History Series / Dinosaurs

* ThemeNaming: The names of the main characters are based on oil and/or gas companies ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Oil Sinclair]], Roy [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hess_Corporation Hess]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene Ethyl]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Petroleum Phillips]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP B.P.]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCO Richfield]]). Petroleum is a fossil fuel. Since dinosaurs are the best-known fossil animals, they have become associated with oil. Earl also sounds like "oil" (but only if you affect a Deep South accent).

* DotingGrandparent: Ethyl Phillips to Baby.

* SnowMeansDeath: [[spoiler:The last episode.]]

** Georgie in "Georgie Must Die".

* StockDinosaurs: Fran is an ''Allosaurus'', Roy is a ''T. rex'', B.P. Richfield is a ''Triceratops'' and Monica is a ''Brontosaurus''. ''Stegosaurus'', ''Edmontosaurus'', and ''Parasaurolophus'' appear as one-off and background puppets.

* ILoveNuclearPower: In one episode Earl gets superpowers from a dip in a toxic waste dump. When he finally showers it off he loses them.

* DramaticThunder: Parodied. Zamar, "that guy in the woods", and the Sinclairs go to to cure Baby's illness has this ''almost'' down to a science, but he's still working out some kinks - for instance, when he says "you have traveled many miles through great wilderness to seek my wisdom!" it's supposed to crack on "wisdom," not before! And [[BrickJoke then, later:]]

* DrugsAreBad: The {{Aesop}} of "A New Leaf" and "Steroids to Heaven", played more straight in the latter than the former.

** In the "Nuts to War" double-length episode, pistachio nuts. Considered to vital to civilization that dinosaurs [[SillyReasonForWar will wage war over them]].

** This is arguably the [[PlanetOfHats hat]] of the dinosaurs in general, with alot of the show's satire revolving around them have little if any sense of self-preservation. A ''Candid Camera''-type show which is a running gag in one episode has a huge carnivorous predator hidden in unexpected places and eating random dinosaurs, with the last one being a regular viewer of that same show and all he says about his predicament is, "Hey, it's the predator! Am I on TV?" and then it eats him. And that's not even getting into the series finale....

** Why Earl married Fran. "Scent of a Reptile" establishes that females get a scent gland that's repuslive to every male dinosaur except for the one they will marry. In "How to Pick Up Chicks", Earl says that Fran was the first he asked out and had such a nervous time that he asked her to marry him so he won't have to go through the experience of asking out another female ([[FridgeBrilliance but then perhaps the scent is what gave him the nerve to ask her out, as difficult as it was]]), and in "Hurling Day" Earl argues that [[ObnoxiousInLaws he married Fran so he could hurl Ethyl]] (though this could be more him justifying hurling her when Fran becomes against it).

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* HumansAreBastards: Or rather, animals who ''act like'' humans are bastards, since the actual humans (cavepeople) are primitive and treated like animals.

* DownerEnding / DramaBombFinale: The last episode, and how. The dinosaurs go extinct due to a chain of events that started with Earl's [[CorruptCorporateExecutive boss]] [[GreenAesop foolishly destroying the breeding grounds of a specific species of bug]]. The dinosaurs [[ClimateChangeAllegory try to fix the damage to the ecosystem]], but wind up [[FromBadToWorse wiping out all plant life, then plunging the planet into an ice age]] due to their short-sighted decisions. As the ice piles up, [[SuddenDownerEnding Earl has to explain to his shivering family why they are all about to die]].

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Played for BlackComedy. Here, it is perfectly okay for dinosaurs to [[SapientEatSapient eat still-living and equally-sentient creatures]]. The biggest and strongest dinosaurs are not above picking on, or even eating, the smaller and weaker dinosaurs. And in addition, many of the [[ShowWithinAShow Shows Within a Show]] relies--''Mr. Lizard'', ''Totally Hidden Predator'', ''Pangaea's Funniest Home Injuries''--all seem to involve real dinosaurs [[DeathAsComedy getting killed on-camera for the amusement of the audience]]. Basically, this is a world [[CrapsackWorld where life is cheap]].

