Sunday, March 17, 2013

Super Dinosaur, is that you?

I saw this on a clearance rack in the toy section of a big box retailer the other day, and thought immediately of Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard's Super Dinosaur comic.

What came first, I wonder, Super Dinosaur, or Fisher Price's T-Rex with robot arms...? Or were they both pre-dated by other, earlier T-Rexes with robot arms...? Perhaps it's one of those ideas that seems really awesome when you first encounter it, but is actually a little more common than you might expect?

Like, when I was in college, I used to always draw this snake with robot arms that I thought was an ingenious invention of my own (I used to really like drawing scales when doodling in class, so I drew a lot of snakes; this one was the archenemy of a squirrel-man who wore a tweed jacket and boots and carried .45s that I also used to draw all the time back then. I liked drawing tweed patterns as well as scales). Then one day someone saw it, asked what it was, and when I said, "Oh, it's a snake with robot arms" they responded with, "Oh, like in that one Easter special?" (I never saw that particular Easter special, but have ever since wanted to).

I later found out one of the Legionnaires from one of the various Legions of Super-Heroes was also a snake with mechanical arms.

So, you know, as with snakes with robot arms, it's likely no one necessarily owns the idea of T-Rexes with robot arms. Still, if I were Robert Kirkman and I saw that toy in the store, I might be pissed. Actually, that's not true—If I were Robert Kirkman and my personal shopper told me they saw that toy in a store, I'd probably shrug and then dive back into my pool filled with Walking Dead money...

3 comments:

MOCK! said...

Hmmmm....can you give me a big box clue? Does it rhyme with Schwal Mart? SD is a HUGE favorite of my son...and he loves this toyline!

Caleb said...

A clue...? Hmmm, let's see... It's a two-syllable name. The second syllable is "mart" and the first one is also the first syllable of the founder's last name...

Caleb said...

Or would it be simpler to say that yes, it does rhyme with the word you said...?