Many congrats on making it through all of these. I loved the Land Before Time as a kid, first is still a personal favorite of mine and some of the sequels are at least watchable if not even a little enjoyable. Yeah most are trash, and honestly not even kids movies should be that bad.

Oh and because I never do..first.

About children's episodes with a theme song and a song within that episode.....


I think I recall the "My Little Pony" cartoon series did that too. But that was such a long time ago for me.

Ah... Is it just me but wasn't there an older Land before time series? Then again, as I said, it could be just me.

No, there wasn't an earlier one from what I know of, but there was another show about a group of dinosaurs (which looked A LOT like our heroes here) and that was aired when I was small, about 10 years ago. I don't remember the name, I think it was called "Dink the dinosaur" or something like that, but you could see it was ripping off the Land Before Time (maybe trying to cash in on the popularity of the film series, which clearly existed if they kept making them).

Hope that helps

I remember watching the old 1988 LBT cartoon series when I was little and it actually was alot better than this series and the sequels combined.


Makes me want to look it back up again just for old time's sake. :)

it was just the ripoff

Dink the little dinosaur came out in 1989, and the first land before time came out 1988, so yea, you might be right about the ripoff thing (but not from the series, just the movie). It's actually worse as far as being an insult to kids intelligence, the characters were obnoxious and stupid. Somehow it still managed to last two seasons though (better than the LBT series... sad).

The only reason some people still like it I think is because it DIDN'T follow that same formula as LBT (except for the predator antagonists :P). Aside from that it's really just nostalgic to some of the kids who grew up watching it. It's worth looking up just to compare it to LBT, and just to know that it exists.

You said most of what I going to say about the Dink the Little Dinosaur, but I'll add just a couple details.

It wasn't an extact ripoff of the original movie even if the reseblances were obvious, so I give them creative for at least trying to do something different. In both cases you had five dinosaur children as main characters (which is one thing it had over TLBT tv series). Both had an apadosauris as the main character, both had a terydectal, and both had two females for three males. Also the flying character named Flap was kind of twerp and prankster, which at least made him easy to differentiate from Petri. And they live in a place called the Green Meadow as a safe heaven from predators, which sound 'nothing' like the Great Valley. Aside from that however, the series were more the like the LBFT sequals in tone and stories, so maybe the first sequal was ment to rip of Dink. Who knows?

During the second season they ended every episode with some scientific dinosaur factoid that they called a 'factosauris" I guess that at least gave kids something more memorable to take away than say "lying is bad" which was the lesson of at least three different episodes and I'm dead serious. Thankfull though, with one painfull expection there were no episodes with songs and even that episode only feauted one!

Speaking of which MarzGurl, when you mentioned a show twenty years earlier with multipal songs I initially though Kid Inc. which was also far more effective. Once the Jem clip came and went however, I had to stop this video cold:
"No don't take me back to Spikes sorry butt. Bring back Jem! Help me!"

I never heard of this show, but on wikipedia, it says that it's shown on Boomerang, so I'll give a chance. Judging by the pictures, they look so cute! I personally watched Denver the Last Dinosaur and actually had a T shirt of it at one time. I wonder if my mom still has it...

I had no idea that they ever made this. They truely milked these for all its worth huh? BTW, why are all the adults ok with the kids hanging out with a sharptooth?

Also i wouldn't mind seeing a top 11 worst songs for this seris.

ooo top 11 Worst Song List would be awesome! Good idea!

And oddly enough it would be a 100% mix of the Best of Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand.

I did not know about this ether

but as for your question, I think since he was little so he was not a threat....maybe he promised never to eat anyone in the Vally, but then again....what or who did he eat?

Out of whim, I started to watch the TV series. It hurt my brain, but there was a little bit of me that felt nostalgia. I used to be a huge Land Before Time fan as a youngster.

Now I want to find that episode where Spike inner monologues. Finals can wait, right? :D

Haha! Anyone else find themselves laughing continuously through the episode closer "group laughing" clips? ROFLMAO!

3:11-3:13, 3:18

What about the fact that someone got paid to sing, "Buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh!"

I did so too. XD

Good going MG, you are so brave
and as for Spike's backstory(?) I think the writers just copied off King of the Hill on how Boomhauer speaks in mumbles with occasional clarity, and when the audience sees his thoughts, he's speaking clearly and everyone else speaks in mumbles with occasional clarity

WORST MOVIE-TV SPIN OFF EVA-H!!!!!!!!!!

Aw, and I was so hoping we could do this series as a crossover together for TV Trash! Sigh...
So any chance you'll be at Dallas Comic Con this weekend?

did anyone else notice the only character who sounds even remotely the same as the first movie, or even the second one, is pitrie? I'd almost believe it's the same voice actor.

It is. Jeff Bennett (also the VA of Johnny Bravo) voices Petrie in everything LBT-related apart from the original film.

I seem to remember a TV series that completely the hell ripped off Land Before Time - and was actually GOOD.

Though, I may be wrong about that last part... it was a long time ago.

JEM...is truly outrageous. She is truly, truly, truly outrageous. The Land Before Time in TV series format? Considerably less outrageous.
Unfortunately, I would probably watch this if I were bored and found it on TV somewhere...thank God I don't have digital cable or that could damn well happen.

What I really hate about the Land Before Time sequels and tv series is that they take everything of value that made the first movie great and shove it out the window. The movie had memorable characters, a solid plot, conflict, and life lessons. The characters had a happy ending because they took a journey to find the great valley, not because they sang, danced, and acted like idiots. The sequels and tv series focus on the same plot over and over again. If I had watched just one MarzGurl review, I would've known what every movie was like. I'm not looking forward to seeing the game reviews.

