History Main / HollywoodPrehistory

This setting is nowadays a DeadHorseTrope. If there's a specific year when it died, it would have to be 1981, in which it suffered the blow of two [[GenreKiller Genre-Killers]]. One was ''Film/QuestForFire'', it being a much more realistic take on the lives of prehistoric humans, and the other was ''Film/{{Caveman}}'', it being a silly parody of the "cavemen and dinosaurs" genre. Between those two films, fur-clad cavemen battling stop-motion dinosaurs became something that audiences could no longer take seriously. Insofar as this setting turns up in media after 1981, it's always as either a [[TheParody parody]] of or {{homage}} to older works. And if it wasn't already dead in 1981, it was further killed a few years later with the advent of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_renaissance Dinosaur Renaissance]] media like ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' and ''Film/JurassicPark'', which endeavored to portray dinosaurs with more scientific accuracy and certainly did away with any notion of them living alongside cavepeople, by establishing any mammals that lived with the dinosaurs as not more than [[MeekMesozoicMammal small, scurrying creatures]]. The popularization of the idea that [[TheCretaceousIsAlwaysDoomed a meteor impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs]] may have further contributed to this trope's decline, as did the growing popularity of the last ice age with its large prehistoric mammals (especially [[MammothsMeanIceAge mammoths]] and [[SnowySabertooths saber-toothed cats]]) as a stark contrast to the dinosaurs and other reptiles which are usually associated with tropical or warmer climates.

These settings usually consist primarily of barren, rocky landscapes, usually dominated by the looming silhouettes of barren peaks or ever-smoking volcanoes. Breaks in this dominant terrain will almost invariably consist of dense jungles, primordial swamps, bubbling tar pits, and elaborate cave systems. More occasionally, barren fields of ice and snow may also turn up. The fauna will be [[AnachronisticAnimal a grab-bag of Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic species]], with saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths rubbing shoulders with dinosaurs and sail-backed reptiles while giant insects buzz past, pterosaurs wheel overhead and giant marine reptiles rule the seas. Given the low priority scientific realism plays in these stories, the beasts will often sport any number of unrealistic or outdated traits -- tail-dragging dinosaurs still turn up from time to time, and don't expect to see a feather on any one of them (aside from the occasional ''Archeopteryx'', of course). Oftentimes, these will be full-on {{Prehistoric Monster}}s more similar to [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] and other fantastic beasts than to anything that ever lived on Earth.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'' takes place in [[AlternateHistory a world where dinosaurs never became extinct]] due to the asteroid missing the Earth this time, with the main plot involving [[GentleGiantSauropod a young Apatosaurus]] befriending a caveboy and keeping him as a pet, before trying to help him reunite with his family.

* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'': The Prehistoric Scenario has more or less all the boxes ticked off: it's the only scenario with no actual dialogue, with the characters instead using body language and, at most, the occasional PictorialSpeechBubble. The cavemen, excluding the protagonist and TheHeavy of the scenario, are all club-wielding {{Gonk}}s with big round noses and raggedy hair, and the one female human shown (despite there being two tribes shown, all of them are men) is a NubileSavage with few clothes. Humans ''don't'' live alongside dinosaurs, most of the enemies are prehistoric non-dinosaur animals that are slightly more accurate. The notable exception is the final boss of the scenario: Odo, a ''T. rex'' worshipped as a divinity and implied to be the last of the dinosaurs. As it's the most comedic of all the scenarios, it doesn't really ''have'' to be in any shape or form accurate.

These settings usually consist primarily of barren, rocky landscapes, usually dominated by the looming silhouettes of barren peaks or ever-smoking volcanoes. Breaks in this dominant terrain will almost invariably consist of dense jungles, primordial swamps, bubbling tar pits, and elaborate cave systems. More occasionally, barren fields of ice and snow may also turn up. The fauna will be [[AnachronisticAnimal a grab-bag of Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic species]], with saber-toothed cats




and woolly mammoths rubbing shoulders with dinosaurs and sail-backed reptiles while giant insects buzz past, pterosaurs wheel overhead and giant marine reptiles rule the seas. Given the low priority scientific realism plays in these stories, the beasts will often sport any number of unrealistic or outdated traits -- tail-dragging dinosaurs still turn up from time to time, and don't expect to see a feather on any one of them (aside from the occasional ''Archeopteryx'', of course). Oftentimes, these will be full-on {{Prehistoric Monster}}s more similar to [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] and other fantastic beasts than to anything that ever lived on Earth.

* ''Anime/RyuTheCaveBoy'': Humans and dinosaurs live in the same era and the setting is in a barren, rocky, depressing wasteland. In addition, there also exists carnivorous plants, and in the frosty areas, yeti. Many female characters like Ran and Messa dress as sexy cavewomen.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'' takes place in a world where dinosaurs never became extinct due to the asteroid missing the Earth this time, with the main plot involving [[GentleGiantSauropod a young Apatosaurus]] befriending a caveboy and keeping him as a pet, before trying to help him reunite with his family.

