Art by William Stout

Some good old-fashioned dinosaurs from William Stout’s classic The Dinosaurs.

William Stout Godzilla

William Stout (American, born 1949) and Mœbius (Jean Henri Gaston Giraud) (French, 1938 - 2012): Heavy Metal 20th Anniversary Special, 1997 - Page 123 Arzaq.   [image source]

The Jurassic Park TV Show That Never Was

With the ongoing popularity of 1993′s ‘Jurassic Park’ and the recent mega success of Colin Trevorrow’s ‘Jurassic World’, a number of previously unseen images from an alleged television cartoon show have appeared online.

It’s surprising that, after the enormous popularity of Spielberg’s dino adventure, a TV spin-off didn’t materialise. Apparently, Universal were working on a cartoon series, using the gorgeous concept art from William Stout as a basis.

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Stout has previously discussed his involvement in the project, having worked on the film’s concept art.

“Towards the end of all of this merchandising I got a call from artist Will Meugniot, asking if I’d be interested in designing a Jurassic Park animated series. This was not going to be a kiddy show (although kids of all ages, including myself, could enjoy it). They wanted the show to be a mature prime time series with top writers and state-of-the-art television animation augmented with quite a bit of CG animation. Universal Cartoon Studios wanted a “graphic novel look” to the series. I came in, showed my portfolio and was hired.”

What’s more, an actual trailer for the series exists, as the artist shares: “We made a trailer to communicate the look and feel of the series, also showing how we would combine computer animation with traditional animation. All we needed was Spielberg’s approval.”

Tragically, as we’re sure you’d agree, the show never went into production, largely since Spielberg never actually caught glimpse of the trailer. 

“I heard through the grapevine that he never bothered to watch what we had done. By that time the word was out that he was burnt out on Jurassic Park merchandising and all of the film’s commercial exploitation. So, it never got made,” Stout said.

It seems like the creation of a ‘Jurassic Park’ TV series would have been massively well received and a sure fire hit, especially in the early to mid ‘90s where it could’ve conceivably slotted perfectly into Saturday morning kids programmes, such as BBC’s Live and Kicking or over on Nickelodeon or The Cartoon Network.

Amazingly, the art shows off some of the dinos we do get to see in later ‘Jurassic’ movies, such as the smaller, bitey ones like the Compsognathus from ‘The Lost World’, and, more recently, the iconic Mosasaur from ‘Jurassic World’.

Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be - be it down to budget or creative burnout as Stout says - but the submitted concept art that initially won producers over is still fascinating to look at nonetheless.

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Picture credits: Universal, Williams Stout, fromdirectorstevenspielberg.tumblr.com

by William Stout.