Memes / Prehistoric Planet

(In David Attenborough's voice) "In certain regions of this Prehistoric Planet, the amount of BS can reach surprisingly high levels. Yet for this Tarbosaurus, this is the greatest quantity of BS he has yet encountered."

In addition to being the definitive dinosaur documentary since Walking with Dinosaurs, Prehistoric Planet has also ended up inspiring a whole set of memes. Spoilers unmarked below.

Please add entries in the following format:

• The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] ^Explanation Like this.
  • Further mutations and successor memes, if any.

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Prehistoric Planet Memes:

• The show being frequently abbreviated as "PP" spawned the kind of jokes you'd expect.
  • Pee Planet, available only on Banana TV Plus.
• The series having David Attenborough as the narrator has not gone unnoticed by fans who recall that his late brother Richard played John Hammond in the first two Jurassic Park films, often joking about the family getting involved with dinosaurs.
  • "If I had a nickel for every time an Attenborough co-starred with dinosaurs, I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice."
  • "You're thinking of Richard Attenborough from Jurassic Park!"
  • Similarly, the Dueling Works and Fandom Rivalry this series has with Jurassic World Dominion is especially ripe for meme fuel due to their completely opposite portrayals of dinosaurs, as well as Flanderization of both sides with PP fans being portrayed as excessively pedantic and insistent on scientific accuracy and JW fans depicted as "awesomebros" complaining about the realistic portrayal of dinosaurs as animals and not Rule of Cool movie monsters. The fact that Dominion introduces Atrociraptor, Therizinosaurus, Dreadnoughtus and Quetzalcoatlus to the Jurassic franchise, all of which are prominently featured in Prehistoric Planet, just adds fuel to the rivalry.
  • "Inside you there are two Therizinosauruses. One Therizinosaurus is a violent movie monster. The other is a fluffball who just likes honey."
• Prehistoric Planet being produced by Jon Favreau inevitably attracted numerous comparisons to his previous, and much disliked, work, The Lion King (2019). Many fans humorously consider Prehistoric Planet to be Jon Favreau's Redemption Quest of sorts after The Lion King remake's disastrous reception, or saying that the Carnotaurus mating dance had more emotion in it than the entire Lion King remake movie. Some have even called the Lion King remake a tech demo for Prehistoric Planet.
  • On a similar note, the dinosaurs parting in fear as the Tarbosaurus comes to drink has also been compared to Shere Khan and the water truce from The Jungle Book.
• The cute baby Triceratops consuming clay to deal with plant toxins led to memetic association to the crying baby seal captioned "he was forced to eat cement when he was 6", replacing it with the baby Triceratops and the caption "he was forced to eat clay when he was 6".
• The reveal of the father Tyrannosaurus' bulky and robust design (as T. rex is believed to be one of the largest theropods to have ever lived) quickly made fans joke about him having a “dad bod” (an expression referring to the body of a middle aged man) and referring to him as a "woke T. rex" in mockery of a article in The Sun criticizing the "softer" depiction in another documentary released the same year (also narrated by David Attenborough).
• Calling that same Tyrannosaurus Rex father from the Coast "Hank", including telling other people that "his name is Hank!" when they name it anything else seems to be rather popular.
  • A male Tyrannosaurus Rex shows up in Freshwater as well, but this one has clearly sustained numerous injuries from past and present tussles with large prey, prompting people to ask "Who hurt Hank!?"
  • The name "Hank" also led to comparisons to another overweight father named Hank, with images of Hank the T. rex grilling meat.
  • The Tyrannosaurus mating scene being obscured by convenient ferns drew many jokes of "Tyrannosaurus Sex", "rexually explicit material" or a "goddamn sexual Tyrannosaurus".
  • The female Tyrannosaurus easily and peacefully consenting to mate has caused comparisons with the more aggressive and violent tyrannosaur courtship in Walking With Dinosaurs, leading to jokes about "women back then versus women these days".
  • A T. rex in the second season shown fighting (and losing!) to two Quetzalcoatlus over a sauropod carcass is jokingly headcanoned by many fans to be Hank himself, saying "Hank is too old for this shit".
• The second trailer depicts a Carnotaurus using its comically tiny arms as a display to impress a female, which was quickly memed to the "T-pose to assert dominance" meme.
  • The Carnotaurus mating dance in the show itself is very memeworthy, drawing many humorous comparisons to the "lemme smash" meme involving bowerbirds, including a whole edit of the scene to the memetic dialogue. In particular, the male Carnotaurus flashing his blue arms matches the line "I got you blue" almost perfectly.
