Dinosaurs Attack!
Encyclopedia
Dinosaurs Attack! is a trading card series by Topps
, released in 1988, and containing 55 cards and 11 sticker cards. The cards tells the story of dinosaur
s transported through time into the present day through a freak accident and wreaking havoc on Earth. The series is notable for its graphic violence and gore, intended to evoke memories of the successful Mars Attacks
trading card series of 1962.
s. While Mars Attacks was a parody of alien invasion movies, Dinosaurs Attack! was inspired by monster movies such as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
and Godzilla
.
The storyline of the card series is minimal. They tell the story of a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong, transporting dinosaurs of many varieties from their prehistoric world to modern times, where they wreak havoc upon mankind. Most of the cards show a different scene of the dinosaurs causing chaos and death across the world. Some of the cards show the scientists working to reverse the time-travel effect. In the end, the Supreme Monstrosity, patron deity of the dinosaurs (nicknamed "Dinosaur Satan" by some fans due to its resemblance to the popular culture depiction of Satan
) intervenes, trying to stop the scientists. The lead scientist, Elias Thorne, sacrifices himself to the Supreme Monstrosity so his wife, Helen, can succeed and send the dinosaurs back to their own time, tearing the animals apart in the process.
The artwork is intended to be shocking and graphically bloody, with one card showing schoolchildren being eaten by an Allosaurus
, a Stegosaurus
devouring a police officer while its spiked tail gouges out the eye of another and a Pteranodon
tearing apart the President of the United States
. The cards also contain gross inaccuracies in their depiction of dinosaurs. For instance, in one card, trilobites are portrayed as "flesh-eating worms" that attack humans. In reality, the trilobites consumed mud for nutrients. Also, a Dimetrodon
is depicted as dwarfing St. Basil's Cathedral, several herbivores as flesh-eaters, and other various dinosaurs as being almost Kaiju
-like. In fact, one can see references to Gorgo, Reptilicus
and Rhedosaurus
among the depicted creatures. Trachodon
is the exception; it is correctly portrayed as a plant eater and is never seen directly causing death (it does, however, indirectly cause death when startling one man so badly he shoots another by accident). Additionally, it is the only one on the eleven stickers to not be killing a human (instead, it is trying to eat a streetlight).
Despite the company's hopes, Dinosaurs Attack did not achieve commercial success. Tim Burton
was planning on making a movie, but dismissed it when Jurassic Park
was released. Instead he made Mars Attacks!
Eclipse Comics
intended to release a three-part miniseries based on the cards, but ended up only releasing the first issue.
Elias Thorne - One of the head scientists on the Timescanner project, he and his wife Helen were (presumably) the last humans on the space station Prometheus. While attempting to reverse the Timescanners ability to materialize dinosaurs on Earth, they were attacked by a large 'Demon' Dinosaur. Thorne sacrificed himself to the beast, giving his wife time to start the reverse on the Timescanner, sucking the dinosaurs back to where they came from.
Helen Thorne - The wife of Elias Thorne, she helped him build a mechanism to reverse the Timescanners effects. However, a large demon like dinosaur attacked, and killed Elias. Helen was able to throw the switch to the mechanism, triggering the reversal of the Timescanner, sucking dinosaurs back to the past. Helen narrates the back of the final story card, telling that how she and Elias only wanted to know what killed the dinosaurs. She concludes that the reason the dinosaurs were wiped out were because of us.
Anchorman - This unnamed anchorman appeared on the back of several cards, interviewing attack survivors. He first appeared interviewing a group of rock stars who were attacked by a group of dinosaurs who ate their colorful hair. He later interviewed a man who accidentally shot his friend while fishing, after being startled by a grazing Trachodon. The Anchorman is later killed on another card when a Dinosaur invades the newsroom and eats him, while his assistant runs off. Throughout his first appearances, the Anchorman seemed skeptical of the events.
Mitchell Stevens - The Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army, he is never actually seen on any of the cards. Rather, he appears on the back of all the cards that look like a report being addressed to the military, with Stevens being the sender.
General
Frank Manchester - General Frank Manchester was put in charge of U.S. Army operations after the death of the previous commander, who is ripped in two by a pair of dinosaurs (according to the front of the card in which Manchester first appears). While Manchester is only mentioned on the back of one card, he is later seen on another card, crushed by a theropod, his entrails strewn on the ground around him. It is affirmed this is him by Mitchell Stevens' report on the other side of the card.
Topps
The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...
, released in 1988, and containing 55 cards and 11 sticker cards. The cards tells the story of dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s transported through time into the present day through a freak accident and wreaking havoc on Earth. The series is notable for its graphic violence and gore, intended to evoke memories of the successful Mars Attacks
Mars Attacks
Mars Attacks is a science fiction trading card series released in 1962. The cards feature artwork by science-fiction artist Wallace Wood and tell the story of the invasion of Earth by cruel, hideous Martians. The cards depicted futuristic battle scenes and bizarre methods of Martian attack, torture...
trading card series of 1962.
Background
The Dinosaurs Attack! trading cards were created as a follow-up to the successful trading card series, Mars Attacks. Like Mars Attacks, Dinosaurs Attack! was intended as an homage and a parody of 1950s B-movieB-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
s. While Mars Attacks was a parody of alien invasion movies, Dinosaurs Attack! was inspired by monster movies such as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 science fiction film directed by Eugène Lourié and stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is about an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle that unfreezes a hibernating fictional dinosaur, a...
and Godzilla
Godzilla
is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games,...
.
