YMMV / Dinosaucers

• Accidental Aesop: Don't believe everything you see or hear about right away without getting all the facts.
• Base-Breaking Character: Making no claims about how wide-spread this viewpoint was, some Dinosaucers fans hated all the human characters equally, for taking up plot and episode time that could've been devoted to the dinosaurs. Its not so much the Secret Scouts are always horribly written, but generic children are always going to fare poorly up against Giant Frickin' Alien Dinosaurs. And then of course there's the plots where they need rescuing.
• Bizarro Episode
  • "The Trojan Horseasaurus". Quackpot gets kicked out by the Tyrannos for causing them to fail their plan and Quackpot decides to get back at him and the Dinosaucers with a practical joke by pretending to be the Ancients of Reptilon who are implied to be ancient magical ancestors of the Dinosaurs of Reptilon. Only for him to be exposed and the real ones conveniently show up on Earth of all places but chased away because Allo and Rex thought it was another joke by Quackpot. Even by the fantasy standards in this series, this is pretty strange itself for the series. Naturally this was never brought up again.
  • "We're Off to See the Lizard". Sarah and Ugh get trapped in a tornado by the Tyrannos unintentionally when Sarah tried to go to see a vet because Ugh for some unexplained reason started barking like a dog after an accident. They end up in a strange The Wizard of Oz version of Reptilon. With the Dinosaucers acting as the companions and allies, while Princess Dei and Rex were the Wicked Witches and the other Tyrannos as the Flying Monkeys. It ended up as All Just a Dream although it's never clear if Ugh really did bark like a dog before Sarah went unconscious.
  • "The Scales of Justice" could be considered one as it's basically a Courtroom Episode amid a show about dinosaurs from outer space fighting each other. The Tyrannos sue the Dinosaucers with various random claims in an attempt to deport them from Earth only to lose in the end. With a lot of Artistic License in terms of law and the biggest Status Quo Is God on the show (as both the heroes and villains resume fighting each other in secret after this) it is something awkward to watch even by the show's own standards.
  • "I Was a Teenage Human". The Tyrannos want to steal Paul's science project because they think they can use it as an energy source - so they turn Styraco into a human. Styraco subsequently spends most of the episode bumbling through school trying to maintain his disguise, and ends up becoming a star player on the football team.
• Complete Monster: In the 2018 comic reboot, Rex, unlike his original incarnation, is far deadlier and taken much more seriously. Longing to preserve his tyrannical rule on the planet Reptilon, Rex sets his sights on planet Earth to fuel his slave labor. He and his armada invade Earth and sack various major cities, causing wanton destruction and killing thousands in the process. When Rex realizes that his rule over Reptilon is in jeopardy, he simply forces his invaders to speed up their hostile takeover, and they start siphoning Earth's natural resources and kidnapping humans to use as a food source. After Rex's plans are thwarted and he's coaxed into making a truce, he decides to force four members of the Secret Scouts to head back to Reptilon with him, or else he'll resume his invasion and destroy the entire world.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Teryx. For obvious reasons...
  • Terrible Dactyl as well, due to him being the most likeable of the Tyrannos, as well as having many redeemable aspects in his character.
  • Captain Sabertooth and Smilin' Don, for being villains who were competent enough to make the Dinosaucers and Tyrannos team up to stop them.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: There are a few fans that ship Teryx with Terrible Dactyl, given several factors like the two of them both being their teams' flyers, Terrible Dactyl being one of the Tyrannos hinted at being redeemable and Teryx's barely existent relationship with Ichy.
• Genius Bonus:
  • At one point, Ankylo refers to Rex as "Oh, tyrant lizard king", which is what Tyrannosaurus rex translates to in English.
  • Rex frequently berates his underlings calling them "Idiotops". In Ancient Greek ops means "face", so he's literally calling them "Idiot-face".
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Two of Genghis Rex's evil plans on the show were to conquer Reptilon and destroy the Dinosaucers. By the time the TV series came to an end he still didn`t get to these goals. The first issue of the 2018 reboot comic shows Rex as the ruler of Reptilon with an iron fist and the Dinosaucers reduced to a group of rebels who can't attack him and his squad on their home planet as he's too strong to directly confront.
  • In issues two and three of the comic reboot another of Rex's plans he failed to carry out on the show, invading the Earth, finally began working out in his favor as he and his forces essentially brought the planet to its knees in a wide scale attack. And unlike the TV show, he wasn't easily defeated by the heroes and forced to retreat. Instead, he more or less made a compromise with Earth and left with the conflict in a stalemate, making it clear he could easily go back on his word and finish it off should anyone go against him.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One episode has the Tyranos describe Scotland as a "country". Normally a mistake, but in the 21st century, Scotland is pursuing independence.
  • Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's a goddamn dinosaur laser fight...
  • In the episode "For the Love of Teryx" Rex tries to woo his old flame Teryx back by offering his mother's crown and states they could both rule Reptilon together. In the 2018 comic reboot Teryx is retconned as a Princess who ruled Reptilon but was overthrown while Rex took over. Thankfully though, the two aren't together in this version as well.
  • While watching a prehistoric themed movie on TV, Sarah comments that sabre-toothed cats didn't live alongside dinosaurs. Bonehead responds "How do you know, were you there?" Which would become a favourite phrase of Young-Earth creationists. Of course, in a subsequent episode, it turns out there are sabre-toothed cats— anthropomorphic ones, no less— on Reptilon.
