Dinosaurs

The 90s saw an explosion in cheesy formulaic family sitcoms. Audiences couldn't seem to get enough of allegedly normal people interacting with their loved ones; it was certainly a lot easier than being forced to interact with our own. One after another, these shows appeared, featuring a basic nuclear family and following them through their (again, allegedly) humorous daily interactions. Step by Step, Full House, Family Matters; these shows all followed a pretty standard set of story lines. Even the purportedly edgy Married with Children relied to some extent on sturdy stereotypes of a blue collar family.

It took a magical mind like Jim Henson's (which I imagine to have been full of abandoned ET design prototypes and colorful Fraggle Rock wardrobe changes) to conceive of a more original model for such a tired premise.

Why not make them dinosaurs?

Wait, wait? As in carnivorous prehistoric creatures with a penchant for carnage and general non-camaraderie? What could they possibly have in common with the white bread families of typical 90s sitcom fame?

Nothing. This was the whole point. Why not create a show that follows the family sitcom formula to a T, but with characters who inherently have nothing in common with this type of familial situation? It was a fairly innovative approach, though it did borrow heavily from Flintstones and Simpsons conventions. The situation and the characters were inherently out of sync, infusing some freshness into the stale model of a home-based situation comedy. And though the idea came to fruition a year after Henson's death, the seed he had planted grew into the Dinosaurs in 1991:



The character molds were all recognizable, but with a delightful prehistoric twist. Let's meet the Dinosaurs:


Earl Sinclair: Our hero, the mighty megalosaurus. Who knew dinosaurs looked so great in flannel? Considering this was the 90s, I'm fairly certain I owned that shirt. He could be a tad on the Al Bundy oafish side, but was determined to keep his family happy and fed. In the first episode we find that he opted to take this purportedly new family route rather than killing and eating his mate and young, which apparently was a pretty novel idea. He worked at WESAYSO as a tree-pusher, which likely explained the lumberjack getup.



Fran Sinclair: Dinosaur housewife extraordinaire. Her skills included chasing furry future dinners around the kitchen, nagging, and wearing aprons. She inexplicably birthed offspring of varying dinosaur species. Fran initially roped Earl by means of her natural feminine scent, in her case, New Car Smell.



Charlene Sinclair: 13-year old daughter, fashion-driven and materialistic a la Quinn Mordgendorfer. We do, however, find that she exhibited some signs of intelligence by managing to prove the world is round and thus changing the course of historical geographic discovery. Other than that, she was pretty vapid.



Robbie Sinclair: 15-year old son, wise beyond his years. We knew he was semi-rebellious because his best friend sports a leather jacket. In 90s sitcom conventions, a leather jacket is the only known symbol anti-authority.




Baby Sinclair: You gotta love him. Or so he says. His catchphrase, "I'm the baby, gotta love me!" was everywhere during the show's tenure. And really, I mean everywhere. It was so famous, in fact, that DTV (the fictional dinosaur TV network) allowed him to star in the following 100% ridiculous music video (please be warned that if you watch this, there is no chance of extricating this song from your brain. Attempts at detaching it from your cerebral cortex are futile. I'm still humming it 15 years later):



Baby (yes, this was his real name) also had a penchant for hitting his father on the head with a frying pan and referring to him affectionately as "Not the mama!" Cute, right?



The show premiered in the ABC TGIF lineup, appropriately sandwiched between between fellow family sitcom hits Full House and Family Matters and was fairly popular throughout the course of its 3-year run.

Beneath the surface (this would be a good place to make some sort of fossil joke that I don't have) lurked countless vaguely recognizable voices. Allow me to share with you some of the prehistoric celebrities who lent their voices to this program of puppetry:


Jessica Walter as Fran--You know, Lucille Bluth? I suppose she's also in that new 90210, but really, she is just playing Lucille Bluth all over again. You almost expect to hear the ice cubes clinking in the glass any time you hear her voice.




