"Dinosaur Office! Raaaaawr!"
— Craig and Todd
Dinosaur Office is a series of stop-motion cartoons on CollegeHumor animated by Stoopid Buddy Studios that focuses on the daily lives of the dinosaur office workers. The series was notable for being a common fixture on Nintendo Video for the Nintendo 3DS.
The series can be watched in its entirety here.
Dinosaur Office contains examples of:
- Affably Evil: Terry is by-the-books, calm, and polite in his mannerisms, but he's also a hidden Terrifying Tyrannosaur that eats his employees. He's definitely on good terms with said employees, though.Craig: Terry, you are an asset to our team.
- Benevolent Boss: Terry is prone to eating his employees and becoming incredibly destructive and violent when upset, but he is genuinely competent, and immediately takes responsibility if anything bad happens to the company (such as a volcanic eruption).
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- As nice as Craig is, even he can be pushed to his limits as shown when after he fails at wooing the new Secretary, Richard tells everyone to be nice to Craig via blurting out about what happened. Craig then rams Richard, which then causes a fight to break out.
- Terry as well. He is a kind and understanding boss, but he is still a tyrannosaur that will eat his employees.
- The Spinosaurus waiter from "Guy's Night Out". He is for the most part polite and reasonable, even when the guys are being unsatisfiable customers. But when they refuse to give him a tip, he promptly turns savage and ends up mauling Todd.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Todd has his moments, such as when he is eaten by Terry in the first episode, and later doesn't get to the car in time when they're running away from the angry carnivorous waiter when they visit a restaurant.
- In every episode the Intern appears in, he gets killed. He somehow comes back next episode. Granted, he's not killed in "Office Party", but he still suffers.Terry: Ooh, who brought these? (eats female Parasaurolophus)
Intern: That's my plus one, sir! (Stunned Silence from Terry)
- Carnivore Confusion: Although generally a Benevolent Boss, Terry is still a Tyrannosaurus rex and shows it. Also, the spinosaurs frequently try to eat the herbivores, but only when they're angry at them. Bruce also eats some small lizards that are clearly terrified of being eaten, with one of them (which was originally meant for Terry) whispering "Help me" to Craig.
- Colony Drop: In "Asteroid", the weather forecast predicts that an asteroid heading for Earth will destroy everything. Subverted when it turns out to be smaller than expected (Which was Invoked by Craig and Sheila when they say that news channels always make stuff up for ratings before the subversion's reveal). Then double subverted when it heads straight for the office of DinoCorp Incorporated... but triple subverted, because that's not actually the office where the main cast works.note Todd: Oh nooooooooooo! ...I had stock in that company!
- Cloudcuckoolander: Richard. He gives his coworkers nicknames like Toddster and Craigo, he often passes the time by singing in scat, he comes up with weird ways to get out of situations, and most tellingly, he's way too trusting of his borderline sociopathic son.Richard: Yeah, okay. Last time we left him alone, he set off fireworks in the master bedroom. He's a handful, but I love him.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Craig finds various female coworkers to try to date but gets turned down, each time resulting in violence somehow. In a gender-flipped example, Sheila is never able to get Craig's attention with her advances.
- Disposable Intern: The poor intern gets eaten every time he appears.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Averted. "Just like that volcano last week. It was supposed to scorch the earth! (Beat) It only scorched half of the earth!"
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It's dinosaurs in an office.
- Failure Gambit: What Bruce Velosi's ultimate plan is in becoming boss.Bruce: Yeah, babe! I am crushing it! The way I've got these suckers working for me is completely unsustainable! Jack up the value in the short term; sell... for maximum profit. They go out of business; we go on vacation.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Craig is the melancholic Loser Protagonist who keeps to himself, Todd is the phlegmatic pragmatist who always has the most mundane suggestions, Richard is the sanguine Cloudcuckoolander who always stays optimistic, Sheila is the choleric unrequited lover who stubbornly sticks to her guns, and Terry is the eclectic Benevolent Boss whose mood can switch on a dime.
- Have You Tried Rebooting?: Upon Craig having computer trouble, Todd suggests this. And Sheila. And Richard.
- "Here's Johnny!" Homage: Craig does this in "Halloween Spooktacurawr" as part of his Sanity Slippage, smashing through the door to Terry's office and exclaiming "Here's Craigo!".
- Informed Attribute: Exaggerated in "Computer Problems". Todd, Richard, and Sheila all say that their sons are great with computers, and that they're all teenagers. Todd's son, Duncan, hasn't even hatched from his egg yet, Sheila has a daughter named Gretchen who seems to be of kindergartener age, and while Richard is right in that his son's name is Carl and that he's a teenager, Carl is decidedly not good with computers.
- Interspecies Romance: Sheila, a Stegosaurus, is in love with Craig, a Triceratops. Also, Richard the Diplodocus is married to a Parasaurolophus named Amelia.
- Jerkass: Richard's son Carl. He destroys Craig's workspace, hits Craig with a golf club many times and calls his father a idiot when he doesn't want to be watched. (Which he does since he destroyed his father's bedroom with fireworks.) Luckily, Terry eats him before he can do anymore harm.
