"TEETH, CLAWS, MUSCLES AND JAWS!!"
- “Something's really rocking, on planet number three,Modern man's got prehistoric company!"
Extreme Dinosaurs (1997) is a show, from the creators of the rather similar Street Sharks, about four dinosaurs taken from prehistoric times and turned into Animal Superheroes so they could be used as an alien overlord's minions to conquer a planet from Another Dimension. You can pretty much tell everything you need to know about it from the title. Compare/contrast with other dinosaur shows like Dinosaucers, Kung Fu Dino Posse, Dino Squad, Jurassic Strike Force 5 and DinoZaurs.
Extreme Dinosaurs provides examples of:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Haxx's blades can cut through a foot-thick titanium door.
- Action Prologue: First episode, "Out of Time"
- Always Chaotic Evil: Raptors (as a species, not only Bad Rap, Spittor, and Haxx). Totally averted in Hardrock's reality however, where they are peaceful like every other dinosaur.
- Anachronism Stew: Stegz came from the Late Cretaceous period, despite the fact that Stegosaurus went extinct at the end of the Jurassic period. And while Velociraptor and Pteranodon did live in the Late Cretaceous, they still went extinct before Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops.
- Anthropomorphic Transformation: Both the Extreme Dinosaurs and the Raptors were given humanoid forms when they had their intelligence increased.
- Artistic License – Chemistry: In real life titanium has a tensile strength equivalent to low-grade steel, in the show it might as well be Made of Indestructium so far as the dinosaurs are concerned. While the dinosaurs can smash steel but not titanium, and the latter is harder than the former, it's also more brittle.
- Artistic License – Geography: For some reason, in "Bones of Contention", the Gateway Arch is in Miami, not St. Louis. However, given the size of the thing (the Gateway is MASSIVE compared to it), it might just be a regular arch.
- Artistic License Palaeontology: Essentially the show's bread and butter.
- Pteranodon aren't dinosaurs and did not have teeth or bat-like wings, Stegosaurus did not live at the end of the Cretaceous, and the raptors are depicted a la Jurassic Park rather than their real selves (though they feathered raptors were not known yet at the time the show aired).
- The "Colossal Dome" two parter, however, contains a surprising subversion. It introduces a Dilophosaurus character named Ridge who, unlike pretty much every other Dilophosaurus post-Jurassic Park, is correctly depicted without venom or a frill.
- Artistic License – Physics: The episode "Bones of Contention" features a reanimated Pterodactylus skeleton as one of the antagonists. And yes, it can fly.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Raptors, in Episode "Tiptoe through the Tulips".
- Badass Normal: Bad Rap, given that his Wave-Motion Gun was broken in the first episode, relies mostly on his teeth and the Villain Ball.
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Spike is the only Extreme Dinosaur who does not gain footwear after transforming. The entire crew of the Reckless Raptors also do not wear any.
- Big Eater: Pretty much the whole Extreme Dinosaurs when it comes to Mexican food.
- Broad Strokes: The characters first appeared in Street Sharks where they were aliens rather than uplifted dinosaurs from the past.
- Butt-Monkey: Haxx, so many times. Being used as a guinea pig to test the Jurassic Flu virus is just top of the list. In fact, he's usually the first one to be hit, defeated or separated from the fray. Even his own team mates could be rather firm towards him most of the time. It's usually due to his clumsiness and him being the least smart one.
- Card-Carrying Villain: The Reckless Raptors, especially Bad Rap.
- Catchphrase: "Cretaceous!", "Let's Fossilise'em!", "Let's Carnivate'em!" (We shudder to think what the last one involves. One might theorize that it has something to do with tearing and rending, which doesn't make it sound any nicer. And at least two of them are herbivorous!)
- Cool and Unusual Punishment:Bad Rap: "Do as I say, or I'll pickle your head in the hottest chili sauce I can find."
- Doomsday Device: Various machines, chemicals, and other methods used by the Raptors to bring about global warming.
- Dumb Dinos: Averted with the Extreme Dinosaurs, who are intelligent and well-spoken. Ironically, The Smart Guy of the team is a Stegosaurus, a common victim of this trope, and the only truly stupid dinosaur character is Haxx, one of the antagonistic Velociraptors (usually depicted as The Smart Guy among dinosaurs).
- Evil Is Petty:
- The Raptors' main motive, which is to cause global warming. It's not like the planet's current temperature is a threat to their lives or anything, since there are plenty of hot places they can live in (like their volcano hideout), they just find it annoying (which makes sense when you realize dinosaurs are warm-blooded, and cold temperatures can be unbearable to warm-blooded animals).
- Wilfred and Sheila Thistlebottom from The Raptor Who Would Be King. They join with the Raptors not only so they can become king and queen but also because they believe if the Raptors cause global warming, Britain will have less rain.
