Stegosaurus in popular culture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stegosaurus is among the most recognizable of dinosaurs.^[1] It has been depicted on film, in cartoons, comics, as children's toys, as sculpture, and even was declared the State Dinosaur of Colorado in 1982.^[2] Stegosaurus is a subject for inclusion in dinosaur toy and scale model lines, such as the Carnegie Collection.

As late as the 1970s, Stegosaurus, along with other dinosaurs, was depicted in fiction as a slow-moving, dim-witted creature. The "dinosaur renaissance" changed the prevailing image of dinosaurs as sluggish and cold-blooded and this re-evaluation has been reflected in popular media.^[3]

Contents 1 Science 2 Literature 3 Sculpture 4 Cinema 5 Cartoons and comics 6 References

[edit] Science

In September 2002, a hoax poster was presented at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology entitled "The case for Stegosaurus as an agile, cursorial biped", ostensibly by T. R. Karbek (an anagram of R. T. Bakker) from the non-existent "Steveville Academy of Palaeontological Studies". This was reported in New Scientist magazine, where it was remarked that Stegosaurus was generally believed to be "about as cursorial as a fridge-freezer".^[4]

[edit] Literature

A sketch of a Stegosaurus forms an important plot point in the opening chapters of The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle. Although apparently out of print (used copies available on the Web), Evelyn Sibley Lampman's "The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek" is a charming children's book about twins who find a talking Stegosaurus on their ranch.

[edit] Sculpture

Sculptor Jim Gary created several, almost-life-sized versions of Stegosaurus. One always was displayed among his traveling exhibition, Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs, and they are frequently used as an illustration of his work in books and articles about the artist because of their distinctive characteristics.

One displayed for months before the electrical engineering research facility at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte during a 2005 campus-wide display of the exhibition, which was hosted by Belk College, became a mascot of sorts to students studying in nearby buildings.^[5]

Howard the Duck walked under a Jim Gary Stegosaurus when a museum display of the sculptor's work was used as a set for the 1986 film of the same name, which was produced by George Lucas.

[edit] Cinema

Over the years, Stegosaurus has seen its share of screen time, often pitted in battle against large carnivorous dinosaurs, on both the big and small screen. It came up against Ceratosaurus in Journey to the Beginning of Time (1954), in The Animal World (1956) and in the documentary When Dinosaurs Roamed America (2001). It appeared in episode two of "Walking with Dinosaurs" (1999), as well as in the special The Ballad of Big Al (2000). It was even seen pitted against Tyrannosaurus, in Planet of Dinosaurs (1978), Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940) which was the first time the defense of the spike tail was seen, and in the remake of the series Land of the Lost (1992-93). A baby Stegosaurus dubbed Spike is one of the lead characters in The Land Before Time (1988) and its direct-to-video sequels.

In the classic monster film, King Kong (1933), the first creature that the band of rescuers meet, as they chase the abducted Fay Wray deep into Skull Island, is a roaring Stegosaurus, which charges. In the 2005 Peter Jackson remake Stegosaurus is nowhere to be seen, although in the extended edition the Triceratops-like fictional "Ferructus" takes its place.

A Stegosaurus also has appeared in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, as one of the first dinosaurs to be seen. They also were seen briefly in Jurassic Park III. (An ailing Stegosaurus is encountered by the characters in the novel Jurassic Park,^[6] but was replaced by a Triceratops in the film version.) Although it makes no actual appearance in the film, the name is used; it is on one of the embryo vials stolen (misspelled as 'Stegasaurus').

Stegosaurus is one of the three dinosaur species whose physical characteristics were combined by the designers at Toho, to create the Japanese monster Godzilla; the other two dinosaurs were Tyrannosaurus and Iguanodon. In the American version of King Kong vs. Godzilla this is remarked upon by a reporter, claiming Godzilla was half-Stegosaur, half-Tyrannosaur.

[edit] Cartoons and comics

Stegosaurus has been featured in children's cartoons. The Transformers toyline and related television series features four characters which can transform into stegosaurids: Snarl, Slugfest, Saberback and Striker. In The Land Before Time and its sequels, the character Spike is a young Stegosaurus. In the 1980s cartoon Dinosaucers, the character Stego is an anthropomorphic Stegosaurus. Also, Stegz was an anthropomorphic stegosaur featured in the series "Extreme Dinosaurs". Ironically, despite the tiny brain size of Stegosaurus, it was the most intelligent of the characters in the show. One of the Dino Knights and Drago Clones in Dinozaurs were Dino Stego and his evil counterpart Drago Stegus.

Gary Larson's The Far Side comic strip often used stegosaurs when he showed dinosaurs. The term "Thagomizer" originated as a joke from a Far Side comic strip, in which a group of cavemen in a lecture hall are taught by their caveman professor that the spikes were named in honor of "the late Thag Simmons". The implication is that the Thagomizer was responsible for Thag's death. Whatever the original word for the spiked tail of Stegosaurus was, if it ever had one, has, since the Far Side publication, been replaced by "thagomizer", which is used as a genuine anatomical term ^[7] by many palaeontological authorities, including the Smithsonian Institution.^[8]

[edit] References