Sally Struthers as Charlene--Sure, she was in All in the Family, but most of us 90s kids remember her as that blonde lady constantly imploring us to get our degrees through the magically convenient means of by-mail correspondence (I was particularly partial to the veterinary technician course, if forced to choose).




Sherman Helmsley as tyrannical (insert "-asaurus Rex joke here) WESAYSO exec BP Richfield--What is this, an All in the Family reunion? Of course, he was best known from his starring role on the Jeffersons, so you could probably say in this case he was movin' on down (and yes, I recognize that was an extremely cheap attempt at humor. Just roll with it. I think Sherman would have.). For those of you that were into that kind of thing, you may also recall him as Tia and Tamara's grandfather on Sister, Sister.

Christopher Meloni as the aforementioned badass teenage friend, Spike--Most of you probably know this guy from Law and Order:SVU, but the less fear-mongering among us may recollect his performances in Oz, Harold and Kumar, or my personal favorite, Wet Hot American Summer. Also, he once played a gym teacher on Pete & Pete. What more could you want from a man?




Kevin Clash as Baby Dinosaur--You might not recognize him by face, but Kevin here voiced some of your favorite childhood characters (allow me to assume these are your favorites. Thank you for your cooperation.) Most notably, Elmo, but also Clifford the big red dog, and everyone's favorite animated rat, Splinter from TMNT. Oh, and he also played that lovable sax-playing Sesame Street owl who sang "Put Down the Ducky". Great song.


Admittedly these are not the biggest names in the biz, but they reflect the nature of the show itself. It wasn't the flashiest or the most original, but deep down it was good fun. While the show addressed a surprising number of political issues for a puppet-centric program, it was generally lighthearted and didn't take itself too seriously. At the end of the day, isn't all you want just to watch a giant puppet dinosaur get smacked on the head with a frying pan by his less-giant puppet dinosaur son? I think so.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Were you aware that Wikipedia actually has a disambiguation page entitled "anthropomorphic martial artists"? The description of the page reads, "This category contains articles about anthropomorphic animals in fiction who study martial arts." I see. As opposed to anthropomorphic animals in real life who study martial arts. Next time one of your household pets starts showing promising progress in Tae Kwon Do, feel free to create an adjacent Wikipedia page featuring the latter.

Apparently these martial arts-skilled animals are a popular phenomenon, but none more beloved than the original nonsensical backstory of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. An outrageously popular franchise in the late 80s and early-to-mid 90s, TMNT served as a beacon of hope to anyone who ever conceived of a farfetched idea for children's entertainment. Sure, all comic books require some degree of suspension of disbelief, but they generally ask us only to suspend and not to abandon it completely. For Superman or Batman, their backstory at least allows you some insight into their once-normal lives before they became breakout stars in the superhero world. Well, actually, Superman was technically born on the planet Krypton, so maybe you can scratch that. Either way, it still makes more sense that the warped world of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.



Let's break this down a bit. Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at this brainstorming meeting.

"Okay, so we've got these turtles. Wait, let me back up for a second. Did I mention they're mutants by means of exposure to dangerously radioactive sludge? Because that's sort of important too. Oh, and they're masters of Ninjustsu, a giant meditating rat taught them that. I'll have to fill in the blanks on that one later, but I swear, it'll all add up when I'm done with it. One last thing: I've been thinking that adult mutant ninja turtles are just not relatable enough for these kids. No, I think we better go for it and make them adolescents. So whaddaya think fellas, have we got a franchise here?"

Against all odds, they did. That story somehow managed to endear itself to children everywhere, who were miraculously convinced that it made perfect sense. The more ridiculous variables writers and marketers added to the story, the more blindly children accepted it as fact that this was just the way that adolescent mutated martial arts-practicing reptiles lived. When told the turtles were partial to pizza, children merely shrugged and asked, "So?" When confronted with the turtle's similarly ridiculous catchphrase, "Cowabunga!" these kids seemed utterly unfazed. Granted, if you explained the turtles were named after famous Renaissance-era Italian artists, you would probably receive only a blank stare in return, followed by the deep suspicion that they were being subjected to something educational against their will.

