Walk The Dinosaur
Posted by Kwip on November 14th, 2007 6 Comments 
This is a memoir I wrote for a class I’m taking. It’s the highly biased recollection of a certain time in my life that was pretty memorable. I’m certain I give myself far too much credit and others not enough, but this is how I remember it and I fully invoke my Storyteller’s License. Anyway, enjoy!
Dinosaurs are dead. They died millions of years ago in some cataclysmic event that scientists still debate. They were enormous creatures covered in spikes, scales, leathery skin and they commanded the planet. Eventually, the dinosaurs died and disappeared into history, only reappearing as fossils and oil.
And, for a brief time in 1993, in shopping malls and car shows across the country.
In early 1993, I was working a menial job in a plumbing supply warehouse. It was a very simple job – take box A and put it on shelf A. Yet I still managed to be quite terrible at it – my A boxes somehow found their way to the C, D and E shelves. It was the simplest of jobs, and one I could not manage. So when I saw the ad in the newspaper looking for actors and voice talent, I took a chance. I called for an appointment and went in to audition over my Friday lunch break.
Coming back from lunch and telling the boss I quit is probably one of my most memorable job exit interviews.
The audition should have alerted me to the oddness of my new career. The offices of my new employer consisted of his living room and den. From this home he ran a “promotions” business that specialized in car shows and – now – dinosaur tours.
I met with the owner, Victor, who lavished praise upon my audition and told me I absolutely had the job. It was the role of “Dyno-Dude,” the backup character in a blatant Barney knock-off show. Bernie the dinosaur was headlining and my job was to be his straight man, backing up the main actor.
The catch, of course, was that the show was leaving for Pittsburgh on Sunday. Our show was premiering at the World of Wheels custom car show in Pittsburgh Monday. I had to go back to my job, quit, and then spend Saturday packing and preparing for a road tour.
Saturday I met the actor playing Bernie. We spent perhaps an entire half hour talking about the show and Bernie (I don’t remember his real name so I’m afraid he will always be Bernie to me) highlighted the key points of the two dinosaurs.
Bernie was your straightforward friendly dinosaur. He was kind, helpful, and very child-friendly. Dyno-Dude’s claim to fame was being the cool, hip-hop, leather-vest-wearing, chopper-riding dinosaur. He was a Coolasaurus. The kids that were too old for the lame Bernie act would of COURSE be swung to loving (and paying for merchandise bearing the likeness of) Dyno-Dude. I had no idea what Dyno Dude looked because we didn’t have the costumes yet. Our costumes were being shipped to the show and would arrive Monday. Hopefully before we were due on stage…
I drove my 1976 Ford Fairmont station wagon to Pittsburgh packed to the gills with stage equipment, merchandise, and a salesperson in the passenger seat. She spent the entire trip coaching me on my “rap,” the 12-line speech I would give as a way of introducing my character on the stage before stepping back and letting Bernie take over.
In Pittsburgh we settled in to our crowded hotel room. Victor explained the hotel had made an obvious booking mistake, resulting in six of us sharing a two-bed room. He WOULD have paid for more rooms with the company credit card, but the hotel was already sold out because of the car show, so we were stuck. Despite my nervousness about the coming show and having to sleep curled under a desk, I drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, as I waited my turn for the bathroom, Victor sat me down and gave me the SERIOUS pep talk.
“Shawn, this show is important to us. It has the potential to make us a lot of money.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But do you know the one thing more important than money?”
I was struggling to come up with something about entertaining the children, being a positive role model or at least something about not falling off the stage when Victor cut me off.
“MORE money.”
I started to laugh and realized Victor was not kidding. He explained to me that the entire reason we were there was to make money – and MORE money, on top of that. Every word we uttered on the stage should be geared toward selling merchandise. At the end of the day, our success would be measured solely in product. Since Bernie was the experienced actor, I was supposed to follow his lead and support him however I could to make a sale.
Victor explained to me how to talk children into asking their parents to buy them a “souvenir” Polaroid of the dinosaurs. He gave me examples of how I could “upsell” a simple autograph request into a “transaction.” Finally, he explained how he was really taking a risk on an inexperienced actor like me, and he hoped that I would prove myself worthy. In merchandise.
“More Money” was the company’s unspoken motto – an in-joke that was never really a joke. Everyone else already knew about More Money, and they already had their minds focused on making that extra buck wherever (and however) they could.
After this inspirational speech and my allotted ten-minute bathroom time, I joined the rush to the show floor to set up our stage and sound system. In the middle of learning the difference between a “connection” and a “hot connection” (one sparks when you plug it in!), our costumes arrived.
I cannot say what I was expecting, but the massive foam body and plaster head took me by surprise. They looked like dinosaurs. Dinosaurs designed by a cruel deity with a foam fixation, but dinosaurs nonetheless. Still, we were excited about our new costumes and jumped into them.
The first thing I noticed about mine was that the head weighed about twenty pounds. Because of the long snout, the weight stuck out and I had to literally strap myself into the head with helmet straps and struggle to keep my head up. Later I would learn of the wonderful neck pain this resulted in, but at the time I was caught up in the excitement. We got out of our costumes, finished setting up the stage, and went backstage to prepare for our big show.
It was a large car show, attended by thousands of people. The purpose of our show was to provide entertainment for the mothers and children drug along to the show and – of course – sell them merchandise. By the time of our first stage call, we had a crowd of at least a hundred mothers and children in front of our stage, fidgeting anxiously.
