Cadillacs and Dinosaurs

Honestly, the title says it all.

Despite being a child of the 90s, I don't remember Cadillacs and Dinosaurs ever being a thing I knew about at any point in time.

I can probably blame this mostly on growing up lower-middle-class, surviving on a mix of Public Access Television and occasional spurts of basic cable access, and spending the entire stretch of 1991-2011 being completely disconnected from 99.99% of modern video games. Nevertheless, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs apparently took off in the multimedia world for a good couple of years in the mid-90s, boasting a comic run, an animated series, a moderately successful arcade game, and a collectible toy line. Then again, a name like "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" is extremely indicative of the 90s as far as I remember them, so that totally tracks.

As always, while exploring the other media can help provide useful context for each of its adaptations and incarnations, this review will focus exclusively on the animated series so we can explore it for what it IS, not what it COULD BE.

Somewhere out there, a Kaa-inspired Snake Hypnosis version of this gif probably exists in someone's private collection.

The show takes place in a sort of post-apocalyptic semi-wasteland of what is assumed to be the USA. A "City In The Sea" is all that remains of New York, and other smaller civilizations dot the harsh, overgrown, and decidedly non-New-English-looking badlands of the region. If anything, the general locale far more resembles the inland west of the country - Utah, Idaho or Montana would be appropriate, especially given the "dinosaurs" angle - but much like the time period, the show's world is an odd mish-mash of mismatched ideas and concepts.

In this new world, massive dinosaurs roam the earth, the denizens of the jungle wastelands that started reclaiming the world after humanity apparently decimated it hundreds of years ago. Humans are still around and surviving, rebuilding civilization atop the ruins of what remains by exploring and salvaging strange "prehistoric" machines left over from the fallout of the cataclysm. There are at least three different levels of anachronism in play, which - coupled with the dieselpunk motifs, the badass attitudes, and the subtle hints of mysticism - give the show a rebellious sort of Mad Max or Borderlands vibe.

But instead of suped-up bandit technicals and monster trucks, our heroes get to ride in style with their model-accurate product placement vehicles of choice: Cadillacs.

The product placement is especially funny given how many times these vehicles are wrecked and/or exploded onscreen.

Our main character, a rugged square-jawed Buck Rogers lookalike who goes by the trite stock name of Jack Tenrec, holds the revered title of "mechanic", an order of ancient scientists who mastered the arts and philosophies of the old technology (the "machinatio vitae", they call 'em) in a previous age, and used them to keep harmony between the wildlife and the humans. Jack runs a sort of garage fortress on the waterfront, populated with an array of defensive machines and rebuilt Cadillacs that he mostly uses to herd dinosaurs, chase off poachers, and to cruise the badlands at sunset like the debonair dude he thinks he is.

The show runs for one meager 13-episode season, taking us on a bevy of standalone adventures, including wrangling the indiscriminate wildlife, settling disputes between unruly groups of humans, and clashing against the land development projects of the local government. Taking an almost Captain Planet-esque approach, Jack and his cohorts - sassy research scientist and political ambassador Hannah, right-hand engineer Mustapha, and pet allosaurus Hermes - take full responsibility for mediating between all the other groups and their selfish desires. Human and animal alike, mind you.

Somewhere out there, Ivan Stewart is nodding thoughtfully and taking notes.

As with most comics-turned-cartoons, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs wears its roots on its sleeve, and follows the standard pulp format. With no overarching plot to speak of, every episode provides its own mini-story, revealing details about this imaginative world one little bit at a time. The advantage to this format is that it leaves plenty of room for things to breathe and develop in a very cool, organic way, tantalizing us as viewers with further questions that can only be answered by our own imaginations. It's fair to assume from the comics and arcade game that more story was likely planned, but the show does pretty well without a larger narrative thanks to the timelessness of its setting.

That said, only its setting is timeless. The dialogue and voice acting stick to the traditional comic book fare, leaning on the familiar stilted line readings and nonsensical exclamations of Golden Age adventure comics (for example, this show's variation of "Zounds!" is "Quahoon!"). While this probably contributed to the series' decline as this style of dialogue started falling out of fashion in the late 90s in favor of the more "serious" or "darker" tones of cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series, it still gives the show its own odd sense of charm. I can't remember the last time I heard a cartoon character say "Don't worry, everything's copacetic!"

