Trivia / Dino-Riders

• Accidentally Correct Zoology:
  • Pterodactylus is portrayed with a crest, before studies in 2004 confirmed this (although, when the Quetzalcoatlus toy was re-marketed as Pterodactylus by the Smithsonian, the crest was removed).
  • Struthiomimus is depicted with feathers, decades before ornithomimids and other bird-like theropods would be discovered to have feathers. That said, it would have more than just a feathery coat.
• Development Hell: According to The Other Wiki, a live-action movie adaptation was in the works.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Only several episodes of the show saw home release in the US on VHS tapes, and some of them go for pretty high prices. A few international DVD releases exist as well, some with episodes not on the original VHS issues, but they can also cost a bit.
• The Merch: Despite the show's Artistic License, at the time they were released, the toys for the franchise were considered some of the best, most realistic depictions of dinosaurs available anywhere. While not so much these days, they were still well designed and fully articulated, unlike most dinosaur toys, so that was cool. The distinctive-looking T. rex figure appears to have gained another life as the inspiration for Rex in Toy Story!
• Prop Recycling: As mentioned elsewhere, Tyco reused much of the unsold figures for a Smithsonian-backed line. Some of the molds were also reused for Tyco's Cadillacs and Dinosaurs line in 1993.
• Science Marches On: As the toys and cartoons came out in the late 1980s, some designs inevitably became outdated.
  • The Deinonychus is depicted as entirely scaly, as this was still a full decade before we found evidence of feathers on dromaeosaurs.
  • Pachyrhinosaurus is depicted with a massive horn instead of a boss, which was based on a theory that had just come out at the time, proposing that its boss anchored a keratinous horn akin to a rhino. The idea was controversial though and extensive research on the animal's skull anatomy in the late 2000s eventually disproved it.
  • Monoclonius is now considered a dubious name (as it was originally erected from fragmentary remains belonging to juvenile ceratopsids) and the popular image of the animal is actually based on Centrosaurus.
  • The entelodont is referred to as Megachoerus, which has since been determined to be a larger species of Archaeotherium. It's also given the moniker "killer warthog", as entelodonts were once considered to be close relatives of pigs but are now seen as most closely related to hippos and whales ("killer hippo" would probably be redundant).
• Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy: Numerous differences are found:
  • The dinosaur toys are usually a different color scheme than the cartoon's — of particular note is the bright yellow and green Tyrannosaurus, rendered gray/green in the toyline. Most Ceratopsians are plain brown in the cartoon, but vary in the toyline (with Monoclonius and Triceratops being blue/green).
  • The weapons and equipment aren't 100% accurate, with the Brontosaurus sporting a completely different hardware from the show.
  • The action figures also look different from their animated counterpart — the human toys are rather small, which obscures detail. Few are given the bright colors of the Mini-Pack figures (some Rulons come in bright pink or gold outfits).
  • Some of the genera that are on the Rulons' side in the toy lines (Triceratops, Monoclonius, Pteranodon, and Ankylosaurus) are seen fighting for the Dino-Riders as well in the show.
• What Could Have Been: There have been plans to add Parasaurolophus and Iguanodon.

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