* DotingGrandparent: Ethyl Phillips to Baby.

** The episode "The Greatest Story Ever Sold" covered philosophy and organized religion, particularly the use of religion as a pacifier for the masses.

%%* DownerEnding: And how.
%%* DramaBombFinale: The last episode.

* DisproportionateRetribution: B.P. Richfield stated that he wanted to kill Earl and his family when Earl showed up to work 4 hours late and was acting annoying, the only reason Richfield doesn't actually kill Earl and his family is because he would get into legal trouble.

* SeldomSeenSpecies: Earl is a rare example of a ''Megalosaurus'', and Spike is presumably a ''Polacanthus''. ''Dryptosaurus'', ''Troodon'', ''Ceratosaurus'', ''Psittacosaurus'', ''Corythosaurus'', and ''Protoceratops'' appear as one-off characters and puppets.

* PositiveDiscrimination: Monica. She's a career woman (the only one on the show), extremely intelligent (highest scores in her class), articulate, physically strong, and, judging by several of the males' reactions (particularly Roy), a HeadTurningBeauty. It's hard to miss because she's a brontosaurus, but she's also been referred to as "a female African." So, yes within the context of the show, Monica is black (though the stand-ins for "blacks" on the show are actually blue, furry mammals). But [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools it doesn't matter]] because she doesn't take crap from anyone (like when she went against the WESAYSO board members in a sexual harassment case, even though she lost) and she proves that some women don't need to be married to be happy (in "Unmarried...With Children," she let her marriage license expire because she looked back at her marriage and realized it wasn't worth the $40 renewal fee).
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: The second opening adds Monica, Spike and Richfield

* FrenchJerk: The Poupons from "Getting to Know You" are French jerks as [[SpaceJews prehistoric birds]].

* EnfantTerrible: Baby was already very bratty to begin with, but this was taken UpToEleven when he reaches the Terrible Twos, resulting in a parody of ''Film/TheExorcist''. According to Ethyl, this happens to all children at two years of age. To further illustrate her point, Earl and Fran both have zero memories of when Robbie and Charlene were two. She chalks it up to the experience being so terrible, they blocked it out.

* OverprotectiveDad: Taken UpToEleven with Mr. Richfield. He's ''so'' overprotective, he actually ''eats'' his daughters boyfriends. (He claims he only wanted to talk to the first one, but he lost his temper, and "after that, it was like eatin' peanuts.")

* DownerEnding: And how. See KillEmAll.
* DramaBombFinale: The last episode.

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: It's a given, considering that nearly every character on this show is a dinosaur.

* EvilMatriarch: Ethyl, oh so much.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The show is titled ''Dinosaurs'' and stars dinosaurs.

** An episode involves future archaeologists discovering items used in the show and guessing (very incorrectly) about what they were for as we see {{Flashback}}s to the episode's main plot. It's funny at the time, but when the setting of the show is dug up someday millions of years from the present, everything is right where it is today. If you [[FridgeHorror think about that]] too hard, [[spoiler: this world looking ''exactly as it does in the show's present'' when it gets buried can't be good! Almost as if the end happened pretty rapidly, and pretty soon...]]

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:The last episode ends with everyone dying, or at the very least doomed.]]

* HypocriticalHumor: From "Earl & Pearl", when Pearl tells her brother Earl "Lordy, brother, have you gotten fat."

* EnfantTerrible: Baby was already very bratty to begin with, but this was taken UpToEleven when he reaches the Terrible Twos, resulting in a parody of ''Film/TheExorcist''. According to Ethyl, this happens to all children at two years of age.

* FakeOutOpening: The title sequence begins with dramatic camera shots of a dinosaur walking in the woods, with suspenseful music playing... and then the camera pans up to show it’s Earl Sinclair, who then says “Honey, I’m home!”

* EverythingsBetterWithCows: Wesaysoland's mascot [[GoofySuit Moola the Cash Cow]]

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: One episode shows a reporter talking about the new couple of cavemen in the local zoo (composed of two males) and their failure to produced offspring. The zoo team concluded that one of them is sterile.