So I had a big obsession with anything Jim Henson growing up. So when I first saw a commercial for the premiere of the TV show Dinosaurs. I was totally hooked!

Dinosaurs ran from 1991-1994, and I remember it was a prime time TV show that ran on ABC. The show premise was about how a family of dinosaurs was living in a 90’s kind of world in a comedic way.

The main family consisted of:

Earl Sinclair: father to Robbie, Charlene and baby Sinclair. Husband to Fran Sinclair. Earl works as a tree pusher (he basically pushes trees all day) at a company called Wesayso Development Company. He is the head of the household so the show mostly revolved around him and any problems or daily lessons he had to learn.

Fran Sinclair: mother to Robbie, Baby Sinclair and Charlene. Wife to Earl and she was practically the glue that held the family together:

Robbie Sinclair: son of Earl and Fran Sinclair. He kind of reminded me of James Dean in his role from “Rebel Without a Cause.” Because he is always questioning authority figures and has a red jacket.

Charlene Sinclair: daughter of Fran and Earl. She totally embodies me as a teenage. Her interests include fashion, shopping:

Baby Sinclair: son to Earl and Fran Sinclair. The baby of the family and my favorite character on the show. He always had the best come back lines and didn’t take any crap from anyone.

They even made a Baby Sinclair toy. I always wanted one but never got it.

Other favorite characters I liked on the show was:

Ethyl Phillips: the sassy grandmother Baby Sinclair, Charlene and Robbie. She is the mother of Fran and the mother in law to Earl. I believe that Baby Sinclair has similar traits to his grandmother. With her pearls and thick glasses she processes the typical TV grandmother traits. She is a strong character and she is set in her ways and she openly criticize Earl constantly. There was also an episode about her having a near death experience:

Roy Hess- Best friend and co-worker of Earl. He is best remembered as the dinosaur who wears Hawaiian shirts.

Dinosaurs first show was on April 26, 1991 until July 20, 1994. The concept of the show actually came three years before the first show by Jim Henson. He wanted to have a comedy show about a family that was dealing with the current issues of the 90’s but with a family of dinosaurs. He decided on making a family of dinosaurs because he was amazed by the advances that were being done by his Creature Shop. The Creature Shop were making The Ninja Turtles at the time.

I remember watching the last episode as a child and I didn’t really catch on the first time I watched it the show’s message. It wasn’t until I was much older and had watched the last episode again did I realized how impactful it was. The family was facing extinction because of the environment was to toxic because of big companies were to it’s land. I remember going to school as a child and always being taught about environmental issues. I even was part of a recycling group at my elementary school. Dinosaurs was a show I thought was just for comedic relief but it was much more than that. It provided a powerful message about how important it is to take care of our natural land resources.

Fun Fact about the show: There was not a whole lot of merch made for this show. However Mcdonald’s did have a line of happy meal toys made. I remember just buying the happy meal for a Baby Sinclair toy! 🙂

Resources: Youtube, muppet wiki, and imdb.com

Until Next time!