You can, however, bet that no children batted an eye while explaining the premise to adults. You have to admit, it certainly had imagination.



Wasn't that cartoon intro theme song informative? So you're telling me they're heroes in a half-shell, and they're green? Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, this seems complicated.

While TMNT had several different incarnations and story lines, I am going to keep it simple and focus mainly on the early animated TV series in this brief detailing of our colorful cast of characters:


Raphael (The Red One): Here was sort of a dark, aggressive, future wife-beater type character that any children who liked the color red would eventually aspire to emulate. Sure, he was generally a good guy, but he also was into that whole "I'm a rebellious teenage terrapin" deal. The animated show's theme song describes him as "cool but ruuuuuude", which i always found to be an unspeakably covetable way of being. I yearned for people to describe me as such, but unfortunately my coolness never quite caught up to my rudeness. Raphael was also was skilled in addressing the audience in a Ferris Bueller/Zach Morris style, earning him major cheesy 90s points in my book. He wielded a sai, which I always sort of mentally likened to Ariel's dad harpoon in The Little Mermaid. However, as I promised to gender-neutralize these posts to the best of my ability, I will concede and instead compare it to the fishing harpoons in the Amazon Trail computer game.


Donatello (The Purple One): Depicted as the industrious one, Donatello was the go-to turtle for all you handyman/vehicle-building needs. Pegged as the brain of the bunch, his ingenuity was key to extricating the turtles from many a villain-imposed sticky situation. According to the introductory song, he "does machines", which is certainly as vague a description as I've ever heard. He carried a bo staff, which is essentially an enormous wooden stick for baseball-bat-type pounding situations. I would also like to mention, if for nothing else but my own self-entertainment, that growing up I had a cat named Donatello. Well, technically, I named this cat Donatello and the rest of my family was forced to live with it. Regardless, he lived to be 20 and I credit his namesake's trademark smarts for his prolonged survival against feline odds.



Leonardo (The Blue One): Described the animated series' theme song as the group's leader, Leonardo was our fearless captain. In all truth, I always sort of found him to be edging on goody-goody territory. He's quiet, likes to read, and is generally boring in most other ways. I mean, how many times can you turn on the TV and go, "Ooh, now he's making a sandwich! Now he's being courteous to others! I think he just helped an elderly sewer rat cross the sewage stream"? They tried to spice it up in the live-action series by giving him all sorts of complexes, such as a major sibling rivalry with Raphael. Raphi essentially kicks his ass, but I'm pretty sure we were supposed to chalk it up to boys-will-be-boys grade horseplay. Leo did, however, have a pretty sweet ninja sword.



Michaelangelo (The Orange One): The Spicolli-esque slacker turtle of the bunch, Michaelangelo spent most of his time being carefree and coining annoying catch phrases. He's described in the theme song as a "Party Duuuuuude!" Mikey sat around eating pizza, reading comic books, making wisecracks, and randomly spouting nonsense words like "Cowabunga!" He was inexplicably some variety of California surfer dude, despite the fact that his brothers mostly had region-conflicting accents. I should probably be willing to let go of the stubborn nagging feeling that it's unacceptable for one brother to sound like a Brooklyn-ite and another a California beach bum; I suppose under these circumstances that's probably not the most ridiculous aspect on which to focus. Michaelangelo had a pair of traditional ninja-style nunchucks, which I always thought seemed fairly authentic in a vague interpretation of Asian martial arts culture sort of way.


Splinter (Mutant Rat): This was the guy responsible for imparting such virtuous ninja knowledge onto our ragtag group of aquatic reptilian heroes. The enormous fuzzy Splinter rat in the first live-action film is undeniably frightening, and more than likely cost me a few nights of sleep. And he was one of the good guys.

