| Genre: | Animated series |
| Creator: | Peter Keefe[1] |
| Director: | Tom Burton |
| Composer: | Dale Schacker |
| Country: | United States France[2] |
| Language: | English |
| Num Seasons: | 2 |
| Num Episodes: | 50 |
| Executive Producer: | Peter Keefe Ed Ascheman |
| Producer: | Tom Burton Seok-ki |
| Runtime: | 30 minutes |
| Company: | World Events Productions Calico Entertainment Centre National Cinématographie La Ville D'Angoulême |
| Network: | Syndication FR3 |
Denver, the Last Dinosaur is an animated series produced by World Events Productions and . It was nationally syndicated throughout the United States in 1988 with reruns airing until 1990. In the show, a dinosaur hatches from a petrified egg in the modern era, and is befriended by a group of teenagers.[3] Episodes often focused on issues of conservation, ecology, and greed.[4]
The show ran for two seasons, as the dinosaur boom that had followed the film The Land Before Time (1988) waned until Jurassic Park (1993), causing viewership to drop. The series received a recommendation from the National Education Association.
A CG-animated reboot, which originally went under the name Denver and Cliff, premiered on M6 on August 27, 2018.[5] The new series was produced by Zagtoon.[6]
The show revolves around Denver, the eponymous last dinosaur, who was released from his egg by a group of California teens: Jeremy, Mario, Shades, and Wally. The kids taught Denver the finer points of skateboarding and other pastimes while protecting him from rock concert promoter Morton Fizzback who wanted to use the dinosaur to make money.
The series begins when Jeremy, while preparing for his Natural History test, and his friends visit the La Brea Tar Pits – a place in Los Angeles which contains a large collection of extinct animal and plant fossils – and go to the Museum there. At the museum, the friends encounter a gang of bullies led by Nick. The friends escape the bullies by hiding behind a fence near the tar pits. Behind the fence they find a pit that contains a large prehistoric egg. As the friends are playing with the egg, it suddenly cracks and a green friendly dinosaur emerges who understands English. The kids name him Denver after they spot an advertisement for the city of Denver on a passing bus.
The children decide to keep Denver and to keep his existence a secret. Denver is first hidden in a pool house at Wally's home. After Wally's sister Heather discovers Denver, they move Denver to the old school gym with help from Casey. After a while, Denver gets kidnapped by the manager Morton Fizzback, who puts Denver on a stage in front of an audience to become rich.
When the children confront Morton about his abduction, he becomes paranoid that someone might find out that Denver is a real dinosaur. At the end, Denver is sold to a scientist named Professor Funt, who wants to examine and experiment on him, and use him to become famous. Eventually, Denver gets to return to the gang and rescue them from Nick and his thugs.
In addition to his natural skills and abilities, Denver can also, with the help of a piece from the shell of his egg, take the gang with him back to the time whence he came.
Knott's Berry Farm offered a Denver promotional tie-in with its new Kingdom of the Dinosaurs attraction (which would later take its last rider in 2004), as did Ralston Cereals with its new brand Dinersaurs (which sold poorly and was discontinued by the end of 1988).
Various episodes of the series were released on VHS by Fries Home Video.
World Events Productions released two DVD volumes through their Voltron.com website. The first volume included the hour-long pilot and the following eight episodes. The second volume includes 10 episodes. World Events Productions had the complete series on YouTube; it was removed on December 31, 2010, because of synchronizing problems, but as of February 2012, all but three episodes had been restored. On February 11, 2011, World Events Productions released the complete series on Hulu.
On September 16, 2014, World Events Productions (distributed by VCI Entertainment) released Denver, The Last Dinosaur – The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time.[7] [8]
The series is now owned by MarVista Entertainment.
In October 2015, Zagtoon confirmed it was in the pre-production phase on a CG-animated reboot of the series.[9] Produced with Method Animation, the new show premiered on M6 in France on August 27, 2018.[10] Distributor PGS Entertainment sold the series to over 30 markets worldwide.[11] In North America, Yoopa began airing it in Canada starting June 2, 2019, with TiVi5 Monde in the United States following in April 2020.[12] [13] In Belgium, the series debuted on La Trois on September 4, 2019.[14]
An English dubbed version began airing in New Zealand on TVNZ in March 2019.[15] In South Africa, it debuted on eToonz on January 15, 2020. In the United States, it premiered on Primo TV on December 7, 2020.[16]
Characters