When Parantheses Ruled the Earth

I am a big fan of surprising people (and I don't just mean jumping at my sister Arielle as she exits the bathroom) (although, that is quite fun).

Last month, for Dad's 29th birthday (ha!), I surprised him with a ticket to see "Walking With Dinosaurs: The LIVE Experience" with me, and on Wednesday we went.

I'll give a slight pause to allow you to turn green with envy.

If you've been living under a rock and have never heard of "Walking With Dinosaurs" (as most of my co-workers do), I'll explain. It was originally a 6-part BBC miniseries (they make the best) about, you guessed it, dinosaurs. It combined state-of-the-art computer graphics (sidenote: where did the term "state-of-the-art" come from?), some wicked cool animatronics, and was done in the style of a regular nature program; meaning it pretended that it was actually filming the animals and just had a voiceover narrator -- no interviews or looking at bones and fossils.

State-of-the-Art Computer Graphics


Wicked Cool Animatronics

The Guinness Book of World Records says the series was the most expansive documentary series per minute ever made (thank you, wikipedia). I have no idea what that means. The point is that the program was pretty awesome and it got lots of good reviews (including three Emmy Awards, accolades and fruit punch all around!).

So a couple years ago, some people decided to make a live show of it (of course! Why didn't I think of that?); namely, William May (creative vision) and Bruce Mactaggart (original idea). It was all developed in Australia (yay Australia!) and has been seen by over two million people. The show is currently in North America (official website: www.dinosaurlive.com) which brings us to Dad and I at the Idaho Center on Wednesday.

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It was at this point that Dad and I were both a loss for words.

...

It was just . . . AWESOME, AMAZING, INCREDIBLE . . . ! The show ran about an hour and a half long plus a 20 minute intermission and was basically a history of the age of the dinosaurs. It took you through the Mesozoic era (containing Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods) and showcased some of the dinos of the day. Narrating and walking through the whole thing was an Indiana Jones type of time-traveling paleontologist who had an absolutely perfect voice for it. Even the plant life took us by surprise.

The dinosaurs who made the show were (interesting note, spellcheck only recognizes the names "stegosaurus" and "tyrannosaurus"):

• Allosaurus
• Ankylosaurus
• Brachiosaurus - The biggest at 36 ft high and 56 ft long
• Iguanadon - Just the carcass
• Liliensternus
• Plateosaurus
• Ornithocheirus
• Stegosaurus
• Torosaurus - Had one of the largest land-animal skulls, 8.5 ft long
• Tyrannosaurus - The baby tyrannosaurus was crowd favorite
• Utahraptor (hee hee, Aaron)

My roommate, Leslie, and her mom were also there (in a different section) and at one point it looked like they almost got attacked by the brachiosaurus. Leslie wanted a shirt that would say, "I Almost Got Eaten By The Brachiosaurus And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt."

Oh, the babies is so cute!


This thing was just gianormous!


Animatronic wizardry

I highly suggest trying to see this if it's in your area (Melanie, Aaron, it's in Salt Lake this week: 14th -18th). Also, y0u should check out a video montage of the workshop where they created everything and a Today show segment where they talked a little about the making of it.

So, yeah. Simply the COOLEST thing ever and I'm TOTARRY glad Dad and I went and . . . I have no words.