Darkwing is asked to investigate a mysterious museum discovery – Darkwing himself encased in amber! In order to solve the mystery of this unusual paleontological specimen, Darkwing uses Quackerjack’s timetop to travel to the prehistoric past.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Aquatic Hadrosaurs: Subverted. The trio first encounter the Parasaurolophus scientist in a pond, but it turns out he was just bathing, and for the rest of the episode, he and the rest of his kind are shown on land.
- Call-Back: Quackerjack's timetop, the Time Machine introduced in "Time and Punishment", is used by Darkwing to go back to the age of dinosaurs.
- Dumb Dinos: Zig-zagged. The dinosaurs turned out to be sapient animals... but they do everything backwards (i.e. making the tires concrete and the roads rubber).Darkwing: Now I know why you Paleolithic pea-brains became extinct!
- Sapient Eat Sapient: In this prehistoric past, duckbills (hadrosaurs) and tyrannosaurs are both civilized, and the latter make constant quips about eating the former as well as treat Darkwing, Launchpad, and Gosalyn as snacks.
- The Slow Path: After missing his chance to travel back to present day, Darkwing spends 70 million years encased in amber until Gosalyn and Launchpad free him.
- Stable Time Loop: The dinosaurs accidentally send back the timetop to present day with Launchpad and Gosalyn inside before Darkwing can board it. To comfort Darkwing, the dinosaurs invite him for breakfast and accidentally encase him in tree sap, becoming the fossil that was the reason he went back in time in the first place. Then in the present day Gosalyn and Launchpad break Darkwing out of the amber, restoring the status quo.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: Johnny T. Rex and his two goons are a Terrible Trio of Tyrannosaurus bikers.
- Time Machine: The timetop, which is used in this episode to get back to the age of dinosaurs.
