Excavating My First Fantasy...

I've been a fantasy buff going way back; but my introduction to the genre came by way of a non-fantastical source: dinosaurs and prehistory. Not surprising. Kids gravitate towards dinosaurs because they're truly the stuff of wonder, the same reason they like superheroes and Saturday morning cartoons. But dinosaurs were actual things described by dry facts appealing only to those adults who research them. That said, while today's youngsters enjoy access to better information, a child of the 70s got something different...

We got fantasy dinosaurs. Humans and dinosaurs living together. Pteranodons with bat-like wings and iguanas masquerading as the real thing. We got men in obvious suits stalking astronauts on prehistoric planets and bikini-clad cavewomen, inexplicably shaven (talk about fantasy), sleeping in monstrous eggshells. It was the stuff of 1950s drive-ins and late-night screenings on black-and-white TV. In other words, a fantasized version of reality channeling all the excitement dinosaurs, in their terrifying glory, had coming.

Comic books reinforced the illusion, and the Aurora Prehistoric Scenes model kits popular at the time implied an intersection of fantasy and reality that resonates even now. And if you appreciated dinosaurs, you might also enjoy the dragons of mythology and radioactive kaiju, dragons by another name, threatening (and sometimes saving) humanity from calamities both alien and earthborn. In short, those dinosaurs were a gateway drug to an endless buffet of the fantastic. And there was no shortage of the stuff, as the following shows...   

The Lost World (movie, 1925). An early Willis O'Brien masterpiece.

King Kong (movie, 1933). More stop-motion by the incomparable O'Brien. 

One Million B.C. (movie, 1940). I don't approve of the animal cruelty.

King Dinosaur (movie, 1955). Iguanas and a surprisingly good wooly mammoth.

One Million Years B.C. (a sequel, 1966). Harryhausen's stop-motion ruled.

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (movie, 1970). Excellent stop-motion here.

Aurora Prehistoric Scenes (model kits, 1971-1978). A great implied world.

Land of the Lost (television show, 1974-1976). The smartest children's show ever.

Tor (comic book, 1975 reissued from 1955). A caveman epic by Joe Kubert.

An incomplete list, but one that shows the variety. The lizards break immersion, and I can't approve the animal cruelty involved. Thankfully, stop-motion animation and the magic of comic-book cleverness brought these worlds to reputable life. And seriously, how much of a leap is it from dinosaurs to Sokurah's fire-breather to Tolkien's Smaug? Or from primitive cavemen to talking apes ruling a post-apocalyptic world? Without a doubt, dinosaurs were my first fantasy, and the creative liberties of media a gateway to endless adventures...

Image from One Million B.C., Hal Roach Studios/United Artists