Monoclonius' Big Moment

Monoclonius made its mark on the 1980's cartoon DinoRiders, but it's real big time on the screen was in Robert Guenette's"Dinosaur!" hosted by Christopher Reeves in 1985. The footage in this special featuring what was then called Monoclonius came from a stop motion film of about 8 minutes made the year before by a man named Phil Tippett in his garage. Tippett used this short film, called Prehistoric Beast, to catapult his teeny studio into a firm which handled movies like Jurassic Park amongst other documentaries and movies (Robocop, Starship Troopers, etc) and continues to be successful in the modern era working on films like Breaking Dawn (just to name something famous). However, I will always remember Tippett for this short film and I will always remember the dinosaur as Monoclonius, no matter what science wants to call it in the end. It's one of my earliest memories of television and I remember cheering when the Monoclonius wounds the Albertosaurus and being sad when the image fades to black after those snarling teeth. Juvenile or not, this is what Monoclonius will always be to me.