Tuesday, April 14, 2015
The Thunder Returns!
I'm delighted to hear that the Brontosaurus, the "Thunder Lizard", has been returned to us after a few decades of revisionist paleontology had the poor dino recapitated in museums across the globe. Check out this Scientific American article announcing the good news.
Brontosaurus is one of the big three classic dinosaurs of vintage imagination, along with Triceratops and of course Tyrannosaurus Rex. (Currently the Triceratops has, like the Bronto before him, been expunged as a distinct species, but the mighty T-Rex has recently been rescued from being reduced to a scavenger.)
Brontosaurus is featured in the classic movie The Lost World (based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's epic Professor Challenger adventure of the same name), taking the place of a flying dinosaur as it rampages down the streets of London before the epic tour of the great King Kong. To watch the epic saunter check out the complete silent classic here.The great brontosaurus begins his untethered tour of London on or about the one hundred and three minute mark.
Brontosauruses are often depicted as benign beasts, interested only gathering tons of fodder to power their enormous bodies and likely too large to really even notice the people who sometimes time travel into their zones. No dinosaur landscape is complete without a brontosaurus lazily munching down in the background.
I'm glad to have the classic "Thunder Lizard" back among us.
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No dinosaur movie would be complete without a fight between a T-Rex and a Triceratops or a T-Rex and a Brontosaurus. I love the caption on that last cover - "Stone Age Monsters Return To Life" - Stone Age ??
ReplyDeleteAnd that cover has the vintage upright T-Rex too, the one I grew up with before they tipped him over to make him faster and sleeker.
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Always included Stegosaurus (with those spiked plates on its' spine) and Pterodactyl (because it's the best-known flying beast).
ReplyDeleteNo doubt. I thought of them as the second tier along with the anklyosaurus.
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I always think of the Anne Elk Monty Python sketch when I think of Brontosaurus.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cAYDiPizDIs
I'm sure I've seen it before, but it seemed fresh to me. Thanks.
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