Terrifying live-action Splinter

Shredder (Evil Villian): Shredder mainly interested me because he was voiced by the dad from Fresh Prince. This guy was their requisite archenemy, though personally I was more interested in his warthog and rhino henchmen, Bebop and Rocksteady. Yes, those were really their names. Don't try to fight it. Embrace the ridiculousness.

Honorable mention: The bad guy with the talking tonsil. I will be forever indebted to anyone who can tell me what this guy's name was, because he certainly gave me a wealth of nightmares that have clearly since repressed any memory of his character's name, rank, and serial number.

This franchise was so sprawling and immense, it's impossible to cover all of its many retellings and reconfigurations. Perhaps the rest of the story is best left for another time, when I can fully explore the glory of the live-action film. I should probably leave this as a cliffhanger, to keep you wanting more TMNT until that day finally arrives.

Along those lines, here's a little teaser for your listening/viewing pleasure. Hopefully it will tide you over till the next installment. I present Vanilla Ice's borderline brilliant Ninja Rap from the first live-action TMNT film. As far as I know, he was totally serious about this song.



Extra credit to anyone who learns the dance to this.

The Wedding Singer

What's more quintessentially 90s than...the 80s? If this blog has taught you nothing, I hope that at least you can take away from it the notion that decade-later nostalgia is the most enjoyable kind. The memories practically beg to be retrieved; they're just bubbling below the surface, aching for sweet boiling-over reminiscence*. It's easier to laugh at ourselves when we're not quite so far removed, and not yet old and crotchety enough to scorn our former idealistic selves. In this particular case, Michael Jackson red-leather-jacket-and-one-glove-combo-wearing selves.

Sure, a 90s movie set in the 80s is chock full of jokes that practically script themselves. What's that? A lacy Madonna glove on the ingenue's comic foil hot friend**? A Flock of Seagulls haircut on an airport employee? Billy Idol? In minor retrospect, these things are hilarious for no reason other than that it's shameful that people sought to emulate these wardrobe-misguided people. However, the heart of the movie is not in its cheap shots at a decade crying out to be mocked relentlessly, it's in, well, its heart.

In the mid-90s, many of us knew Adam Sandler from Saturday Night Live*** or as the goofy overblown yell-prone star of his eponymous title character films Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. This was most certainly before his Jim Carrey-esque "look-at-me-I'm-sort-of-artsy" phase (Punch-Drunk Love, Reign Over Me) but represented a shift away from the one-dimensional character caricatures, veering into I-can-make-a-joke-without-being-a-joke territory. Don't get me wrong, Sandler as Robbie Hart in The Wedding Singer was still prone to occasional bursts of humorous rage, but he also had a tad more in the humanity department.

So 90s children, spray on some Aquanet and hold onto your linebacker-esque shoulder pads; prepare to be spun right round.

(Be forewarned, YouTube was very generous on the Wedding Singer front, so I apologize for the clip-heavy post to those of you stuck at work.)



Robbie Hart was nebbish incarnate. As a former spandex-donning hair band front man, he has since fallen into a bout of suburban steady paychecks by means of his burgeoning career as a wedding singer. All is well in quiet Richland as Robbie is charming and professional, most notably when sidestepping the awkward drunken debauchery of Steve Buscemi. Really, is there anything he's not in? This guy is everywhere.



We get the the set up that Robbie is a kind and gentle soul from his fair exchange rate of old lady singing lessons for meatballs. Sounds fair to me. Who doesn't like meatballs? And deposited directly from stove-top to hand? Sign me up! Oh, and did I mention there's this hot chick who works as a waitress at these events? Because that comes in later too. Am I getting ahead of myself yet? This movie is more complicated than I remember. This is probably because I was 12 when I first saw it.

