Prehistoric is a 2009-2010 documentary produced by Flight 33 Productions that aired on the Discovery Channel. The series focuses on different US cities in different times in Prehistory. Cities include: New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Denver, Dallas, and Los Angeles.
This series provides examples of:
- Anachronism Stew: Dimetrodon never lived 300 and 260 million years ago, Pteranodon never lived 110 million years ago (to be fair, the pterosaur wasn't named in-show), Ichthyosaurs never lived 80 million years ago, Dilophosaurus never lived 200 million years ago, and Parasaurolophus and Albertosaurus never lived 80 million years ago,
- Animals Not to Scale:
- One episode says that Elasmosaurus could reach 20 meters in length, though it's averted in all its other appearances.
- The Postosuchus is so huge that it can gulp down a Coelophysis in one bite. While the former was larger than the latter, it only reached 5-6 meters compared to the 3-meter-long Coelophysis, making the size difference nowhere near as extreme.
- Apocalypse Wow: New York has the Triassic-Jurassic extinction 200 million years ago, Chicago has an impact from 260 million years ago, and Washington DC has an impact 35 million years ago.
- Artistic License – Paleontology:
- The T. rex model is incredibly lanky, looking more like an albertosaur, when the actual animal was quite stocky.
- The Dallas episode claims that Tylosaurus was "the largest of all mosasaurs". This is not the case since the namesake of the group, Mosasaurus, was larger.
- In the Dallas episode, the narrator says that Acrocanthosaurus could grow to thirty feet long; this is actually seven feet shorter than the actual animal was. In the Washington D.C episode the narrator also says that it could grow to over ten feet in height and over forty feet in length, which is way larger than the actual animal.
- Due to reusing the Astrodon model, the Apatosaurus has an inaccurate head shape.
- Big Applesauce: The first episode focuses on New York city.
- Expy: Astrodon to Apatosaurus and to Sauroposeidon, the unnamed Tyrannosaur in the second episode to Tyrannosaurus, and the unnamed Hadrosaur to Parasaurolophus.
- Full-Boar Action: The fourth episode has Archaeotherium AKA the Terminator Pig.
- Gorn: Several blood effects, most noticeable in the Deinonychus segment
- Misplaced Wildlife: Mostly averted, since all the featured animals have indeed been found near the city which is the focus of the episode, or at least near the state it's located in, but a few examples still pop up.
- Parasaurolophus and Albertosaurus are both shown living in California, even though no evidence of either dinosaur has ever been found in California. Augustynolophus would have been a better choice, though it wasn't described yet at the time.
- Archelon shows up in the New York episode, but fossils of it are only known from Pierre Shale, specifically South and North Dakota.
- Panthera Awesome: The scimitar-toothed cat and saber-toothed cat (which aren't actually panthers, but are feliforms)
- Raptor Attack: Deinonychus (feathered improperly, but still feathered) takes down a Tenontosaurus (at least this is physically possible, unlike the same species trying to kill a sauropod).
- Reused Character Design: A lot of the creatures are reused models from Prehistoric Predators, including Smilodon, the dire wolf, Amphicyon, megalodon, Archaeotherium, the ancient bison, and so on. Though oddly averted with the short-faced bear, despite it appearing in Prehistoric Predators, as it is given a wholly new design.
- Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: An impact event in the Chesapeake Bay kills all life in the area, devastating everything up to New York City.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: The first episode features the giant beaver Castoroides
- Roger Rabbit Effect: The scenes where the CG prehistoric animals roam the cities.
- Shown Their Work:
- The pterosaurs are shown with a covering of fuzz.
- The sauropods have their necks in the now accepted half vertical and half horizontal position.
- For once, Coelophysis is put in the right time of 200 million years ago instead of 220 million years ago.
- Speculative Documentary: Since dinosaur fossils were never found in Chicagoland, the producers had to speculate what dinosaurs lived there — they got around the problem by not stating specific species. The same is done with in Washington DC where Jurassic dinosaurs have never been found there. But using other places as evidence they assume that it would have had the same Jurassic Dinosaurs there as in any other part of the world.
- Stock Footage: From Dinosaur Planet, When Dinosaurs Roamed America, Valley of the T-Rex, the Walking With series, Faces Of Earth, Monsters We Met, and Animal Armageddon, no less!
- Stock Sound Effects: Sounds taken straight from When Dinosaurs Roamed America and the Walking with Dinosaurs series are heard throughout.
