TVSquad

As December rolls around, your kids will want to watch the usual line-up of holiday specials. But, I'm guessing they wouldn't mind watching a T-Rex hunt down and tuck into a Triceratops, whatever the time of year.

Discovery Channel will put cutting-edge imaging technology to bring giant lizards to life inside and out with Clash of the Dinosaurs. Premiering December 6 at 8 p.m. (ET/PT), the four-part series looks inside the body of a dinosaur to with cinematic photo-real 3D graphics.

According to Discovery's announcement, consulting anatomy and paleontology experts help to peel back the skin, muscles and bones of the creatures to show how they thrived. So, on second thought, maybe the kids should stick with A Year without a Santa Claus.

The new Land of the Lost movie opens today, so I thought it would be appropirate to show the opening to the 70s kids show that inspired the film. Sure, the special effects look really lame today, but back then...well, they were lame back then too. But it was a fun show for kids.

New TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

• The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet - Best Of
• Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters - Best Of
• Beverly Hills, 90210 - Season 2
• Dinosaurs - Seasons 3 and 4
• The Girls Next Door - Season 2
• Hee Haw - Vol. 7
• The King of Queens - Season 8
• Melrose Place - Season 2
• Three's Company - Janet's Favorites
• What I Like About You - Season 1
• Will & Grace - Season 6

Somehow I missed this special, When The Leaves Blow Away, when it originally aired on Comedy Central, but it's re-airing tonight on the network at midnight, and the DVD of the special was released today.

Wright was on The Late Show With David Letterman last night, and he was in great (if hairy) form. He's a Boston-area guy and I've loved his stuff since the 80s. If you've never seen him, he's sort of an older, darker Demetri Martin, going from one quirky observation to another unrelated quirky observation. He was an influence on many standup comics.

After the jump, a clip from the special (he used some of the material on Letterman last night).

We rejoiced when the first two seasons of the Jim Henson Company's Dinosaurs came out on DVD, and now it's time to rejoice again, because seasons three and four will be out on DVD in a single box set sometime this May. There's no official release date yet, and there are no details on extra features just yet, either. What we do know is that all thirty-six episodes from seasons three and four will be included, and that's awesome.

On a more personal note, an incidental character in the episode "If I Were A Tree" is actually named after a friend of mine (actually the younger brother of a friend, but a friend nonetheless) who passed away at a very young age. This is not a lie, the writers changed the name of the character after I wrote a letter to them asking them to dedicate a show to my friend, who liked the show. I consider the name change the next best thing to a dedication. In fact, I still have the episode on tape, and the script they sent me.

Hey, check your watch. Yeah, it's time for another episode of The Five where we list stuff in groups of five, and you throw down some more in the comments. It's both fun and educational. Today we're talking about the best fictional corporations on television, so let's get into it:

Acme: Are you a coyote who has devoted his life to catching a single bird? If so, the Acme Corporation has everything you need from anvils to rocket sleds to exploding birdseed. Of course, none of these things come with any guarantee, but I'm sure they'll work out just fine for you. According to Wikipedia, Acme was part of the Warner Bros. cartoon universe early on, having first appeared in "Buddy's Bug Hunt" in 1935.

Every Tuesday here on TV Squad , we will highlight the week's TV-on-DVD releases. Some noteworthy releases today, May 2, 2006:

• 3rd Rock from the Sun - Season 4
• Andromeda - Vol 5.5
• Dinosaurs - The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons
• A Fall of Eagles (mini-series)
• Hee Haw - Collection Vol 6
• I Love Lucy - The Complete 6th Season
• Kate & Allie - The Complete 1st Season
• King of the Hill - Complete 6th Season
• Leave It to Beaver - The Complete 2nd Season
• Life in the Undergrowth (mini-series)
• The Nanny - The Complete 2nd Season
• The Omega Factor
• Red Dwarf - Series 8
• The Red Green Show - 1997 Season

As I mentioned before, the first two seasons of Jim Henson Productions' Dinosaurs comes out on DVD on May 2. While you fans of the series wait for the DVD release, you should check out the Web site Disney has set up at Dinosaur.com to promote the new discs. There's some brief clips from the series to whet your appetite, as well as information on how the show, based on an original idea from Jim Henson, was eventually brought to life after his death. While I think Dinosaurs was funny and clever (at least it was when I was fifteen), I think I was especially drawn to it because it was one of the last realizations of Henson's vision. Whether it was true to his vision after being filtered through the minds of others is impossible to say, but in an odd way I think the series serves as a bridge between the legacy Henson left behind and what eventually followed, for good or ill.

[via Muppet Newsflash]

"Not the momma!"

One of my favorite shows, and, admittedly, a show I'm afraid to watch again for fear it might not be as good as I remember it, is coming to DVD in May. It's Dinosaurs, a show featuring a family of animatronic thunder lizards with the surname Sinclair (it's an oil name, get it)? In fact, most of the characters on the show had names taken from petroleum companies. Like the Simpsons before it, to which the show has been sometimes unfavorably compared, the show often focused on "normal" issues made abnormal by the oddball world created for the show. The series ran for four years on ABC from 1991 to 1994. The DVD release wil include the entire first and second seasons.