As a boy I had something of an obsession with the allosaurus, probably because it was smaller and more compact than T. Rex, just as I was "smaller and more compact" than my bullies. You can imagine my delight, then, at seeing the classic restoration on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York (
ABOVE). The dinosaur's pose (
yes, the one in the
background) appears to be based on Rudolph Zallinger's famous
The Age of Reptiles mural at the Yale Peabody Museum, or visa-versa. Regardless, old allosaurus was a real childhood pal, showing up outside school windows, running alongside my parents' car, and, of course, eating bullies.
His appearance in Ray Harryhausen's
One Million Years B.C. amped my interest, as did Aurora's fantastic model kit, which my mother (Mary Lee Spitzer) and father (Giff Spitzer) surprised me with one magical night in the 1970s. How they found it I'll never know (we had searched unsuccessfully throughout Spokane), but it was an unforgettable moment, to be sure. For a Boy That Time Forgot.
As a boy I had something of an obsession with the allosaurus, probably because it was smaller and more compact than T. Rex, just as I was "smaller and more compact" than my bullies. You can imagine my delight, then, at seeing the classic restoration on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York (ABOVE). The dinosaur's pose (yes, the one in the background) appears to be based on Rudolph Zallinger's famous The Age of Reptiles mural at the Yale Peabody Museum, or visa-versa. Regardless, old allosaurus was a real childhood pal, showing up outside school windows, running alongside my parents' car, and, of course, eating bullies.
His appearance in Ray Harryhausen's One Million Years B.C. amped my interest, as did Aurora's fantastic model kit, which my mother (Mary Lee Spitzer) and father (Giff Spitzer) surprised me with one magical night in the 1970s. How they found it I'll never know (we had searched unsuccessfully throughout Spokane), but it was an unforgettable moment, to be sure. For a Boy That Time Forgot.
1 comment:
Dude! Thanks for posting this stuff. You rock! We must be around the same "ahem" age, cuz I had this model as a kid, too. I saw this cover and flipped my "instant para-recognition" lid like a Orson seeing his Rosebud sled in a Sears catalog if he'd lived long enough.
Keep up the good work!
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