Monster of the Day #887

“Geez, is Kona going to make us wait all day?! What a jerk!”

  • Acethepug

    Yay! My absolute favorite dinosaurs! Which they now say *sniffle* might have never existed as a species, but only the immature form of some other dino :(
    Don’t care, love the Triceratops. Always have, always will! You can pry it and the Apatosaurus from my cold, dead paws!
    Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Had this on VHS, need to get a DVD copy.
    Off to eBay!

  • Ken_Begg

    I have both the Image and the Kino discs. I should crack those open during my upcoming stretch of, er, enforced leisure.

  • sandra

    Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops too / All went to lunch at the dinosaur zoo. the one on the left looks like he just told a joke and the one on the right like he’s laughing.

  • Gamera977

    ‘So Bob says ‘Where’s your other horn?”

    ‘It’s between those two pillows Frank…’

    ‘Those aren’t pillows!!!!’

    HAHAAHAHAH!!!!

  • Gamera977

    Yeah, and now to find out Trachodon is no longer a dinosaur but just a ‘wastebasket taxon’ for dumping duckbill fossils no one can identify.

  • Rock Baker

    Few dinosaurs have been as reliable when it comes to making movies/toys/what have you. You sorta have your big four: Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus, Triceratops, and Stegosaurus. They’re the Rat Pack of prehistoric monsters.

  • zombiewhacker

    I had an Aurora Styracosaurus model kit when I was a child. But one of my best friends owned an Aurora Triceratops model kit. I was so jealous…

  • Acethepug

    Aurora … models … I have not thought about them in almost 40 years!

    I had the Triceratops — loved its pointed teeth in the beak. Had the Smileodon, too, although not sure if it was Aurora or not.

    My dad put them together, and he painted the tiger (properly), I painted the Triceratops a gleaming robot silver — for some reason at the time (I must have been 4 or 5) it seemed to make sense :)

    Wow, I got the saber-tooth model at Ralph’s supermarket in Beverly (where I lived until I was 5).

    zombie — thank you (and Ken) very much for that trip down memory lane. I haven’t thought about those in years, and they were very pleasant memories.

    I think I might haunt eBay and see if I can get one or both again …

    It’s kinda dusty in here, have something in my eye …

  • Petoht

    It’s the dino with the laughing face!

  • The Rev.

    It’s Brontosaurus, dammit. It will always be Brontosaurus. I don’t care what anyone says.

  • Ken_Begg

    Yes! Also, Pluto’s a planet.

  • Gamera977

    Damn right!!!

  • Gamera977

    My first model kit was a Styracosaurus but upon looking it up recently it doesn’t seem to be the Aurora one. I still have the box but it only has K-Mart on the box instead of a manufacturer, I wonder if it’s some Japanese version repackaged under the store brand.

  • Ericb

    “So a mammal, a bird and a T-Rex walk into a bar ….”

    “Sorry dude, too soon.”

  • Flangepart

    “Watta ya call a slow Brontosaurs?…lunch!”
    “Ma, what a Bronto-serrus?”
    “I’ll tell you when you get older, son.”

  • Wade Harrell

    It used to be that way, but the Jurassic Park movies changed the dynamic. I own a store that sells dinosaur toys as a significant part of it’s revenue and so I actually have my finger on the pulse of the dino-buying public! Because of JP Velociraptor and Spinosaurus entered the fray as major players, previously only the more serious dino geeks knew about them. Brachiosaurus has replaced Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus as the most popular long-necked dino, and both Triceratops and Stegosaurus have seen their market share decline (the appear briefly in the films but are not prominently featured). T. rex remains the most popular dino overall, but Spinosaurus is a close second.
    One interesting thing about the Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus thing is the name change took place way back in the 1920’s or maybe earlier but it took another 60+ years for it to reach the general public. The main reason was that museums typically had engraved bronze plaques on their exhibits which are very expensive to replace so “Brontosaurus” remained the name as far as the general public was concerned. Taxonomic rules require that when it is discovered that an animal has been described twice that the oldest name takes precedence, in order to give the original describing scientist proper credit. In this case though, they could kept Brontosaurus because both names were given by the same guy, O.C. Marsh! Brontosaurus means “thunder lizard” while Apatosaurus means “deceptive lizard”. Clearly Brontosaurus is the better name!

  • zombiewhacker

    Yes, the Smileodon was Aurora. At least, mine was. :)

  • Rock Baker

    When I was a kid, Monogram re-issued a number of the Aurora dinosaur kits. I had the Dimetrodon, and loved it greatly. My mistake, though, was taking it to school with me one day. I had to put it on a shelf so I could use the bathroom (yes, I literally carried it with me all day) and it fell off and hit the concrete floor. I can’t remember which pieces, but several were lost. I can’t say what happened to it after that. Poor thing.

  • Rock Baker

    Yeah, my gauge on Brontosaurus has always been to stick with the ‘good’ name and ignore the other one. I mean, it’s just kind of the perfect name for a dinosaur!

    I figure you have a point, although the last time I saw some dinosaur toys in the checkout line, I spotted the old favorites. Added to their number were a styrackosaurus and a spinosaurus, though.

    I do recall as a kid loving the look of the spinosaurus and wishing it’d get used in the movies. A nice substitution, though, came in the fact that the ceratosaurus saw a lot of celluloid.