DINO BOY IN THE LOST VALLEYMedium: TV animationProduced by: Hanna-Barbera First Appeared: 1966 Creator: Alex Toth Please contribute to its necessary financial support. Amazon.com or PayPal Dino Boy's origin story was a lot like Superman's. But instead of a planet blowing up, his parents were facing certain death in an airplane going down. And instead of being rocketed to the alien world of Earth, he was parachuted out of danger, and the alien world he landed in was a |
remote South American valley where dinosaurs, cave men and other such anachronisms survived. Those who enjoy the "small world" aspect of the average superhero universe will no-doubt be glad to believe it was the same valley as this one.
The parachute jump occurred in the first half-hour Space Ghost show, which CBS originally broadcast on September 10, 1966. Like all Hanna-Barbera half-hours up to that time, the show had three segments, but in this one there were only two stars. The first and last segments starred the interstellar adventurer, with "Dino Boy in the Lost Valley" in the middle. That first episode continued with the boy (called Todd, no surname given) being menaced by a sabre-tooth tiger. He was rescued by a cave man with the rather prosaic name of Ugh, and Ugh's pet dinosaur, with the rather prosaic name of Bronty. Ugh's voice was provided by Mike Road (Race Bannon in Jonny Quest), Todd's by Johnny Carson (a former child actor, not the Johnny Carson), and Bronty's by Don Messick (who played most of the non-anthropomorphic animals at Hanna-Barbera, from Scooby-Doo to The Jetsons' dog, Astro). The series was created and designed by the highly-acclaimed comic book artist, Alex Toth. Ugh, Bronty and Todd, aka Dino Boy, were a team from then on, fighting such menaces as Vampire Men, Rock Pygmies, The Mighty Snow Creature, and Worm Men. At least, they were a team for 18 episodes, which made up the first season of Space Ghost & Dino Boy. Only three new half-hours were made for the second season; and while those three shows had quite a few unlikely guest stars (specifically, Moby Dick, Shazzan, The Herculoids and The Mighty Mightor), Dino Boy was dropped. Space Ghost went on to stardom (his most recent role being, of all things, a talk show host), but Dino Boy was subsequently seen only in occasional reruns. He did, during his brief tenure, get into Space Ghost's Gold Key comic book, but that lasted only one issue. And there were a few toys, etc., but nothing compared to the producer's more stellar stars. And tho he did get into a 1997 Space Ghost comic published by Archie Comics, for the most part, he lies forgotten today. — DDM BACK to Don Markstein's Toonopedia Home Page
|
|