Allosaurus: A Walking With Dinosaurs Special

Dino-mite! Spawned from the BBC's groundbreaking series Walking With Dinosaurs, this program employs the same awe-inspiring state-of-the-art computer graphics and animatronics to recreate the life and times of "Big Al," an allosaurus, as gleaned from his 145-million year-old skeleton discovered in Wyoming in the 1980s. Some of the hunting and feeding sequences may be too intense for younger dino-fanciers (and Big Al does perish onscreen), but older children will be thrilled. As an added bonus, the video also contains a fascinating companion program, "Big Al Uncovered," which chronicles how scientists painstakingly gathered the clues for this "paleontological detective story" and by rebuilding Big Al's body, analyzing other fossils, and studying his modern relatives, were able to learn more about Big Al than almost any other dinosaur to date. Highly recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P. (K. Lee Benson)