl's boss, a triceratops named B.P. Richfield. (In one of the show's few stabs at Simpsons-style satire, some of the characters sport the names of modern fossil-fuel companies: Richfield, Sinclair; Earl's best friend is Roy Hess.) But the vividness of the voices only adds to Dinosaurs' problems-after a while, you begin to notice that these marvelously designed creations really don't have very expressive faces. The eyebrows waggle, the mouths move up and down, and a few facial muscles twitch, but these sitcom characters can't really execute a convincing double take or slow burn when the script requires it. Dinosaurs is one of the few projects to survive the acrimony around the merger that Jim Henson was negotiating with the Disney company before his death last May, and the Disney influence can be felt in a symbolic way in this project. The characters in Dinosaurs are much less like fuzzy, warm Henson Muppets than they are like the impeccable but cold figures that populate the live-action exhibits at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Maybe Dinosaurs will be the pop-culture smash that ABC hopes, but there's another possibility: that the characters in Dinosaurs are not quite cuddly enough for kids and not quite funny enough for grown-ups. B-

To see the Dinosaurs Fan Club go to http://www.fanpop.com/spots/dinosaurs