The Ray Bradbury Theater: "Tyrannosaurus Rex"

September 5, 5:16 PMClassic TV ExaminerDoug Krentzlin

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Classic TV Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

           Ray Bradbury in The Ray Bradbury Theater (USA)

Once upon a time (Los Angeles in the 1930s, to be exact), there were two boys who were very close friends. They had two things in common: they were both named Ray and they both loved tales of fantasy. One of them was Ray Bradbury who would become one of the world’s greatest writers of imaginative fiction. The other was Ray Harryhausen who succeeded Willis O’Brien as the movies’ foremost master of stop-action animation. (They both collaborated on the 1953 sci-fi film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.)

Bradbury’s short story Tyrannosaurus Rex (originally published in 1962 under the title The Prehistoric Producer), his affectionate tribute to his childhood bud, was later adapted by Bradbury as the basis for an episode of his cable television anthology show The Ray Bradbury Theater.

In Tyrannosaurus Rex (originally broadcast on May 14, 1988), the main character, a mild-mannered animator named Terwilliger (Cris Campion), is obviously inspired by Harryhausen. Terwilliger is hired by movie producer Joe Clarence (Joe Dunk) to provide the special effects for a low-budget prehistoric fantasy.

Terwilliger accepts the job with some trepidation, mainly because of Clarence’s reputation as a tyrannical bully. Confined to a wheelchair with a malignant growth on his forehead, Clarence is a bitter, ill-tempered, stingy misanthrope who never allows those who have the misfortune to be employed by him to forget who holds the purse strings.

Clarence is especially dissatisfied with the Tyrannosaurus Rex that Terwilliger is creating for the picture. No matter how many times Terwilliger redesigns the clay-and-rubber miniature, Clarence insists that it’s not “scary enough.” At his wit’s end, Terwilliger finally decides that, if Clarence wants a truly terrifying monster, he knows exactly who to use as the model for his T-Rex.

A charming parody of the film industry, Tyrannosaurus Rex has the added bonus of giving fans of stop-action animation a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how the process works.