An Instagram post about an inaccuracy of how the Brachiosaurus ate in the original Jurassic Park led me to remember and comment about an event that happened shortly after I started my full time job for a medical device company.
As I cant tell any story without a quick divergence to something similar: Years after that memory- my daughter's class had me come in to
juggle and (because school should be educational) also give a talk about the heart and our device. Following the juggling, what I actually do for a living confused the children- and I quote, "I thought your Dad was a clown."
However, years before that moment to get back on track, because I was still in contact with my fifth grade teacher, (and my third grade teacher who was then principal and could approve this) she invited me to juggle for her class, and (because school should be educational) also give a talk. However, since I was
THE dinosaur kid in their classes (and likely the school), she asked me to give a talk about dinosaurs. Therefore (since it was 1994, the film was a huge hit and was available via home release and cable) I gave them a presentation based around things the original Jurassic Park got wrong. (Even in the 90's it was an extensive list. We have learned a huge amount more about dinosaurs since then.)
Other IG commenters stated they wanted to see the presentation, which led to quite the hunt. The heart presentation was in the early years of PowerPoint, and could be found instantly. The dinosaur one had no digital version saved. There were deep dives through multiple of my "folders of special things." I found Ringling Brother's programs, fan club packets for Doctor Demento, Uncle Floyd and American Gladiators, Pen Pal exchanges with a favorite cousin, handouts from when my Dad gave a computer talk to my grammar school class, Playbills going back tot he first Broadway shows I ever saw, a congratulations note left on our dot matrix printer at my eighth grade graduation party from an Up the Lake friend, the pictures from the card backs of the original Star Wars figures, two copies of the Star Trek IV poster book, reams of photocopied comic strips, and all manner of memorabilia. Eventually I did find the Dinosaur presentation. Therefore I am going to put it here so I never have go digging like that again.
Speaking of prehistoric, apologies for image quality. This presentation was created only as hard copies as I remembered it was. The tools were a photocopier with no color ink options, (which was also not a scanner nor a printer) and a sharpie. It is very likely that the copy I have was made by photocopying the overhead projector transparencies I used for the talk, "enhancing" the images. Finally - as I had learned in my then recently completed college career- I would get far more nervous (to the point of panic) public speaking with a full script. Meaning this were my outline/ presentation notes I used for this exercise.
Therefore, the explanation of why I chose each image is a thirty years later best guess remembrance. Luckily my brain is far better at those things than remembering why I just walked into a room.
N-Joy
The dinosaur books I read as a kid when attending that grammar school all talked about them being lethargic, evolutionary failed monsters, as opposed to the image that was starting to come to the forefront then of them as dynamic animals who were the dominant species on Earth for over 100 million years.
I think I included this due to a life long love of Godzilla. But also to point out that even though Jurassic Park wasn't perfect, it was a vast improvement over older dinosaur movies.
At the time, when I was younger and less easy going, it greatly irked me that they could have chosen all the dinosaurs shown from a similar geographic location. The fact that there was also a discrepancy in the time periods was less of an issue as I figured the Park creators wouldn't care. The location thing made sense to me, as it would have shown they got their DNA from one general area of excavations.
Following the previous idea, it also bugged me they used far lesser known names (like Gallimimus) for dinosaurs that clearly looked like more well known species, that I was used to seeing in the New York Natural History Museum, and did live where most of the other samples would have come from. (like Struthiomimus.)
Ah, the great Velociraptor issue. I later learned both that A) the film makers made them too big on purpose so they were scarier and B) Utahraptor was recently discovered at the time and was even larger than the animals in the movie. Here I point out the heads of the "Velociraptors" in the movie were the wrong shape, and more closely resembled Dienonychus (also a geographically better choice) before getting to the size issue. Yes, NOW I know the arms were in the wrong position and there were feathers missing.
My general pissing and moaning continues, this time about the creatures' sizes. The Velociraptors were too big, the Dilophosaurus was too small. Why? At that age, I believed solely to irritate me.
I spent some extra time pointing out that the Dilophosaurus was already incredibly cool and did not need to be made smaller, given a neck frill or poison spit. So there.
In deference to reality, I pointed out that neck frilled animals did exist, such as the lizard that can also run on the surface of water. While talking about weird and amazing lizard facts, the idea of super, economy sized Komodo Dragons that chased and ate kangaroos was far too cool to pass up.
Ah yes. Semi recently at that time, the idea of quadrupedal dinosaurs being able to stand on their hind legs was advanced. While the "seeing the Brachiosaurs for the first time" scene in the movie was truly breathtaking and awesome, their body shape, with their long front limbs GIVING THEM THEIR NAME (Brachiosaurus means "Armed Lizard") were not built for, nor did they need to, stand on their hind legs to reach higher. Speaking of names, DO NOT get me started about the Pteranodon (=Toothless Wing) with TEETH in the sequels, or I may have an aneurysm. My sister still has PTSD from sitting next to me for that one.
Um... I don't really remember why I continued with this thread. I believe I thought the idea presented in Doctor Bakker's book about how Dinosaurs grazing at every possible level went hand in hand with plant evolution showing how nature always works as a system was pretty nifty.
Given childhood phobia issues, I was offended that they used frog DNA in the animated bit in the film. This image showed that crocodilians or (even better) birds would be a more proper choice for filling the gaps in Dinosaur DNA. I cannot stress how cool it has been to see the whole "birds are actually Dinosaurs" concept grow into full being in my lifetime. It has made walking through nature even cooler than it had been before, and makes me want to spend more time in the bird houses of various zoos.
Hey look! More Dinosaur family trees with a joke about the Patty Duke Show that, even thirty years ago, would have been old enough to soar completely over the kid's heads. (Much like a toothless Pteranodon.) Moving on.
Another great picture from Tom Weller's Science Made Stupid to drive home the relationship between birds and Dinosaurs. This book is fantastic and the more you learn, the funnier it gets. I have revisited it often, and it is fantastic the author has made it fully available online.
A reference to the infamous scene in Jurassic Park where Doctor Alan Grant states about the Tyrannosaurus Rex- "Keep absolutely still, it's vision is based on movement." I talked about the Tyrannosaur's large, complex, forward facing eyes giving it excellent binocular vision and depth perception. Not to mention it had the largest olfactory center of the brain of any animal. Heck, even the sequels (which had toothed Pteranodons) made fun of this idea.
Of course, this was for school, therefore citing sources in a bibliography was needed. However, as I wasn't getting graded for it, I ignored the standard style requirements.
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