- Evil Laugh: Bad Rap does these on occasion, usually when he has good reason.
- Fantastic Racism : The Reckless Raptors deriseively refer to the humans as "hairless mammals".
- Fatal Flaw: Titanium: Despite being able to smash through concrete walls and break secure bonds, titanium alloys are unable to be bent or dented by the main characters unless it's a plot requirement. It's also Artistic License – Chemistry: Titanium actually has a tensile strength equivalent to low-grade steel. It is considerably lighter though.
- Fire-Breathing Diner: The Extreme Dinosaurs are fond of peppers that cause smoke to pour from their nostrils. One time T-Bone manages to melt ice with his breath after eating a jar full of said peppers.
- Fish out of Water: Despite being given sapience and knowledge, they start off very unaccustomed to living from 65 million years ago into the present day. Bullzeye tries to adapt by ordering things of shopping channels and the internet. He repeatedly forgets the things he buys were intended for humans:T-Bone: Bullzeye, we're dinosaurs. You don't need hair products if you don't have hair.
- It's interesting to note that pterosaurs like Bullzeye really did have hairlike structures on their bodies, although hair products still wouldn't be of much use to them.
- Forced Prize Fight: The Colossal Dome two parter.
- Friend to All Children:
- The Extreme Dinosaurs are quite fond of children, Bullzeye in particular is most fond of them as shown in "Holiday on Ice".
- Haxx is heavily implied to be this in "A Bone To Pick", where he mentions at the end that he enjoyed playing with the kids.
- Furry Reminder: In the first episode when Chedra forbids the Extreme Dinosaurs from eating her and her partners, only T-Bone shows interest in the idea, while Spike and Stegz both express that they're herbivores.
- Genius Bruiser: Stegz is the smart guy of the group and is just as muscular as the other Extreme Dinosaurs.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Terms like "Son of a Brachiopod" and "hopeless trilobite" are bandied about as insults.
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: Every main character has a grappling hook stored in an item of clothing as small as a bracelet in some cases, with large hooks fired from them.
- Green-Skinned Space Babe: Blue in this case for Chedra.
- Harmless Freezing: The Extreme Dinosaurs use freeze rays as non-lethal weapons.
- Dinosaur Popsicle: Used by all the main character to jump from prehistory to the Present Day.
- Humongous Mecha: Monstersaurus Truckadon, a vehicle made and piloted by Spittor in the episode of the same name. It has a bevy of hidden gadgets, including a head-mounted freeze ray, smokescreen from the nostrils and extending arms.
- Inconsistent Coloring: Bad Rap had bright purple skin in Street Sharks and dark purple in his action figure, but in the show his skin was changed to orange, possibly to make him stand out from Haxx and Spittor who already had similar skin colors.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Two episodes invoke this trope, however one was a Freak Accident on the protagonists and the other from a Transformation Ray.
- Invincible Hero: Considering the villains are raptors while the heroes get all the more powerful dinosaurs and pterosaur (Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, Pteranodon and Stegosaurus), this is to be expected. To be fair, the Raptors can be a real threat when they go with a plan, but whenever it comes to direct confrontation, they tend to lose quite quickly.
- Irony: Stegz, the highly intelligent member of the gang and arguably the smartest character in the show, is a Stegosaurus. You know, the dinosaur with the small brain. On the other hand, some
Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you remember that old, thoroughly-debunked belief that stegosaurus was so huge it needed two brains, with a second one in its lower region. We know better now, but having two brains WOULD make you considerably smarter. And then you realize that most dinosaurs have small brains (including crows and parrots, both of which are known for being highly intelligent), not just the stegosauri. - Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Haxx. has proven himself the nicest one out of the trio of Raptors in the episode "Holiday on Ice".
- Implied for Bad Rap and Spittor as well at the end of "A Bone To Pick" where they claim they knew that wasn't Argor giving them those commands to do good deeds even though they did them anyways.
- Joker Immunity: The Raptors have survived falls, been covered in snow, and even were entirely frozen in ice, and yet are always reunited and perfectly healthy in the next episode.
- Kill All Humans: The Reckless Raptors' plots all involve heating up the Earth, making it pleasant for reptiles, but not so good for us humans.
- Large and in Charge: All of the Extreme Dinosaurs and Reckless Raptors, T-bone and Bad-Rap respectively as leaders.
- Last of His Kind: All the dinosaurs. An early story arc had Bad Rap trying to find other raptors to repopulate his kind once he'd taken over the world, which he would give up on following "Inevitable Eggs-tinction".
- Manchild: Haxx and Spittor. Well, mostly Haxx. Haxx believes in Santa Claus and tried to behave himself so he could get presents for Christmas. He was actually the only one on his team with a Christmas spirit.
