Mesozoic Mind

Ah, sweet young Gen X nostalgia Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind . Today, we're gonna be doing something different and try an epoisode of a show that normally doesn't feature dinosaurs or even focus on prehistory. Shows for younger kids do this a lot, mostly beccause of the errenonous assumption kids and only kids like dinosaurs (a topic I may discuss latter). Today, will be Nick Jr.'s classic, Blue's Clues . Yeah. I am going into a show for 5-year olds. Why? I just want to, and it's my show for 5-year olds, growing up with it. I’ve recently started watching Blue’s Clues out of nostalgia, and boy I love it. One reason I’m doing and like  Blue’s Clues  rather then say, its comtemporaies  Dora the Explorer or Go Diego Go!  or the more recent PAW Patrol because honestly, its a lot more watchable and peaceful then most of toddler shows, then and now, which other other are pretty hot garbage in my book due to talking down to them and having way too many stimul...

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind . Man, its been forever snce I did a Random Palaeo-Work idea of the Day instalment. Figured I'd be at least in the double digits long ago. Anyways, better late then never. Prehistoric Paradise Inspired by a vacation to Grand Cayman I took in late June, this documentary would document the geological and evolutionary course of the Carribbean, particularly Cuba to its wide variety of fossils preserved and strata there. It would make heavy use of timelapse shots from space showing the landmasses forming and moving overtime, but there would still be plenty of reconstruction . Episode One Art by tuomaskoivurinne Episode one establishes the origins of the Carribbean in the Mesozoic due to the breakup of Pangaea and. A large portion of it is spent in a Mid to Late Jurassic formation known as the Jagua , which has a wide variety of marine reptiles on par with Britain's. Featured taxa would be: The pliosaur  Gallardosaurus The ples...

Yeah, I'm just gonna say it: while its definitely an incredible doc, Prehistoric Planet does falter in some spots. Some groups get shafted entirely, and the series' jumping around locations a la Planet Earth doesn't help give a connection to the animals in my humble opinion. But hey, no work is perfect. Even Walking with Dinosaurs had quetionable creative choices and designs. Here's how I would make the already great Apptle TV+ show into downright, absolute god-tier material in my book, while still retaining as much as I can. In my version, episodes are done by regions or continents instead of environments, as I feel unlike the original, mine can maintain a better sense of focus and continuity. Also, rather then the same intro with the Oxford T. rex over and over each episode, each one is different with a different skeleton of a Mesozoic creature featured. So without further ado, in honour of 6000 views, here's how I would Palaeo-Redo (trademark pending) Prehisto...

Dino Death Trap  is one of the more well-known palaeo-documentaries under National Geographic's released in 2007, the same year as fellow well-known ones  Sea Monsters and the cenozoic doc Prehistoic Predators . It's also the one that introduced the early tyrannosaur Guanlong and early ceratopsian Yinlong to me, as with many others. Might I also add it was released under the banner Dinosaurs Unearthed , shared with the documentary about Edmontosaurus , Dino Autopsy  (which we will eventualy get to eventually). The documentary is about palaeontologists from both sides of the Pacific like the iconic Xu Xing and the Tyrell Museum's David Eberth discovering a trove of fossils the Middle Jurassic of northwestern China 160-155 million years ago and working to determine how they fit in dinosaur evolution since not many dinosaur fossils are preserved from the era, in particularly a whole column with layer upon layer of dinosaur skeletons. At the end of the doc we are treated t...

When we think of 2D animation and palaeo-media, we have quite a lot thanks to choose from, ranging in tastes from the  Burianian  epic adventures of Don Bluth's  The Land Before Time , the anachronistic sitcom antics of The Flintstones , to the gory pulp of Gennedy Tartovsky's  Primal (2019), or even the Mons-collecting anime of Dinosaur King . But surprisingly, one section of it has never quite been all that prominent: documentaries. Don’t believe me? What’s the first palaeo-documentary which uses traditional animation to come to mind? Admit it, you can’t really name one. It’s a shame, as traditional animation is in my humble opinion the best medium out there: it allows much more creative freedom then live action, ages better then CG, and is less-time consuming then stop-motion.  Just imagine a documentary on the level of Walking with Dinosaurs or Prehistoric Planet animated in the style of Disney Renaissance or Studio Ghibli. Just the idea is already beaut...