Just going to add that the tv series and the last movie together probably killed the series. When the sequels started they came at about one per year (with the exception of 1999 and 2005 which didn't have one).
Then 2007 delivered the tv series and then later the 13th movie, and since then nothing.

Wow, now I want to see you do something on Jem!

Help I've been wanting the Nostalgia Chick to do something with Jem even since she lamented the lack of the kid show with female proactive femael protagonists. But hey if MarzGurl were to cover it, that I'd be awesome too.

26 episodes?! How in all intelligent cartoons was that possible!?
That's more episodes than Hammerman and Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos COMBINED!
DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!

Easy. Give a show one 13-episode season, then add another 13-episode season. It's quite common, really.

So, with 13 movies, that officially beats the Police Academy series, eh?

How sad... I think I just want to erase all these sequels and this series from my mind, and think only of the great first movie. Thanks for reviewing these, Marzgurl.

Well actually... German public television station ZDF (one of the largest TV stations in the world) airs it Saturday morning at 6:50.

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/ inhalt/15/ 0,1872,7536687_idDispatch :10584992,00.html

What's even worth is that they actually have co-produced and commissioned great classics in the past. For example Vicky The Viking.
http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=cTLQz-O5x2g

Their Children's Channel "Kika", co produced with ARD, the largest public broadcasting network of Germany, even has really amazing self produced shows.

However the programming department of that station is run by idiots, unfortunately.

Great vid Marzgurl.

And here's hoping that the games are dispatched in short shrift.

See ya soon! :)

So... what does Chomper eat in this series?

The same thing Diego the saber toothed tiger eats in the Ice Age sequels.

Urgh.

And now to depress you all even further: the original actress to voice Ducky in the first movie was murdered by her father.

You're welcome.

I remember when that got out on 4Chan and everyone freaked out

Some of movies might had been bad but this tv-series was much worse.

What about the Justice League? Its a group of 7 heroes for a kids cartoon. Or the Avengers? X-Men? GI Joe? Transformers? Even some Power Ranger teams have upwards of 6-7 members. Even TMNT counts if you include Splinter, April, and Casey.

I don't recall any Power Ranger teams with more than six 'regular' characters, at least in terms of the main team. I would say the same about thing TMNT as the other characters you mention played more supporting roles, even if the were reacurring.

Wow, what on earth did they do to Spike?? Why didn't they at least keep his voice consistant from the movie? Rob Paulsen would have done it again, he was in just about every movie from what I saw. I can't believe Spike has never understood anyone. >:|

Ruby - The Redundant Dinosaur.

Still, 7 members is nothing. One Piece has 9 main characters, and if you're talking about Bleach...over 15?

Also technically didn't Thicknose learn better at the end of his movie? Maybe he finally decided to actually do stuff to make his stories true.

And wow...they made Spike seem like a dog more than he is a character...sickening!

Oh how will the games hold up?

The reason Chomper and Ruby came to the Valley was because Chomper's parents asked her to watch Chomper and take him somewhere safe, because of Red Claw, Screech and Thud (you forgot to mention them, they were the main antagonists of the series).

Honestly, the series wasn't that bad. I liked that they brought back a lot of the characters from the movies (except Pterano, he shall be missed), and it had some good moments (the episode where Doc comes back has a pretty scary scene where Chomper has a nightmare about Doc trying to kill him because he's a Sharptooth, and Nightmare!Doc is freaking terrifying).

Gah, forgot to mention that Rudy is an Oviraptor.

Okay, time to be fair to this thing. There is *one* episode of this tripe that I saw that actually had an interesting premise. Chomper and his babysitter get separated from the group while being chased by a pair of raptors who work for the main Sharptooth of the series, Red Scar (just roll with it). The thing is, it's a cave-in of some sort that separates them from the group, and one of the raptors gets trapped along with them, but is pinned down by the rocks and immobilized. This allows for genuinely creepy dialogue between Chomper, who can speak Sharp-ese, and the raptor ala Hannibal Lector. It never really goes anywhere, with the raptor pretty much saying over and over that he'll swallow your soul, swallow your soul, but it provides a nice contrast to the offhanded lighthearted feel of the rest of the series, with a bit of character development towards the inherent frustration of Chomper's character as he tries to defend himself on the idea of a Sharptooth befriending its food supply. Eventually, of course, they reunite with the group, the raptor gets free, and nobody learns anything, but there is a flair of the tragedy inherent in the natural carnivore/herbivore cycle felt.

And then we jump back to recycled garbage songs from the movies. Yeah, this show still sucks.

The Sharptooth's name is Red Claw, not Red Scar, sorry; not that anyone really gives two craps.

Actually, I can think of a show that had songs on an episode basis that was good - Muppet Babies. Okay, the songs weren't ALWAYS great, but some were memorable.

That's because nearly all of them were co-writen by Alan O'Day, who already had several hits song as a writer to his name in more than five years before muppet babies premired. And yes the songs were generally much more lively and clever than the usual formulaic schluk they usually phoned in for kids shows. That's part of what made it great.

BTW thinks for even mention Jim Henson's Mupper Babies, which just happens to be my all-time favoriate childhood series!

I actually always kind of liked Ruby, granted that probably has to do with the fact I simply liked her colour scheme and honestly never paid attention to anything actually happening and just turned this on for the sake of having white noise to maintain my loose grip on sanity.

Is it just me or the opening looks like The Lion King movie? O_o

You're right...Why does the opening sound so African?

according to wikipedia the original voice actress for ducky was murdered so i hope you feel good about yourself land before time tv series

And Judith Barsi is being compared to this pile of dino-shit...why?