  • Others compare the Carnotaurus to Toothless in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World due to Toothless also having an utterly ridiculous and memeworthy mating dance that also fails to impress the female he is courting.
  • The scene of the female Carnotaurus walking away has since become an object labeling meme showing someone disinterested in something another party is trying hard to sell them on.
  • As the female appears to sniff under the male's lifted arms before leaving, the scene has also been compared to a deodorant commercial.
• Similar deodorant-related jokes have spawned from the Atrociraptor using a burning stick to smoke out parasites from its plumage.
  • The Troodontid and the Atrociraptor have been memetically portrayed as Foils to each other, as the Troodontid is using fire to cause arson while the Atrociraptor is just using it for hygiene.
• Many fans point out the dissonance between the portrayal of Carnotaurus in other films, such as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom or Disney's Dinosaur. Jokes abound on the percieved Badass Decay of the Carno from Prehistoric Monster in Dinosaur, to T. rex punching bag in Fallen Kingdom, to being a "simp" in Prehistoric Planet.
• The male Barbaridactylus that disguises as a female predictably inspired plenty of memes, from calling him a "femboy" pterosaur, drawing comparisons to Among Us or Mrs. Doubtfire, or jokingly suggesting that the alpha male is bisexual.
• The line describing the baby plesiosaur as "one of the biggest babies of all time" has been memed, claiming that it is second only to various figures worthy of derision, such as people complaining about the lack of fighting and roaring.
• "Tarbosaurus had never seen such bullshit before."^note A remake of the Walking With Dinosaurs meme with Tarbosaurus replacing Allosaurus.
  • "Masiakasaurus had never seen such bullfrog before", referencing the Masiakasaurus family's encounter with the Beelzebufo.
  • "Carnotaurus had never seen such bullshit before", another variant joking about the female Carno rejecting the male's advances.
• The Ornithomimus have been memed due to their head feathers resembling "Tiktok hair" or been compared to angsty teenage boys with plenty of "it's not a phase, mom" jokes following.
  • "So some Ornithomimus turn to a life of crime."^note It hasn't gone unnoticed that the Ornithomimus stealing nest materials from his rival evokes the Adélie penguin from Frozen Planet who constantly steals nest rocks from his neighbor. As a result, fans apply David Attenborough's memetic line about the criminal penguin to the Ornithomimus.
• Since "Freshwater" and "Swamps" were released on a Wednesday respectively, the Beelzebufo appearing in both episodes has been compared to the "It is Wednesday my dudes" frog.
  • Jokes also compare the Beelzebufo to The Mr. Frog Show from Smiling Friends due to him appearing, eating a smaller creature, and promptly disappearing as quickly as he appeared.
  • When "Swamps", the episode with Beelzebufo's second appearance, also premiered on a Wednesday, people started wondering whether it's an intentional reference to the meme rather than a coincidence. A tweet by Leah Arnold, one of the show's creators, indicates it was intentional.
• The Deinocheirus being a swamp-dweller engaging in mundane daily activities has caused much fan comparison to the "All Star" opening of Shrek. Others have compared him to Perry the Platypus due to his orange duck-billed snout.
• The scene of the Tarbosaurus drinking alone while all other dinosaurs steer clear has been memed to be about unpopular or disliked people or groups being avoided by everyone else, such as Karens in Mcdonalds or "awesomebros" showing up to threads to complain about Prehistoric Planet's lack of fighting.
• The Therizinosaurus eating honey has made fans jokingly compare it to Winnie the Pooh or Baloo. Humorous comparisons also go between the benign, fluffy depiction in the series to the Prehistoric Monster portrayal the Therizinosaurus got in Jurassic World Dominion.
• The sheer amount of baby animals getting eaten in the show became something of a meme itself, with jokes that if you are a baby dinosaur and hear David Attenborough's narration, you're screwed. Alternatively, to quote the series' Nightmare Fuel page image, "Children. It's what's for dinner," referencing the "Beef. It's What's for Dinner" slogan.
• "Psycho Phosphatodraco" became a meme due to the Memetic Psychopath status of Phosphatodraco, often becoming an "advice animal" meme where it suggests violence and cruelty in the vein of "Insanity Wolf".
• A screencap of the Nanuqsaurus drew many memes from its seemingly disturbed expression, causing it to be inserted into memes reacting to cringeworthy situations much like the "Unsettled Tom" meme.
• Due to his advanced age (96 at the show's airing), jokes have spawned around David Attenborough being as ancient as the dinosaurs he is narrating over. Some have made jokes comparing him to Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon saying "There were dragons when I was a boy..." with Attenborough quoting "There were dinosaurs when I was a boy..."
