Top 10 Dinosaurs that Influenced our Popular Culture

Why did the dinosaur cross the road? Because chickens weren’t around.

Dinosaurs have been very popular in our culture where our media has presented them as creatures from hundreds of millions of years ago, rendered extinct by some unknown force. Some say from the Ice Age, some say a meteor, and some say (heaven forfend) evolution. Some state that they weren’t included in Noah’s ark and some posit that some of these creatures are existing even in today’s times. The bottom line is, we don’t know for certain, and that’s all right.

Dinosaurs were popularized once archaeology introduced dinosaur bones and fossils, with skeletons being featured at museums worldwide. This and cave carvings have driven many religious leaders crazy since this was something they didn’t anticipate.

That said, here is my personal list of the top 10 dinosaurs that “made it” into popular culture in terms of books, movies, and food.

10. Brontosaurus

Now known as the Apatosaurus as the Brontosaurusnever really existed (formally renamed in 1974),  the Brontosaurus had its own Brontosaurus burger,

The Brontosaurus was featured in Winsor McKay’s 1914 classic Gertie the Dinosaur, the silent film The Lost World (1925) in a battle between a Brontosaurus and an Allosaurus, Jurassic Park, and in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1997, where George Lucas added some large, long-necked animals based on the Brontosaurus/Brachiosaurus from the earlier film Jurassic Park which he also directed.

9. Triceratops

Taken from Land Before Time:

[Triperatops] also been featured in three major dinosaur documentaries: Walking with Dinosaurs, The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Park. They are famously known as “three-horns” (and are so named in The Land Before Time animated film and its numerous sequels) due to the three prominent horns on their head and nose, which have become almost synonymous with the dinosaurs. The shorthand “Trike” is another common informal name, and is also the name ofthe Triceratops character in the children’s book series and television cartoonseries Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs. The character “Baby Bop” from Barney & Friends is another example of a Triceratops in popular media.

Read more: http://blog.rafihecht.com/2014/07/22/top-10-dinosaurs-that-influenced-our-popular-culture.html