We cued the music, high-fived good luck to each other, and took to the stage. Being the supporting actor, I led the way, introducing the main man (dino), Bernie. Bernie shuffled on to stage, struck a pose, and completely froze.
To this day, I am still not sure what caused him to panic like that. Whether it was the crowd, the incredible weight and heat of our costumes, or possibly even a mini-stroke; Bernie raised one dino paw and froze in place.
Not one to miss a beat (and mindful that any time we spent frozen was time we weren’t selling), I leapt forward. Perhaps my memory gives me too much credit here, but for the first time in my life, I was on. Under pressure, it was one of the greatest performances of my life. I did an entire improved routine, joking and laughing with the children, teaching them my anti-drug rap and, above all, pushing our merchandise. More money, of course.
I have difficulty explaining how popular we were – how popular I was – for the next three days of the car show. The lines I had waiting for my picture and autograph surpassed many of the guest celebrities at the show. I vividly remember teasing Mario Lopez, on the stage next to us, about how I was stealing his fans.
By the time we wrapped up the show, I was truly the King of Dinosaurs.
Bernie was quietly released to the old dinosaurs pasture. He never brought in More Money. The money we made from this show was put toward brand new costumes that looked like they came from a Broadway set, created by a costume designer in New York City. The show was renamed to “Dyno Dude and the Dinosaur Legends.” I was put in charge of the show, and given leave to hire two more actors and a stage manager. We had even more merchandise made for people to spend More Money on!
I hired two local actors to fill the dinosaur roles and Victor took on the difficult task of hiring “She-tah,” the young attractive model that wore the skin-tight cheetah leotard and gave the fathers at the shows a reason to get THEIR pictures taken. Since the kids were getting their pictures taken with the Dinosaur Legends, we’d gladly throw in another picture with She-tah for half the price! Half the price, but More Money.
For our stage manager, I hired John, a friend I had known for years who had gone to school for communications and actually knew how to set up a sound system without electrocuting himself. We put together a variety show of sorts and took off across the country, playing our venue to malls and car shows anywhere that was willing to pay. I was the manager, but I lucked out in picking a cast much more talented than myself and they created a show I still look back on with pride. The show was superb, and we threw ourselves into it with wild enthusiasm.
Our schedule was relentless – we would often spend an entire day doing a show, pack up, drive all night to our next venue and immediately set up and go again. We traveled in a beat-up van with a shoddy trailer whose temperament grew to something of a legend. The length of I95 became as familiar to us as back roads in our own hometown. We would get exhausted and road-weary, but every time we swore we had had enough, Victor was on the phone to tell us about a new exciting cartoon deal that is in the works for the Dinosaur Legends, or a comic book we were going to star in, or possibly even our very own live-action TV show. His constant promises kept us going and worked us up every time we thought we were done. We spun across the country with the mad intensity of a top, bouncing from shopping mall to shopping mall.
It was only a matter of time before the top would stop spinning.
After a few months of this hectic schedule, the crew began losing their focus. Several shows went by without any merchandise sales. We took delight in amusing the children, getting into “joke contests” with them and ignoring our merchandise table. We would invent wild stories on the spot, incorporating children from the audience in our tales (and sometimes tails, when we got a bit too frantic on stage). Although I was as guilty as anyone, I began to grow upset at our lack of merchandising. After a long stretch of no-sale shows and a lengthy phone call from Victor where he expressed his disappointment with me, I resolved to lay down the law with my pack of dinosaurs. I sat them down after a show and yelled at them for some time, explaining to them that we were on the road to make money, not to entertain children. The cast looked at me in shock, and I grew angrier still, frustrated at their lack of understanding and trying to explain how we had not made enough money the last several shows.
John was the only one to speak up. He wait until there was a small break in my tirade and interjected.
“Shawn, there’s more to life than money, man.”
“Yeah, there’s MORE MONEY!”
I blurted out the words without even thinking.
Some dinosaurs, I once learned, had brains at the base of their spines. Not fully developed brains, but smaller brains that managed some of the core reflexes and actions needed to manage their massive bodies.
Somewhere on the road I had developed another brain. It had grown quietly and slowly, like some malignant tumor. This brain was not there to help; it was there to take over. It started with a simple idea: make some money. Then it grew on the promises of bigger shows, cartoon deals, comic book deals and – of course – More Money.
Scientists say that when one of the brains of a dinosaur was damaged, the dinosaur would die. It simply could not handle that massive body with one brain.
As I looked around my pack of dinosaurs, the friends I had made and endured so much with over the miles, I felt that other brain start to die. It would not be a quick death, but that was the moment it started dying. The dinosaurs packed up their equipment, put their worn, stained bodies into garbage bags and threw them into the back of the van, and loaded up for the long trip home.
The dinosaurs were going extinct.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:18 am
this story is both painful and beautiful. thanks for sharing.
Ah those heady days of 1993, I remember them well. HJ
November 15th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Fix those typos before ya turn it in, brohym! But other than my English-teacher-wannabe-bullshit…seriously entertaining read. I vaguely remember you telling me once that you used to do ‘this dinosaur thing’, but you never went into detail like this.
Sounds like a really interesting, and perhaps painfully enlightening, period of your life.
Thanks for sharing that, bud.
Peace
JIm and his fucking grammar.
November 16th, 2007 at 5:37 am
You… Were…A…Dinosaur?
I’m not worthy!!!
Typos? DAMMIT! Where?