The storyline of the card series is minimal. They tell the story of a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong, transporting dinosaurs of many varieties from their prehistoric world to modern times, where they wreak havoc upon mankind. Most of the cards show a different scene of the dinosaurs causing chaos and death across the world. Some of the cards show the scientists working to reverse the time-travel effect. In the end, the Supreme Monstrosity, patron deity of the dinosaurs (nicknamed "Dinosaur Satan" by some fans due to its resemblance to the popular culture depiction of Satan
Satan in popular culture
The Devil appears frequently as a character in works of literature and popular culture. In Christian tradition the figure of the Devil or Satan, personifies evil. Today the Devil remains a common figure in popular culture.-Music:Classical Music...
) intervenes, trying to stop the scientists. The lead scientist, Elias Thorne, sacrifices himself to the Supreme Monstrosity so his wife, Helen, can succeed and send the dinosaurs back to their own time, tearing the animals apart in the process.
The artwork is intended to be shocking and graphically bloody, with one card showing schoolchildren being eaten by an Allosaurus
Allosaurus
Allosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic period . The name Allosaurus means "different lizard". It is derived from the Greek /allos and /sauros...
, a Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus is a genus of armored stegosaurid dinosaur. They lived during the Late Jurassic period , some 155 to 150 million years ago in what is now western North America. In 2006, a specimen of Stegosaurus was announced from Portugal, showing that they were present in Europe as well...
devouring a police officer while its spiked tail gouges out the eye of another and a Pteranodon
Pteranodon
Pteranodon , from the Late Cretaceous geological period of North America in present day Kansas, Alabama, Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota, was one of the largest pterosaur genera and had a maximum wingspan of over...
tearing apart the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
. The cards also contain gross inaccuracies in their depiction of dinosaurs. For instance, in one card, trilobites are portrayed as "flesh-eating worms" that attack humans. In reality, the trilobites consumed mud for nutrients. Also, a Dimetrodon
Dimetrodon
Dimetrodon was a predatory synapsid genus that flourished during the Permian period, living between 280–265 million years ago ....
is depicted as dwarfing St. Basil's Cathedral, several herbivores as flesh-eaters, and other various dinosaurs as being almost Kaiju
Kaiju
is a Japanese word that means "strange beast," but often translated in English as "monster". Specifically, it is used to refer to a genre of tokusatsu entertainment....
-like. In fact, one can see references to Gorgo, Reptilicus
Reptilicus
Reptilicus, a giant monster film about a fictional prehistoric reptile, is a Danish-American co-production, produced by American International Pictures and Saga Studios, and is upon close examination two distinctly different films helmed by two different directors.The original version, which was...
and Rhedosaurus
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 science fiction film directed by Eugène Lourié and stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is about an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle that unfreezes a hibernating fictional dinosaur, a...
among the depicted creatures. Trachodon
Trachodon
Trachodon is a dubious genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur based on teeth from the Campanian-age Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation of Montana, U.S.A...
is the exception; it is correctly portrayed as a plant eater and is never seen directly causing death (it does, however, indirectly cause death when startling one man so badly he shoots another by accident). Additionally, it is the only one on the eleven stickers to not be killing a human (instead, it is trying to eat a streetlight).
Despite the company's hopes, Dinosaurs Attack did not achieve commercial success. Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
was planning on making a movie, but dismissed it when Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park (film)
Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...
was released. Instead he made Mars Attacks!
Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market...
intended to release a three-part miniseries based on the cards, but ended up only releasing the first issue.
Characters
Throughout the cards, a small number of recurring characters were present, usually appearing as a name or a picture ona few of the cards.Elias Thorne - One of the head scientists on the Timescanner project, he and his wife Helen were (presumably) the last humans on the space station Prometheus. While attempting to reverse the Timescanners ability to materialize dinosaurs on Earth, they were attacked by a large 'Demon' Dinosaur. Thorne sacrificed himself to the beast, giving his wife time to start the reverse on the Timescanner, sucking the dinosaurs back to where they came from.
Helen Thorne - The wife of Elias Thorne, she helped him build a mechanism to reverse the Timescanners effects. However, a large demon like dinosaur attacked, and killed Elias. Helen was able to throw the switch to the mechanism, triggering the reversal of the Timescanner, sucking dinosaurs back to the past. Helen narrates the back of the final story card, telling that how she and Elias only wanted to know what killed the dinosaurs. She concludes that the reason the dinosaurs were wiped out were because of us.
Anchorman - This unnamed anchorman appeared on the back of several cards, interviewing attack survivors. He first appeared interviewing a group of rock stars who were attacked by a group of dinosaurs who ate their colorful hair. He later interviewed a man who accidentally shot his friend while fishing, after being startled by a grazing Trachodon. The Anchorman is later killed on another card when a Dinosaur invades the newsroom and eats him, while his assistant runs off. Throughout his first appearances, the Anchorman seemed skeptical of the events.
Mitchell Stevens - The Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army, he is never actually seen on any of the cards. Rather, he appears on the back of all the cards that look like a report being addressed to the military, with Stevens being the sender.
General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
Frank Manchester - General Frank Manchester was put in charge of U.S. Army operations after the death of the previous commander, who is ripped in two by a pair of dinosaurs (according to the front of the card in which Manchester first appears). While Manchester is only mentioned on the back of one card, he is later seen on another card, crushed by a theropod, his entrails strewn on the ground around him. It is affirmed this is him by Mitchell Stevens' report on the other side of the card.
External links
- Bob's Dinosaurs Attack Homepage
- Background information on the series
- Dinosaurs Attack at MondoCollecto.Com