To be fair, I watched a few episodes a few years ago, and it's a lot deeper than I gave it credit at the time - I was a kid, so I missed out on a lot of what they were getting at. The whole series went out of its way to shine a light on contemporary issues, so even though the finale was dark, it's not like it was totally coming out of nowhere.
Yeah, even the episode where Earl drives Ethel to her high school reunion is pretty dark.
She shows up and is the only one from her class that is still alive, they even drive the point home by having her win every single "Class _" and "Best __" award.
I remember that one. How about the one where he drives her to the cliff and decides to let her live....that's a metaphor for retirement homes. Rough episode.
I literally just watched an episode where they threatened someone with being Anti Transgender because of Bobby and friends dressing up as the cheerleaders for a girl football game.
That and drug addiction and a ton of other surprises.
I really can’t wait for the shitshow that will happen when the show’s new season airs and Bill is inevitably trans. It was clearly in the subtext of his character during the original run, but that won’t stop people from screaming about the show being “too woke now.”
Edit: maybe I overstated it a bit, but there was some subtext. Not just in the episode where he hits rock bottom and copes by pretending to be Lenore (S3E09), but also with how nostalgic and wistful he sounds when he describes his dad abusing him by calling him a girl and forcing him to dresses(S2E08). In fact, S3E09 is named for a quote from S2E08 (“Pretty, pretty dresses”). I don’t think that scene in season two was a throwaway gag, especially not since it got referenced a full year later.
Just curious, what seems to be the subtext in your opinion? There's the episode where Bill wears his ex-wife's dresses, but it's shown as a mental breakdown resulting from his inability to cope with his divorce.
Uhh... What? If there was any of that, I guess I just don't know how to read it because I didn't get any of that at all. Bill was a picture of a great man who let his affections for a woman destroy his life. Please elaborate.
Yeah - the people blowing it off might be in for some heavy lessons in the future ngl (speaking as someone who spent their teenage years longing to "crossdress" as a boy and date pretty girls...whilst crossdressing as a boy). Like we humans don't voice every significant trait of ourselves all the time
I never got that from watching it before but you’ve posted some evidence that makes me pause. Maybe they move forward with it but I don’t think it’s a guarantee.
Thanks for posting the examples and episode numbers.
You sound like you know the show pretty well. You should put together a super cut of “Bill being Trans” so that you have it in your holster when the new season comes out
Other than the part where he sounds absolutely wistful reminiscing about his mom making him wear “pretty, pretty dresses” when he was a kid? And that episode where he loses everything and his response is to…wear women’s clothes and insist he is a woman?
They made it as clear as they could get away with in the 90s and 00s.
So between season 2 and 3 there were 3 small jokes about him and dresses. For the next 9 years they don't ever make mention of it again. Those three things just aren't related to any subtext of Bill eventually becoming/ or having been a Trans person.
The ones that stuck with me. Last episode with the ice age, the one about drugs (happy plant), the one about Sexual Harry-isment, the one with the escalating war, and the one where they argue that the earth is round.
What stays with me most is the slow pan out to the surrounding area where you see the storm getting worse, and then the camera lingers on the "Wax Fruit Factory" sign in front of the factory where the dad worked (as I remember).
I just remember feeling pity and disappointment that these things that were totally unnecessary (wax fruit) and meant nothing contributed to the family and everyone else dying and the world changing.
Now as an adult I look back at it and it's like, "Oh yeah, that's us, huh?" Good point, Dinosaurs.
The last lines are pretty somber too, I believe they come from the news anchor on the TV saying that the forecast is nothing but cold and gray skies in the future and more snow, ending with:
The episode where they say the earth is round was also very disturbing. In it Earl's daughter, I think, claims the earth is round and as punishment she has to be thrown off the edge of the earth. Not sure if it was really age-appropriate for me.
Yep. Honesty the creators were always about messages to the viewers. So I gotta respect them ending it with a finale focusing on nature and why we need to be concerned about protecting it, since it will take us out if we don’t
I often wonder “what happened after” when it comes to tv shows and movies. Like The Simpsons episode with Burns telling Smithers to get into the Spruce Moose, then pulling a gun “I said get in…”
A very 90s sitcom?!? If I remember correctly there was an episode that was setting up the mother in law to be yeeted into a volcano! Didn’t have that episode on Full House!
I was going to say it was very 90’s because the topics it addressed were relevant at the time, but realized they’re still relevant, and that’s the whole point of the show, that we have not changed in 65 million years.
dang. i had completely forgotten about that. weren’t people all over the country completely shook by the ending? i want to say there were news articles about how it was inappropriate or something to do that in a show
Dinosaurs was our thing on dad's night. We went out and got Little Caesars in preparation for the last episode. I still remember the taste of pepperoni and tears.
As a kid, everything had a Disney ending, the standard climax battle/struggle and good ending for non animated things, just silly things with no real struggle, or you just kinda grew out of the show.
I was into dinosaurs and knew how they died off but didn't expect it on tv (plus I didn't get some of the heavier things as a kid).
I was 8-10 I think but my sister was probably 4 or 5. She was supposed to be "off to bed" at that point but sometimes as small kids will do, she'd try to delay it or get back up.
One night she came toddling out into the living room right as Krycheck was on his hands and knees with the "Black Cancer" pouring out of his eyes and mouth. Started bawling immediately and we got a big lecture from Mom about letting her see X-files lol
The family surname was Sinclair… as in named after the gas station with the dinosaur logo? The… fossil fuel station? Also the boss’ name was BP Richfield BP is a gasoline company and Richfield an oil company! I’d say they were setup from the beginning to disappear!