These settings usually consist primarily of barren, rocky landscapes, usually dominated by the looming silhouettes of barren peaks or ever-smoking volcanoes. Breaks in this dominant terrain will almost invariably consist of dense jungles, primordial swamps, bubbling tar pits, and elaborate cave systems. More occasionally, barren fields of ice and snow may also turn up. The fauna will be [[AnachronisticAnimal a grab-bag of Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic species]], with saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths rubbing shoulders with dinosaurs and sail-backed reptiles while giant insects buzz past, pterosaurs wheel overhead and giant marine reptiles rule the seas. Given the low priority scientific realism plays in these stories, the beasts will often sport any number of unrealistic or outdated traits -- tail-dragging dinosaurs still turn up from time to time, and don't expect to see a feather on any one of them (aside from the occasional ''Archeopteryx'', of course). Oftentimes, these will be full-on {{Prehistoric Monster}}s more similar to [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] and other fantastic beasts than to anything that ever lived on Earth.

* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': Calvin's dinosaur {{Imagine Spot}}s early in the strip's run are set in a vaguely jungle-like landscape where tail-dragging tyrannosaurs coexist with cavemen and sabre-toothed tigers. [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness These were phased out]] as Bill Watterson did more research on dinosaurs, and afterwards only depict animals together which would've actually coexisted, and with more accurate anatomy.

* ''Film/TenThousandBC'': Replace cavemen and dinosaurs with cavemen, Ice Age beasts, and pyramid-building Egyptians and you get this movie. It's an obvious homage to ''One Million Years BC'', and adopts the same "eh, whatever" attitude towards accuracy. Some dinosaurs ''do'' still factor, with the Cenozoic Era's own apex predatory dinosaurs, the terror birds, appearing in a sequence that intentionally invokes the RaptorAttack trope.

* ''Film/YearOne'' features Hunter Michael Cera and Gatherer Creator/JackBlack as cavemen gatecrashing Biblical-narrative events. The problem is that, while the story of Cain and Abel could be set in prehistory, early Israelites like Abraham are much less so. And ''then'' there's those Romans showing up. AnachronismStew all around!

** ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'': Gregorn is a feral world distinctly themed around this model. The planet itself is humid, tropical, and very tectonically active, resulting in a sprawl of unstable continents that grind against each other to form tangled ranges of volcanoes and calderas. Thanks to the humid air, constant storms, and rich minerals stirred up by tectonic upheavals, every available patch of ground is covered by dense rainforests hundreds of meters deep, which are home to immense saurian herbivores hunted by predators such as carnidons, bipedal reptiles the size of tanks, and mora, giant flightless birds. Also present here are primitive human clans and tribal kingdoms, alongside a strong Ork presence.

* ''Characters/Avengers1000000BC'' has each member of this [[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avengers team]] except the god Odin, identifiable as being a modern human in appearance rather than the Neanderthals and Cro-magnons showing up in their Ice Age world. So way back in 1,000 000 BC there were proto-Tibetan temples and African empires.

*** "Prehistoric Porky" takes place in One Billion, Trillion BC and shows Cavepig Porky's near-fatal chase with a saber-tooth tiger.

** In "Pre-Hysterical Hare", Bugs Bunny finds a caveman's documentary about life in 10,000 B.C.E., which happens to feature a caveman version of Elmer Fudd trying to hunt a prehistoric version of Bugs.

* ''Anime/RyuTheCaveBoy'': Humans and dinosaurs live in the same era and the setting is in a barren, rocky, depressing jungle. In addition, there also exists carnivorous plants, and in the frosty areas, yeti. In addition many female characters like Ran and Messa dress as sexy cavewomen.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' has three shorts of this type: "Prehistoric Porky", which takes place in One Billion, Trillion BC and shows Cavepig Porky's near-fatal chase with a saber-tooth tiger; "Daffy and the Dinosaur", which takes place "millions and billions and trillions of years ago" and shows a caveman hunting Daffy Duck; and "Pre-Hysterical Hare", where Bugs Bunny finds a caveman's documentary about life in 10,000 B.C.E. (which features a caveman version of Elmer Fudd trying to hunt a prehistoric version of Bugs).

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' has three shorts of this type: "Prehistoric Porky", which takes place in One Billion, Trillion BC and shows Cavepig Porky's near-fatal chase with a saber-tooth tiger; "Daffy and the Dinosaur", which takes place "millions and billions and trillions of years ago" and shows a caveman hunting Daffy Duck; and "Pre-Hysterical Hare", where Bugs Bunny finds a caveman's documentary about life in 10,000 B.C.E.

