Mesozoic Mind

 If you haven't heard, two new palaeo-documentaries were announced just a few months ago, right after the success of Prehistorc Planet . While I did miss the initial announcements because I was on vacation, they excite me no less. Surviving Earth https://deadline.com/2022/06/nbc-dinosaur-docuseries-surviving-earth-1235053396/ The bigger announcement is Surviving Earth , an eight-part series intented to be about the many mass extinctions of Earth and how life bounced back. It is notable for two things: the first is that its being created by the legendary Tim Haines, who you may recall also invented the modern palaeo-documentary with a certain 1999 series, as well as the acclaimed exhibition Dinosaurs in their Time . The other is that instead of a streaming service or some cable channel, big network NBC will air it, along with another BBC Natural History Unit documentary. I admit my interested is at the very least not as big as you'd expect. I admit that extinctions are a bit ha...

For this week's RP-WIDOTD, I'd like to credit museum employee and writer for the blog Extinct Monsters Ben H. Miller, whose series of Framing Fossil Exhibits  and the nature of early fossil exhibits and the popular stereotypes being parades of big skeleton mounts was the inspiration for this idea, conceived at 2 AM in the morning. Towering Titans This would be a museum exhibit homaging the idea of mount after mount of giant prehistoric creatures, only here having a more nuanced take on such, focusing on just how these big creatures could evolve in the first place, wheher its interal factors, like dense bones or airsacs to lighten the body, or external factors, like suitable climates and vegetation. The vast majority of the exhibit would be a central platform, with additional ones around the perimitre of the exhibit hall. The first creatures museum-goers would see even before entering from whatever main hall of the museum is are a pair of Edmontosaurus , among the biggest of t...

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind, the blog that has reviewed Discovery Channel documentaries a bit too much at the expense of others and so will try to stay away from them a bit. Today, right after we hit 1000 views in a single month for the first time, we will tackle the 2015 British documentary  Dinosaur Britain , hosted by presenter Ellie Harrison, travelling to various locales around the country, starting wirh visiting Dippy the Diplodocus at London's Natural History Museum (this was before it was taken off display) and waxing about how she much like other brits became enamoured with dinosaurs because of it. However, that's not what Dinosaur Britain is best known for: rather, it is that the dinosaurs themselves are presented roaming about modern England and scaring its people, much like fellow ITV dino-show  Primeval , with Ellie often encountering them. To start things off, we are first shown a Baryonyx  wandering the halls of the Natural History Museum...

Well, I did promise I'd review it back in April....   Hoo boy, where do I even begin with 2010's  Tyrannosaurus Sex ? This documentary is pretty much only known for one thing: being about dinosauur sex and mentioning penises a lot, even discussing the size of it. You probably saw this clip below as a kid and snickered your ass off as the repeated mention of penises and sex. In the greater scheme of things, the infamous reputation probably stems from how as with most of recent human history, it was deemed by the ruling classes taboo to discuss such topicsto gain control of them for themselves and so was pushed into unacceptability territory, which ended up backfiring through the forbiden fruit effect, meaning were were better off of humaity just accepted it from the start.... but that's beyond the scope of this blog post. Anyway, for the longest time Tyrannosaurus Sex was lost media, with the sole upload getting taken down thanks to that darn copyright, and only being uploa...

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind . So while on vacation, my family visited on the highway the Big Apple. No, not Ney York, but a roadside attraction featuring a giant fibreglass apple, tacky and saccarhine rustic decor, kiddie attractions, and a petting zoo of stinking pens. It's as cheesy as you'd imagine, and the only thing I like about it were the animals in the petting zoo, like turkeys and hissing geese. I'm honestly surprised they haven't added some animatronic dinosaurs while at it too. Really, dinosaurs are a pretty common choice for roadside attractions. Most famously are those from around the Cold War era, like Dinosaur Park in South Dakota, but in recent years they have been suplanted by relatively cheap animatronics made in the 90's and early 2000's, and in my opinion age horribly from a scintific standpoint and sn artistic one, remaining unfeathered and pronated-handed and barely functioning, while the fibreglass and concrete models do have ...