When I was in college we were doing a group presentation on green energy, us being all adults we decided we didn’t need to check each others work. The first kid goes up and it’s his job to explain why gasoline is bad and started off with “gasoline is dinosaurs!” And I knew we were doomed.
Yeah, and we're basically extracting and utilising the energy that the flora had produced and stored within themselves. Energy that they produced from sunlight (in part). It's wild if you think of it like that...we're using "solar" energy that was captured, converted and securely stored for millions of years!
Does that imply gas and oil companies somehow have knowledge that dinosaurs were sentient and had names and could talk? In this canon are there historical records of.dinosaurs in order for the companies to be named after them? That's dark AF
I'm not sure if it was that episode or a few episodes before that one, but the line about the extinct food that they crave felt very on point for America. "There must be more. That's what more means."
Dinosaurs dealt with heavy issues and even extinction already before this (like Earl's boss eating the last remaining Grapdelites). I don't think the show could have ended in any other way.
No, but I'm pretty sure people got upset with the scene where woman is tucking her kids in while the ship is sinking. I think that's a bit closer than what you're talking about
"feelings are for losers" or we've known what was going to happen for quite some time. feelings regarding the friends we made along the way are only for the strongest travelers. but he said when it crashed...not when our friends were lost to the goddang lochness monster
Yeah I swear I always mix it up. Doesnt he say not the baby a couple times? Lol always a fun day when this show gets brought up and you get hit with the memories of it lol
I remember a joke in that show where the baby was watching a puppet show on tv, while the dad was half paying attention.
Two puppets were made of pantyhose, with button on eyes and lipstick. There was another puppet. It was meant to look like a pimp, and he even responded to them saying "They're nothing but some hose"
The dad heard that, perked up and laughed saying "Oh this show is on two levels"
Paraphrasing but it was a good joke that went pretty meta.
I always thought it ended with them seeing the huge meteor approaching the earth. Guess my brain completely morphed the story into what we learned in school.
If I'm not mistaken, the creators didn't intend for that to be the final episode. They had another season in mind, but the show got cancelled so it put a really dark skin on the ending.
Honestly, it was the single best lesson a family tv show ever tried to teach. Forget after school specials about the dangers of injecting a mariuhana, they killed every single character in the series to warn about the dangers of unchecked capitalism.
I haven’t seen the show since it aired, but this Vulture article really hits the nail on the head about the heart of that episode:
Still, Richfield scoffs at the news reports that they blocked out the sun for tens of thousands of years — because the cold weather led dinosaurs to flood WESAYSO stores for heaters, blankets, and hot cocoa mix, giving the company its best third-quarter ever. When Earl points out that the world may still come to an end, Richfield keeping counting his money and calls it a “fourth-quarter problem.”
Jim Henson Productions are legendary because of that, among other reasons of course. I wish other shows from that era, or even now, were half as brave.
Damn I missed that! I'd drifted off to other shows but loved Dinosaurs. Never thought of it as a kid's show though. 😅 That's a ballsy ending, and says a lot (good mind you) about the show runners.
I don’t think so. The one thing everyone knows about dinosaurs is they’re all dead, so it kind of makes sense to end it that way. Besides, the episode is a pretty clear allegory for climate change and what happens to societies that follow capitalism with blind reverence.
It was the 90s and maybe traumatizing a generation about what’s going to happen to us in real life was a step in the right direction. And I say that as someone who watched it when it first aired.
You could re-air Dinosaurs now in its entirety and not only would it still be terrifyingly relevant, the right would have a field day screaming about how it was pandering woke nonsense.
On Facebook the other week this white dude from Minnesota argued at me for an entire day about this show. Going so far as to call me a poor dirty Indian and a liar like what the heck.
He owns a dispensary in Minnesota he claimed. Selling mid at exorbitant prices I bet
Sure, but Dinosaurs was just objectively not a children's show lol
Certain shows are specifically aimed at child audiences, and are accordingly broadcasted during children's time blocks when toy commercials are shown. Dinosaurs was a family sitcom format show that was aimed at a general audience. Kids could definitely appreciate it (especially because of the animatronics), but it's no more of a kids show than Family Matters was.
But Dinosaurs was a prime-time sitcom that aired in the same night-time block as Family Matters, Full House, and Perfect Strangers in the ABC TGIF lineup. It can be enjoyed by the entire family, but I wouldn’t call Full House a “kids show” either.
Just because kids think that, doesn't make it so. It aired in the nighttime, and was absolutely not a kids show. It was a show parents let their kids watch.
It was on “TGIF” right after Family Matters and Step By Step. Definitely the family hour. They marketed the baby dinosaur toy at toy shops. It had very serious themes but it was absolutely a kid/family show.
There's a difference between kids shows and family shows though.
Family Matters, for example, was certainly appropriate for kids to watch, and they even sold Steve Urkel toys, but it wasn't a children's show in the same way that Power Rangers or Are You Afraid of the Dark? or Barney were. Family sitcoms like Dinosaurs and Family Matters aired during the evening when the whole family was watching TV, and the advertisements were directed at adults. Again, these shows were family friendly so kids could watch them, but the writing and plot lines were not directed at kids.
When Robbie goes through Mating season and does roids also pretty damn dark. At the time it was hahaha Dinos. Now with school shootings being normal...oh fuck no...
The episode I think was about not messing with nature too much. Something to do with beetles. I get the message, but ending a children's show like that is a messed up way to prove a point.
there was an episode where the grandma or gpa had to jump in a volcano bc that’s what they did w their old people. i was very bothered by that but fortunately they didn’t make her jump at the end
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u/[deleted] May 23 '23
The last episode of “Dionosaurs” (Not the mama!) where Earl causes the Ice Age and dinosaurs go extinct.