The days when gruff, thick-browed, club-wielding cavemen and [[NubileSavage sexy cavewomen]] in body-baring [[FurBikini fur teddies]] roamed the earth alongside [[AnachronismStew non-avian dinosaurs]]. Most humans were of low intelligence and [[HulkSpeak communicated primarily in grunts]], but this didn't stop them from inventing a sophisticated system of BambooTechnology, most of which incorporated rocks, sinews, and [[DomesticatedDinosaurs small dinosaurs]] who really didn't seem to mind the fact that they'd been locked under a counter and forced to serve as a primitive garbage disposal for the vast majority of their waking lives. ("[[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones It's a living,]]" after all...) It's not uncommon for various versions of prehistoric humans, such as apes still barely down from the trees, brutal {{Frazetta M|an}}en, mostly modern-looking (and usually [[HandsomeHeroicCaveman extremely attractive]]) tribal people and early agriculturalists experimenting with things like "wheels" and "fire" and "bronze", to share the world, variedly coexisting and fighting with one another. Even less realistic settings than usual can include LizardFolk and SnakePeople, usually as shared antagonists for the various humans and near-humans.

These settings usually consist primarily of barren, rocky landscapes, usually dominated by the looming silhouettes of barren peaks or ever-smoking volcanoes. Breaks in this dominant terrain will almost invariably consist of dense jungles, primordial swamps, bubbling tar pits, and elaborate cave systems. More occasionally, barren fields of ice and snow may also turn up. The fauna will be a grab-bag of Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic species, with saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths rubbing shoulders with dinosaurs and sail-backed reptiles while giant insects buzz past, pterosaurs wheel overhead and giant marine reptiles rule the seas. Given the low priority scientific realism plays in these stories, the beasts will often sport any number of unrealistic or outdated traits -- tail-dragging dinosaurs still turn up from time to time, and don't expect to see a feather on any one of them. Oftentimes, these will be full-on {{Prehistoric Monster}}s more similar to [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] and other fantastic beasts than to anything that ever lived on Earth.

This setting is nowadays a DeadHorseTrope. If there's a specific year when it died, it would have to be 1981, in which it suffered the blow of two [[GenreKiller Genre-Killers]]. One was ''Film/QuestForFire'', it being a much more realistic take on the lives of prehistoric humans, and the other was ''Film/{{Caveman}}'', it being a silly parody of the "cavemen and dinosaurs" genre. Between those two films, fur-clad cavemen battling stop-motion dinosaurs became something that audiences could no longer take seriously. Insofar as this setting turns up in media after 1981, it's always as either a parody of or homage to older works. And if it wasn't already dead in 1981, it was further killed a few years later with the advent of Dinosaur Renaissance media like ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' and ''Film/JurassicPark'', which endeavored to portray dinosaurs with more scientific accuracy and certainly did away with any notion of them living alongside cavepeople, by establishing any mammals that lived with the dinosaurs as not more than [[MeekMesozoicMammal small, scurrying creatures]]. The popularization of the idea that [[TheCretaceousIsAlwaysDoomed a meteor impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs]] may have further contributed to this trope's decline, as did the growing popularity of the last ice age with its large prehistoric mammals (especially [[MammothsMeanIceAge mammoths]] and [[SnowySabertooths saber-toothed cats]]) as a stark contrast to the dinosaurs and other reptiles which are usually associated with tropical or warmer climates.

This setting is nowadays a DeadHorseTrope. If there's a specific year when it died, it would have to be 1981, in which it suffered the blow of two [[GenreKiller Genre-Killers]]. One was ''Film/QuestForFire'', it being a much more realistic take on the lives of prehistoric humans, and the other was ''Film/{{Caveman}}'', it being a silly parody of the "cavemen and dinosaurs" genre. Between those two films, fur-clad cavemen battling stop-motion dinosaurs became something that audiences could no longer take seriously. Insofar as this setting turns up in media after 1981, it's always as either a parody of or homage to older works. And if it wasn't already dead in 1981, it was further killed a few years later with the advent of Dinosaur Renaissance media like ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' and ''Film/JurassicPark'', which endeavored to portray dinosaurs with more scientific accuracy and certainly did away with any notion of them living alongside cavepeople, by establishing any mammals that lived with the dinosaurs as not more than [[MeekMesozoicMammal small, scurrying creatures]]. The popularization of the idea that a meteor impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs may have further contributed to this trope's decline, as did the growing popularity of the last ice age with its large prehistoric mammals (especially [[MammothsMeanIceAge mammoths]] and [[SnowySabertooths saber-toothed cats]]) as a stark contrast to the dinosaurs and other reptiles which are usually associated with tropical or warmer climates.