• The female Velociraptor from “Freshwater” has been jokingly described as a “girlboss” by fans, especially the "gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss" meme due to her seemingly manipulating the two male raptors to join her on a hunt, then ditching them to take all the spoils.
• The Qianzhousaurus has received memetic praise for avoiding Noisy Nature for once, with memes portraying the Qianzhousaurus being annoyed with or scolding other pop-culture dinosaurs for constantly roaring while hunting.
• The negative reviews of Prehistoric Planet on Rotten Tomatoes have received much meme attention due to how misguided and spiteful they seem. One review in particular, complaining about the "fat flabby T. rex" and the "emaciated pterosaurs with cartoony big heads" drew special ironic ire due to them seemingly unaware this was what they were supposed to look like.
  • "They made T. rex woke!" An absurd complaint made by some viewers that the male Tyrannosaurus was a victim of Political Correctness in the show. Why? Because it was portrayed as realistically taking care of its young, and opting to mate with a female instead of fighting it. Most viewers have mocked this for being some combination of nonsensical, reactionary and sexist.
  • "Some people don't understand science." A statement made by a Twitter user who complained about some dinosaurs being shown to live in cold environments, because they were under the impression that dinosaurs (being reptiles) were cold-blooded. Many have pointed this out as an embarrassingly fitting example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
• The male Dreadnoughtus showing off with their round gular sacks on their necks has inevitably led to jokes about them showing off their “balls”.
• A forward-facing shot of the male Tyrannosaurus rex from "Freshwater" is sometimes compared to a similar goofy-looking shot of the Utahraptor from Walking with Dinosaurs.
• The old 2008 meme "Philosoraptor", an Advice Animal template about a raptor pondering deep questions, has made a comeback with a full coat of feathers to match.
• The release of the Prehistoric Planet soundtrack with the caption "Season 1" has had fans hyped for the idea of potential future seasons, often reaching Epileptic Trees and Wild Mass Guessing levels of speculation.
• Qianzhousaurus sings.
• The fact that replies to the tweet which posted the first teaser for Season 2 were inexplicably hidden if they mentioned Edmontosaurus quickly became a meme, with many speculating that either Apple TV, Twitter, or Elon Musk was afraid of the genus.
• The Loathsome Dung Eater^Explanation  The baby Isisaurus are depicted feasting on their parents' droppings as their first meal. This led to jokes associating them with the Loathsome Dung Eater, a character from Elden Ring.
• Sweet home Alabama.^Explanation  The Adam and Eve Plot of the two castaway Zalmoxes are jokingly poked fun of by fans with the Fridge Horror of the implications that the narration says they will "found a new species."
• "Lion gets bullied by two pelicans".^Explanation  A joking "summary" of the T. rex and the Quetzalcoatlus encounter.
  • On a related note, joking interpretations of T. rex as a Memetic Loser with a chronic phobia of azhdarchids have become fairly common since the episode was released.
• It's over, Tyrannakin! I have the high ground!^Explanation When harassing the T. rex, one Quetzalcoatlus perches on top of the Alamosaurus corpse and honks at the dinosaur from above, staged similarly to the scene from Revenge of the Sith.
• EGG-LAYING MAMMAL OF ACTION ^Explanation  Adalatherium, a small badger-like Mesozoic mammal, is depicted laying eggs. Jokes comparing it to Perry the Platypus and his theme song abounded (it's worth noting that back then, most mammals laid eggs and it simply so happened only a few survived to today, with us metatherians and eutherians being the odd ones.)
• Pug croc don't care ^Explanation  The Simosuchus behaves much like a honey badger when threatened by a far bigger predator, leading to comparisons to "The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger" meme.
• "It looks like you're writing a letter." ^Explanation  The ammonite Diplomoceras is described as resembling a giant paperclip due to its oblong coiled shell. It was quickly compared to Clippy, the infamously annoying Microsoft Word assistant from the early 2000s who took the form of a talking paperclip.
• The portrayal of T. rex as a Stealthy Colossus as it hunts Edmontosaurus has drawn mocking comparisons to the T. rex of Jurassic Park, who is notorious among paleo fans for being heard stomping and roaring a quarter mile away when hunting.
• This is Sparta!^Explanation The Velociraptor drop-kicking a Prenocephale off a cliff resembles the iconic scene from 300.
• Kuru Ya Ku^Explanation The Kuru are portrayed as egg thieves that steal eggs from Corythoraptor nests. This behavior and the similar-sounding name led to comparisons to the Kulu-Ya-Ku, a creature from the Monster Hunter games that is similarly a theropod-like egg-stealer.

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