Adventures in Dinosaur City

Lore & Background

The film's plot centers on three friends—Timmy, Mick, and Jamie—who use an experimental portal device in Timmy's parents' lab to enter the universe of the animated series Dino Saurs. In Saur City, they meet Forry, a Rhamphorhynchus, and learn that a group of cavepeople called the Rockies, working for the Allosaurus dictator Mr. Big, have stolen a fuse essential to preventing a lava disaster. The kids believe the fuse is also needed to reopen the portal home. With Forry's help, they recruit the cartoon's heroes, Rex the Tyrannosaurus and Tops the Protoceratops, to retrieve the fuse and defeat Mr. Big. Timmy uses a remote control from his world to pause and rewind the Rockies, but Mr. Big captures him and the remote. After a rescue and battle, Timmy zaps Mr. Big with the remote, making him disappear. The group reattaches the fuse, and the kids return home just before Timmy's parents arrive.

Reader's Guide

Adventures in Dinosaur City is a low-budget children's film that blends live-action actors with dinosaur-costumed characters and animated sequences. Its significance lies in its direct-to-video release strategy in the UK and its theatrical run in France, reflecting the international distribution patterns of early 1990s family films. The film also spawned a video game adaptation, DinoCity, developed by Irem for the Super NES in 1992, which received mostly good to average reviews. While not a major critical or commercial success, the film remains a niche curiosity for fans of dinosaur-themed media and early 90s children's cinema. Its legacy is primarily as a cult item among collectors of obscure genre films.

Did You Know?

• The film was released direct-to-video in the United Kingdom in October 1991 under the title Dinosaurs: The Movie.
• It had its world television premiere on The Disney Channel in the United States on April 4, 1992.
• A video game adaptation titled DinoCity was developed by Irem for the Super NES in 1992.
• The film's plot involves a remote control that can pause and rewind characters in the dinosaur world.

The Story: Three Kids in a Cartoon World

The film follows three teenage friends—Timmy, Mick, and Jamie—who are devoted viewers of an animated series called Dino Saurs. Timmy, the youngest of the trio, proposes they watch an episode on the large screen in his parents' laboratory, unaware that the apparatus is actually an experimental device capable of opening a portal to another dimension. When they feed the videotape into the machine and switch it on, a vortex drags all three into the cartoon's universe. There they encounter Forry, a Rhamphorhynchus who has lost the power of flight, and discover that Mr. Big, a tyrannical Allosaurus, has stolen a critical fuse from a lava cooling system. Without it, Saur City will be consumed by molten rock. The fuse is also the key to reopening their home portal. Guided by Forry through a dinosaur graveyard and into Tar Town, the kids recruit Rex, a Tyrannosaurus, and Tops, a Protoceratops, after helping the pair fend off the Rockies, Mr. Big's cavepeople enforcers. The group storms Mr. Big's tower, frees Rex's imprisoned father, and ultimately defeats the dictator. Timmy zaps Mr. Big with a remote control he carried from his parents' lab, causing him to vanish, and the group reattaches the fuse before slipping back through the portal to their own world.

Cast and the Layered Performance Structure

Adventures in Dinosaur City employs a multi-layered casting model that separates live-action actors, voice artists, and performers working inside dinosaur suits. The three human leads are portrayed by Omri Katz as Timmy, Shawn Hoffman as Mick, and Tiffanie Poston as Jamie. The dinosaur characters required both vocal and physical performers: Patrick Labyorteaux supplied the voices for both Rex and the antagonist Mr. Big, David Jolliffe voiced Tops, and Rob Sherwood voiced Forry. Beneath the costumes, Tony Doyle brought Rex to life, Marc Martorana performed as Tops, Don Barnes played King, and R. A. Mihailoff embodied Mr. Big. Supporting live-action roles were filled by Pete Koch as Link, Megan Hughes as Missy, Kimberly Beck as Chanteuse, and Mimi Maynard as Dana. The project was helmed by director Brett Thompson and produced as a 1991 American science fiction children's film, a format that relied heavily on practical in-suit work rather than digital effects.

A Staggered Multi-Market Release

The film's path to audiences followed an unusual sequence across three countries and four distribution channels. Its very first public appearance was a direct-to-video launch in the United Kingdom in October 1991, where it was marketed under the title Dinosaurs: The Movie, or simply Dinosaurs. Five months later, in February 1992, the picture received a theatrical run in France under the French title Dinosaures. The world television premiere then landed on The Disney Channel in the United States on April 4, 1992, bringing the film to a broad American broadcast audience for the first time. The U.S. home-video window opened on August 20, 1992, with simultaneous VHS and LaserDisc editions. In Europe, the title has enjoyed subsequent rereleases on DVD. This rollout—video first in Britain, cinema in France, cable television in America, then American home video—mirrors the patchwork distribution strategies typical of mid-budget children's properties in the early 1990s.

Beyond the Screen: The DinoCity Video Game and Cultural Footprint

The film's influence extended into interactive entertainment when video game publisher Irem developed and released a Super NES adaptation in 1992. Titled DinoCity, the game loosely adapted the movie's plot and characters for the 16-bit console and earned mostly good to average scores from reviewers, a respectable showing in the early era of home video gaming. On the broader media landscape, Adventures in Dinosaur City is catalogued among films featuring dinosaurs, a genre that has produced numerous entries over the decades. Its central conceit—children pulled into the fictional world of a show they once watched from a couch—echoes a long-standing fantasy in children's storytelling. The 1991 production, with its reliance on practical in-suit performances layered with voice acting, captures a particular moment in children's filmmaking, one that predates the dominance of computer-generated imagery and reminds audiences of the tactile, physical craft behind the dinosaur characters they met on screen.