Is that a gun in your asscrack or are you just happy to see me?

The odd language choices extend beyond simple exclamations, too. Like most classic sci-fi, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs loves rebranding everything with its own "incorrect" names, especially where the beasts are concerned. This has always been a point of contention in science fiction communities - every movie having their own unique term for "zombies" like "walkers" or "roamers" does get a little grating after a while - and this show plays right into that tradition without a second thought. I personally didn't find it *annoying* per se, but I did occasionally roll my eyes and smile.

On the plus side though, this at least this leaves no room for the common pitfall of misidentifying dinosaurs (here referred to as "slithers"). Don't know the difference between an apatosaurus and a brachiosaurus? Don't worry, those are "sandbucks" and "tree grazers" now! Everything's copacetic!

Clichés be damned, what's not fun about watching two heroes being stalked by a "cutter" down in the depths beneath the ruins of a once-great city?

That said, for being a punky sci-fi adventure show, it manages to walk the line right down the middle of the age rating highway. Never too graphic or intense that it couldn't be shown to young children, yet still devoid of the usual kiddified language and dumbed-down humor that Standards and Practices committees deemed necessary for cartoons of the era. The art style captures the comic book aesthetic, but that extra level of detail comes at the expense of having to frequently limit the actual animation of the characters, resulting in some unfortunately wooden-looking action sequences from time to time. That's not a diss, mind you, just an inevitability of the situation.

Stylistically it's still a good-looking cartoon, and I feel compelled to point out the diversity of its characters as well. Aside from a cast comprised of various nationalities (much like the makeup of the America the show is supposedly set in), the show's primary villain is a big bad butch bitch by the name of Wilhelmina Sharnhorst, and damn if she ain't a fine-ass antagonist. A progress-oriented land developer who works in her own interest above all else, she often has it out for Jack and Hannah, but isn't above working with them when she's inevitably proven wrong or gets in over her head. She reminds me in many ways of Mama Fratelli from The Goonies. Always a boss, unafraid to get her hands dirty, but always getting the short end of the stick nonetheless.

Big and fat people exist everywhere in real life, so why is it so uncommon for them to be primary cast members in most shows? Once you start looking for them, you'll notice how weird that is.

Not sure I have much else to add here. I saw the cartoon by name in a list somewhere during my usual late night browsing, and my curiosity was completely piqued, so I simply had no choice but to indulge it and see what the hell this was about. Ultimately, I'm glad I did, because after hooking me with its outlandish premise and curious world, the show kept my attention by deftly balancing stories about coexistence with cautionary tales about technology. The show doesn't condemn or vilify technology or progress like some environmentalist stories I could name, but focuses on keeping them both in check, and carving out an existence in the space between nature and civilization.

And as you've probably guessed if you've read any of my other reviews, THAT'S the kind of sci-fi I dig the most!

Villains work best when they act like villains, and I still can't think of anything more villainous than a guy who goes around tossing dynamite everywhere like used cigarette butts.

Looking for more shows like Cadillacs and Dinosaurs? They exist in scores, since concepts like these have always been popular in comics and old-school sci-fi pulp driven cartoons, but my personal pick of the litter would be The Secret Saturdays. Following a similarly anachronistic and environmentalist approach, the Saturdays' entire world revolves around hunting, documenting, and most importantly, protecting the existence of cryptids and rare endangered creatures around the world. The show offers a lot of travel and adventure, a little bit of mysticism, and family shenanigans that give it its own cool and equally timeless flavor.

For more of that classic pulp sci-fi, Johnny Quest and Land of The Lost wrote the book on the genre, and both come highly recommended. For more dinosaur action in a similar art style, try Godzilla: The Series. If you like the environmentalist approach, maybe check out The Wild Thornberrys (especially in its earlier, more experimental seasons). And of course, if you just like the show's badass dieselpunk motif, you might like certain anime titles such as Desert Punk or Rust-Eater Bisco.

Anyway, if this scene isn't some kind of minigame in the arcade game, then I don't even want to play it.

Damn, two back-to-back Reviews with a dinosaur motif? I'd better re-examine my list and make sure the next one is about something different!