In typical melodramatic movie fashion, Robbie is tragically left at the altar by his personality-void fiancee, vapid Vicky. As most people did in the 80s when faced with a bout of unquenchable depression, Robbie turned to a strict music diet of The Cure. Dark, n'est-ce pas? He makes the fatal wedding singer mistake of playing "Love Stinks" at a wedding and is promptly booted out. All the people seated at the function's reject table certainly get a kick out of it, though.



During all this, Robbie bonds with the aforementioned catering waitress, Julia (Drew Barrymore) and promises to help her with her wedding despite all of the obvious and easily avoidable pain it may cause him. Otherwise seeking to dodge contact with nuptials, Robbie's struggling to make it work with bar mitzvah gigs.

For those of you not well-versed in Hebrew or Yiddish, I promise he says nothing in this song outside of "Mazel Tov!" and "L'Chaim!". The rest of them are largely just Semitic sounds. Aren't guttural language humorous? Ḥa ḥa ḥa ḥa!****



Julia eggs on Robbie to play her some of his new stuff (from the aforementioned Cure-rocking phase) and we are introduced to the following brilliant little ditty. Isn't is charming?



So, Julia. Yeah. Her fiancee is a Miami Vice-worshiping junk bonds trader named Glenn, I'm not sure you can get more 80s than that. He's also kind of a jerk. Okay, so he's a complete jerk and cheats on Julia all the time. And then he tells Robbie about it, which is a totally smooth move because Robbie and Julia are practically sporting broken half-heart BFF necklaces. Oh yes, and Glenn's last name is Goolia. Julia is to be Julia Goolia. Oh my god, rhyming! Language can be so humorous.

To avoid an incredibly lengthy post, I'll skip to the good parts. Imagine me as your helpful 90s VHS fast-forwarder, bringing you only things of value and weeding out the dreck. Blah, blah, blah, things go awry, hilarious kooky mishaps, misguided romantic escapades, yada yada yada....

Oh, and a rapping granny totally happens:



I love that lady, not just for this or her work in Wedding Crashers, but mainly because she was once on Golden Girls and thus deserves eternal unwavering reverence. It's in the Children of the 90s bylaws. Look it up.

So, the granny raps, and Julia decides to elope with her tool of a fiancee to Vegas to avoid any sort of confrontation with Robbie. With the help of Billy Idol (because really, who wouldn't welcome the help of Billy Idol in the face of a romantic scheme?) Robbie manages to accost her aisleside and serenade her:



All together now: awww. Wasn't that just obscenely heartwarming? Guys, if you're reading this, let me give you a hint. Cheesy moments from 90s movies have forever warped the expectations of any of your potential future mates. You better start brainstorming now some type of completely unrealistic over-the-top grand romantic gesture, because this is the way we've been told it's done.

The Wedding Singer is on TV every 12 minutes or so (I'm pretty sure they're using it calibrate satellite clocks) so its familiarity is comfortable like an old friend. Sure, it's not everyone's can of Tab, but even the harshest of critics have to warm at least slightly to its endearingness. It's everything a romantic comedy should be: watchable by both genders, is actually comical, and still has room for quiet blubbering toward the end. In step with good ol' simplified 90s sexism, if it can give a girl a good cry and a guy a good laugh, it's a winner.



*Sorry, I'm making tea, so maybe I'm mixing metaphors a tad here. I found this Mara brand tea and had to try it. Oh, products that indulge my narcissistic nature, how warm and comforting and sweet you are...okay, we're back at the tea metaphors here. I should probably put a lid on it. Alright, I swear, that was last one. Now I'm just mugging it for the footnote readers. Okay, okay. Teapot/teacup/tea references have subsided, and we can all go on with our days. Whew! I realize this humor isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea.
**You may know Christine Taylor as Ben Stiller's wife, but she'll always be Melody from Hey Dude to me.
***SNL Gap Girls, anyone?
****Please take a moment to appreciate that Ḥ is the Hebrew hard "ch" sound and it took me almost 10 minutes to locate that symbol by googling "h with a dot under it". You're welcome. These jokes don't come easy, folks.