Remember those “Problem Child” movies from the early nineties? The ones starring John Ritter and Gilbert Gottfried. For those of you unaware, they were about a kid who got adopted by John Ritter and then instead of being grateful or having his hard heart softened by the generous love of strangers, he’s just a snot nosed bastard all the time.
And I don’t call the little son of a bitch that because he’s an orphan, though he is, but because he’s just a shitty human being all the time.
I liked these movies as a kid, I watched them on VHS I don’t know how many times. But now, just looking at his smug little face makes my blood boil.
That bow-tie isn’t even connected to anything, it’s held on by lies! Luckily for my health and probably yours, I couldn’t find an episode of the show anywhere online. So instead we’re watching…
“DENVER, THE LAST DINOSAUR” Episode 1.5 – Denver Makes the Grade (4 out of 10) – Created by Peter Keefe; Starring Pat Fraley as Denver; Originally aired September 16, 1988.
This is one of those shows I saw as a very young kid, barely recording memories. An image of Denver was burned into my memory and stuck there for 20 years before I stumbled across this cartoon again and had that “Holy shit, that’s the thing” moment.
Denver is a Corythosaurus, a species noted for a duck-bill and a sweet head crest that gives them that permanent Mohawk on a Neanderthal look, they died out about 75 million years ago. He’s been hanging out dormant in his egg apparently just waiting to be let out and sucking on the everlasting gobstopper that must be in his egg. Most dinosaurs who sit in their eggs that long just die and turn into rocks. Denver, he just rocks, extreme!
He is let out of his egg by a group of California teenagers and they teach him about modern life, important stuff like what the cool kids wear and how to skateboard and play guitar. They also protect him from adults who would exploit him for their own gain. Bonus trade off, they get a god damned dinosaur for a best friend and learn valuable life lessons every week. Everybody wins.
First point of contention, the theme song is simply the worst. In fact all of the music in this show is irritating, just try and tune it out, there’s a dinosaur on the screen.
It’s science fair time and the gang wants to win. Only trouble is another group of “bad kids” who also want to win so that they can use the ribbons to pick up girls at the mall. Because in this alternate universe not only does a dinosaur exist but chicks dig science fair ribbons. Suspension of disbelief shattered.
The gang racks their brains to come up with something scientifically stupendous to present. What could you possibly do your project on? Oh I know, how about the freaking dinosaur in the pool with you!
The most redeeming part of the show is when the kids gaze into Denver’s apparently magical time travelling egg shell and are transported back to the Cretaceous Period. This segment serves to actually teach viewers about dinosaurs but is way, WAY too short. Plus, I’m not exactly sure how one would site “magic time travelling egg shell” in an academic paper. The only other problem is that the model they build of Denver to present is destroyed and the kids decide to enter Denver as their project instead, posing as the model, because putting your friends at risk in order to show up some school jerks is totally cool.
Their consciences get the better of them and some of the boys want to confess. The other’s dissent because that would mean revealing Denver’s existence to the world. So obviously you don’t tell right!? Right?! These kids are idiots, and terrible friends.
In the end the kids learn a very valuable lesson about cheating, but learn nothing about not selling out your friends. It just goes to show that you can’t trust your four year old self to like things that aren’t terrible.