After somehow becoming immortal and surviving the extinction of their species by hiding out in a cave for millions of years, two velociraptors emerge with the
ability turn into humans. One becomes
Corrupt Corporate Executive Victor Veloci and schemes to use some kind of
mutating formula to "genetically reconstruct all life forms and turn them back into what they rightfully should still be: dinosaurs!”
The other raptor mentors a
group of five teens who've been given the
ability to change into Stock Dinosaurs at will, trying to help them save the world from Veloci's incredibly ill-conceived plans.
Not to be confused with
Street Sharks,
Extreme Dinosaurs,
Dinosaucers, or
Dino Riders.
The show originally aired on
CBS' KEWLopolis (really) block from September 2007 to September 2009, when
Cookie Jar Entertainment (who acquired DIC a year earlier) decided to drop the show from the line-up due to the company wanting to de-emphasize the amount of DIC shows on the roster and re-naming the block 'Cookie Jar TV'. However, in April 2010, the show returned to the airwaves as part of Cookie Jar's syndication packages.
Dino Squad provides examples of:
- Alliterative Name: Victor Veloci.
- Ambiguously Gay: Caruso.
- An Aesop: One per episode, as well as a recycling one played over the end credits. Some episodes, like "Fire and Ice." went for more than one.
- Animal Superheroes: Technically, they're transformed humans, but they still follow the mold pretty closely. Notably, this show premiered in the wake of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles revival.
- Artistic License - Geography: The episodes are usually set in actual cities and towns, but the travel times involved are usually awfully brief.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: "GO DINO!"
- Curb-Stomp Battle: This is the usual result when Veloci changes to his raptor form to fight, since he's dwarfed in power by just about every other creature in the show. Examples include him being vaulted off the t-rex's nose, and being blown away when a giant gorilla roars at him.
- Everything's Better with Dinosaurs
- Five-Man Band
- G.I.R.L.: Veloci pretends to be a teenage girl while gaming online.
- Humongous Mecha: In "Wannabe."
- Lovecraft Country: It's a Saturday Morning Cartoon that takes place in Maine, and has ancient creatures that rise to attack.
- Infinite Supplies: Despite the good raptor telling the kids that as a school teacher she can't afford the same kind of equipment the villains have, she can afford the fancy guns the kids use to turns monsters back to normal, motorcycles and a hydrofoil built to look like dinosaur faces, a radar system that can detect anything with prehistoric DNA as well as a force field around the lighthouse where she lives to keep anything with prehistoric DNA from being detected, computers that can effortlessly override those of the villains, supplies to seed clouds, to take the kids on a field trip to Hawaii when there's monsters out there...
- Ptero Soarer: Buzz's Pteranodon morph.
- Raptor Attack: Victor Velcoi.
- Killer Rabbit: Veloci's final mutants in the last episode, that succeeded in taking down the Dino Squad temporarily? PUPPIES.
- Monster of the Week
- Somewhere A Paleontologist Is Crying: Roger's morph is supposed to be a Styracosaur, yet it has Triceratops forehead horns.
- Team Mom: Miss Moynihan. Her CB handle is even "mothersaurus."
- Ted Baxter: Caruso
- Totally Radical: Buzz is a "Neo Punker". Don't you wish you were?
- Transformation Sequence: Often shown both into and back from super-powered form, although when it is it's the same footage run the other way.
- Tyrannosaurus rex: Max's morph.
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