- Merchandise-Driven: Though
The Merch for the series was relatively decent. They were mostly action figures that you put cool looking weapons and combat accessories on, but DANG did they look awesome! - Our Monsters Are Different: "Weresaur" depicts basilisks as having the ability to turn humans into werebasilisks. They also apparently lack poison and reproduce naturally, in contrast to their mythology.
- Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: In this case, it was Bad Rap recklessly using his Wave-Motion Gun. Due to the weapon not being adapted to this dimension, the weapon ended up causing a massive cataclysm which the Extreme Dinosaurs and the Raptors barely escaped by being frozen.
- Pity the Kidnapper: "Raptoroid" has the Raptors kidnap prominent scientist Karl Wisemann to deter the Dinosaurs from stopping their latest scheme. They soon come to regret it when Karl starts messing with things in their base, causing no end of irritation to them. Karl even references the Trope Codifier, O. Henry's story The Ransom of Red Chief, when the Raptors first take him away:"I'll soon make these creatures eager to ransom this Red Chief!"
- Plot Technology: Usually machines capable of causing global warming.
- Pragmatic Villainy: When the newly-mutated Extreme Dinosaurs refuse to help Argor conquer his world, he doesn't waste much time trying to change their minds; he just dumps them out of the ship and starts over.Argor: Next batch: more viciousness, less independent thinking.
- Pro Wrestling Episode: "Monstersaurus Truckadon" has Spike take up a brief wrestling career after splitting from the team. When beating humans proves too easy for him due to his strength, this escalates into him taking on vehicles instead.
- Punched Across the Room: All of the Dinosaur characters use their Tails rather than punching and kicking
- Raptor Attack: The three main villains. The lack of feathers might be justified by the time it was made, though.
- Rated M for Manly: Just watch the intro
. Hard rock intro coupled with scenes of muscled-up dinosaurs fighting each other pretty much screams this trope. - Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Chedra's interdimensional species resembles humans with blue skin and elf ears.
- Shout-Out:
- T-Bone's vehicle resembles a classic Cadillac, especially with the boot design. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, anyone?
- In "T-Foot", the Raptor's briefly overwrite Haxx's personality with that of Jerry Seinfeld, much to their displeasure.
- One episode features the Dinosaurs teaming up with "Agents Scolder and Mully", two FBI agents who investigate extraterrestrial activity. That episode's name? "The Extreme Files".
- Sick Episode: "Saurian Sniffles" has the Raptors infect the Extreme Dinosaurs with the Jurassic Flu, leaving them bedridden while they carry out their plans.
- Spin-Off: The Extreme Dinosaurs and Reckless Raptors both appeared in another animated series, Street Sharks, but their voices and origins among other things were drastically changed when they starred in their own show. In the show, both teams were aliens themselves instead of transformed Earth species.
- Supreme Chef: Spike can apparently cook up a mean salsa.
- Team Spirit: Needed for the Extreme Dinosaurs' 'Saurian Stomp' attack.
- Techno Babble: Stegz and, to a lesser extent, Spittor.
- Teenage Mutant Samurai Wombats: The Reckless Raptors and Extreme Dinosaurs obviously.
- Terrible Trio: The Reckless Raptors.
- Terror-dactyl: Bullzeye, despite being a good guy, looks like a stereotypical monstrous pterosaur, though he's specified as a Pteranodon rather than a pterodactyl. His extra arms are shown to be a result of his mutation, though he was shown to have teeth and bat-wings beforehand.
- Token Flyer: Bullzeye is the only natural flyer among the four dinosaurs. The others can only go airborne via their flying vehicles.
- Totally Radical: Extreme! Rocking! It's a show for those who think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) wasn't tubular enough.
- Toyless Toyline Character: For some reason, Spittor never got a toy, despite his gimmick as the Raptors' tech man being tailor-made for it. In the commercials for the toyline they tried to hide this by using two (or more) Haxx action figures, though this had the side effect of making it look like Haxx was a generic army builder Raptor.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Mexican food for the Extreme Dinosaurs.
- Transformation Ray: The cause of main characters' anthropomorphism from regular dinosaurs.
- Trickster Archetype: Bullzeye.
- Undead Fossils: "Bones of Contention" has the Extreme Dinosaurs dealing with reanimated dinosaur fossils who had their rest disturbed by a mall construction site.
- Visual Pun: All the dinosaurs* have some sort of Flying Car (or bike). There's a character named T-Bone.note
- Wolverine Claws: Haxx.
- The World Is Always Doomed: Constant threats of global warming attempts.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Chedra mentions at the end of one episode that only one year has passed in her home dimension while 65 million passed on Earth.