- Large Ham: CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG! And he's not the ''only'' example in this series.
- Loophole Abuse: When Sheila asks if Bruce will still keep Bran Muffin Tuesdays, he ups the ante by telling her that there'll be bran muffins every day. However, there's a catch.Richard: Bruce says that there's still bran muffins every day, but you have to get 'em yourselves. (beat) And eat 'em at home.
- No Indoor Voice: All of the main cast except for Terry.
- Rage Breaking Point: Danny the Ankylosaurus team-building instructor is hired to build up trust between the crew, and goes increasingly frustrated at their incompetence at his lessons. When Craig suggests just giving Todd his discount card rather than a trust fall due to a bad back, Danny snaps and throws a fit on Terry's desk, knocking things off with his clubbed tail as he rants. Until he loses his balance and falls off, getting eaten by Terry in an attempt to catch him.
- Randomly Reversed Letters: The title screen for every episode has the "r" written backwards. There are other occasions where they write the "r" backwards such as on a banner celebrating Craig's birthday and at Rawrbucks.
- Raptor Attack: Bruce Veloci from "New Boss" is a Velociraptor that looks not much different than a stereotypical depiction, only he's bigger and walks upright like an old-fashioned portrayal of a theropod. Interestingly, he has Non-Mammalian Hair which could be interpreted as feathers.
- Reused Character Design:
- Bruce Veloci has the same exact model as one of the soap opera characters from "Sick Day".
- The Spinosaurus driver in "Traffic" and the Spinosaurus waiter in "Guys Night Out" also have the same model.
- Brooms McKinsey, the old janitor from "Halloween Spooktacurawr", and Danny, the Dino Team instructor from "Team Building", also share the same model, too.
- The secretary in "Office Romance" and Nestor, the stunt performer in "Viral Videos", use the same model as well.
- Sanity Slippage: Craig suffers this thanks to a seemingly faulty printer in "Halloween Spooktacurawr".
- Sapient Eat Sapient:
- Terry frequently eats other sapient dinosaurs. Then again he is a T. rex.
- Bruce too as he eats some small sentient lizards with his sandwich. To be fair, he is a Velociraptor.
- The Spinosaurus waiter from "Guy's Night Out" attempts to eat the guys when they enrage him, and manages to catch Todd.
- Shout-Out: Several to Jurassic Park, of course. For example, when Craig rear-ends the Spinosaurus's truck in "Traffic", the angry carnivorous driver flips over Craig's car and starts ripping parts off the underside like the T. rex in the film. Similarly, Terry's introduction in the first episode causes Bad Vibrations in the water cooler like the T. rex in the film. Bruce Veloci's introduction also shows him turning a door handle like the Velociraptor in the film.
- Skewed Priorities: In "Volcano Drill," Craig and Todd are determined to have their conversation in the midst of an erupting volcano.
- Snap Back: Nearly every episode has either the office building gravely damaged or someone killed off, but by the next episode, everything is back to normal.
- Spanner in the Works: Bruce appoints Richard as the boss, but because he's brutally honest, he says everything Bruce told him out loud, provoking Craig to go investigate Bruce's master plan.
- Teens Are Monsters: Carl in "Bring Your Child To Work". He sets off fireworks in Richard's master bedroom, insults him for thinking that he needs to be watched (which he does), tells Craig he hates him because he's boring, destroys his office with a golf club, and hits him on the head with another one afterwards. Thankfully, Terry eats him before he can do any more damage.
- There Was a Door: This happens a lot.
- They Killed Kenny Again:
- Terry eats the Intern, a young Parasaurolophus, in almost every episode the Intern appears in.
- Todd got eaten by Terry in the first episode, scorched in lava in "Volcano Drill", and mauled by the Spinosaurus waiter in "Guy's Night Out".
- Trust-Building Blunder: In "Team Building", Terry and Sheila are assigned to do a trust fall with the former catching the latter. Due to Terry's arms being too short (because he's a T. rex), Sheila ends up toppling on her side.
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: The episode "Elevator" is this entirely, when Craig and Sheila are stuck. She uses this to confess her love to him.Craig: Uh... Uh... I have to get back to work! (crash)
- Vocal Dissonance: All of the office workers have appropriately shouty, growly voices one would expect from a dinosaur... except for Terry the T. rex, the biggest and most fearsome of them all, who sounds like a totally ordinary person. Later episodes feature a few more dinosaurs with normal voices too.
- Voice Clip Song: One was made of "Computer Problems", sung almost entirely by Richard, with one interjection from Sheila.
- Would Hurt a Child: Played for laughs. Terry hosts Bring Your Child To Work day to eat them, apparently.Terry: (referring to Todd's unhatched egg) Ooh, you gonna eat that?
Todd: I was hoping to watch it grow up!
Terry: Suit yourself. - Yandere: Sheila for Craig. When Craig flirts with Amelia, Sheila tries to divert his attention, and just when it seems like the former two are about to get somewhere, Sheila attempts to kill Amelia. ...Then Richard reveals that he's married to Amelia.