  • The show gets a few jokes out of the fact that Bronto Thunder is an Apatosaurus, despite his name suggesting that he's a Brontosaurus, which was an invalid name at the time. In 2015, an extensive study of diplodocid relationships declared that Brontosaurus was valid name again, although this study was met with some criticism from the paleontology community.
  • The Episode set in China describes the country as a "rising power"; flash-forward 20 years and China is now described as an emerging Superpower if not, an established one already.
  • "Rockin' Reptiles" is about David crafting a set of anthro dinosaur costumes to perform rock music with his friends. 22 years later would see the formation of the metal band Hevisaurus.
• Nightmare Fuel: "Chariots of the Dinosaucers" ends with the Tyrannos trapped in an Egyptian pyramid, while an army of mummies just resurrected are surrounding them from every angle. While the bad guys are just cornered and screaming in terror, one of the mummies suddenly stops and starts laughing maniacally. The episode ends and credits appear, but without any indication in later episodes of how they got out of that one and never giving mention of it again.
• Plot Hole: A lot of episodes suffer from this as there are moments that tend to contradict each other (as well as too many to list to actually do a description justice). At times it feels like the first draft of some stories was just used without any editing.
• Popular with Furries: The writing on the show is pretty atrocious, but there are copious amounts of anthropomorphic characters, making it one of the most popular reason to watch the show. And with episodes like "Beach Blanket Bonehead", they tend to show off their bodies a lot.
• The Producer Thinks of Everything: The show makes no claims as to how the dinosaurs of Earth were mysteriously wiped out. It's a mystery. While scientific consensus, or the majority of thinkers, have reason to believe it was likely an asteroid, there do exist alternative explanations. Nothing is ever asserted with absolute certainty.
• The Scrappy: The Furballs, who were little more than annoying pets.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • Teryx and Ichy. Her feelings for him come out of nowhere, Ichy was barely in the episode that featured the couple, and the two had next to no meaningful interactions throughout the rest of the show.
  • The same can be said with basically any dating relationship formed on the show. Sarah dates a few boys over the show's run and sounds interested in every single one but they don`t appear after one episode. There was also an episode where Plesio and the Lochness Monster dated and the show sped through that plot line with them ending the relationship by the end of the episode.
• Take That!: New Jersey has been the butt of a joke more than once.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Princess Dei, Rex's older sister who was the true leader of the Tyrannos and the only Tyranno on Reptilon. She appeared in only three episodes, one of which was a dream. This seems to be averted in the 2018 comic reboot as she appears as a main character.
  • Any one-shot villains who weren't the Tyrannos.
  • Major Clifton, the only authority figure who seemed to want to investigate the sightings of alien dinosaurs running around. Like Dei, he only appeared in three episodes.
  • Sarah Spencer, in her giant version, introduced near the end and rapidly reverted, in the episode "That Shrinking Feeling", when she for a brief moment became very big and extremely strong as result of dinosaucers technology, which could have been exploited for at least an entire episode, or several, or even become a permanent condition. She turned out to be very badass as a giant, and therefore perfect to keep it that way. Her size after growing up was not such that it would make her personal life unfeasible or harm her, as she was still able to stand completely upright indoors. Giant!Sarah's height appears to be 8-9ft, considering that the ceiling height in spacious and comfortable American homes is typically 10 feet (9ft and 6 inches considering the slab), as well as the height difference between her and Ryan – only her legs seemed to be the same size or even slighty bigger than her brother's entire body. In this condition, she could get involved in situations that allow her to use her now immense physical strength, in addition to becoming an Amazonian Beauty and sports queen at school, object of general admiration and envy, and becoming motherly and protective of Ryan and the other "little" kids, and turning herself a Big Eater, consuming twice or triple the amount of food before, thanks to their greatly increased size and weight, or get involved in comical situations to hide her height from adults, who could not noticing it, or at the most expressing admiration for seeing her getting so grown up, and so well developed, and so strong and so healthy.
  • In terms of characters, the whole show could have run on this trope as none of the heroes or villains seem to have much personality or depth to set them apart from one another. Basically, the heroes are all good and don't seem to do any wrong and the villains are all ruthless and eager to cause conflict for the Earth and/or heroes. What also doesn't help is that a lot of them have cool character designs and hints of personality that are never fully explored.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The whole series had the potential to be awesome—alien dinosaurs who can transform into giant dinosaurs, and armed with laser guns and cool spaceships. Unfortunately, the show went out of its way to make sure there was as little violence as possible, probably because of the Animation Age Ghetto. It also doesn't help that the characters didn't have much personality.
  • With the alien aspect to the show, there could have been conspiracy and story elements used in that department to make the plots have more depth, suspense and action. The whole cartoon could have been used as a build up to an epic battle involving Earth and Reptilon amid ambiguity and tension between both the hero`s and villains over the course of 65 episodes, making it more impactful.
  • Also the backstory for the show's conflict: Rex and Dei's parents once ruled Reptilon but were overthrown by the Dinosorcerer and Dinosorceress. The planet then split into two factions, those loyal to the sorcerers and those loyal to the house of Rex. Genghis and Dei then formed the Tyrannos to overthrow the sorcerers and reclaim complete control of the planet, Rex being sent to Earth to conquer it and use its resources to take back to Reptilon. However, the explanation for the conflict has to be pieced together from info given in different episodes, and the show largely ignored this conflict.
• Woolseyism: The Latin American dub inserted a lot of word-play and cultural references in Rex's dialog and Quackpot's jokes.
  • Oooh yes, for example, Rex doesn't like being called Chiefasaurus because it makes him feel like he is a criminal, specifically, Al Dinocapone. He also likes to point out his evil laugh is terribly BAD.

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