VALLEY OF THE DINOSAURS was a 30 minute animated adventure show from Hanna Barbera that ran on the CBS network on Saturday mornings beginning Sept 1974. A total of sixteen 30-minute episodes were produced and were ran as part of the Saturday schedule until Sept 1976.
The show centers around a family who get caught in a mysterious whirlpool while rafting and are sucked into a hidden and/or timeless valley populated by both cavemen and dinosaurs.This premise was coincidentally used the very same season on NBC with the live action LAND OF THE LOST from Sid and Marty Krofft, and there has been some speculation as to whether the two shows were developed independently or if persons involved with one show bailed out and developed their own version for the competition.
Where Land Of The Lost is straight up science fiction and takes on many different timelines, VALLEY stays the course with the prehistoric theme, with a few liberties of course.
The cast of regular characters was actually quite large for a series of this kind as it contained a sort of mirror image of families---one with a husband,wife and children from the modern times and the other a caveman/prehistoric counterpart--even down to a dinosaur equivalent of the family dog in the form of Glump the stegosaurus.Oddly, this being a Hanna Barbera show the voice characterization of the dog was not done by usual canine standby Don Messick but by Frank Welker, the voice of Fred on SCOOBY DOO. Messick, instead, was used as the shows narrator. Another notable voice actor on the show was a young Jackie Earl Haley who provided the voice for the son, Greg Butler. Haley has come into the publics wider attention more recently as Rorschach in the movie adaptation of THE WATCHMEN and as Freddy Krueger in the recent remake of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.
Episode one , part one:
Episode one, part two:
1975 CBS Saturday morning cartoon ad with VALLEY OF THE DINOSAURS as it's lead in.
In the early to mid 1970's Charlton Comics held exclusive rights to all Hanna Barbera shows and VALLEY OF THE DINOSAURS was given an 11 issue run cover dated April 1975 to December 1976. Many of Charlton's comic book adaptations to their licenses were at times sub-par at best, but their treatment of VALLEY was top notch with engaging and entertaining stories and first class and dynamic artwork by Fred Himes.
A selection of merchandising tie-ins:
1974 WONDER WHEAT BREAD trading cards
In March 2011 VALLEY OF THE DINOSAURS became available on dvd as a 2 disc complete series set through the manufacture-on-demand Warner Archive Collection.
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