Walk the Dinosaur

"Walk the Dinosaur"
Single by Was (Not Was)
from the album What Up, Dog?
Released	September 1987
Genre	Funk[1]
Length	4:22
Label	Chrysalis (US) Fontana/Phonogram (UK)
Writer(s)	David Was Don Was Randy Jacobs
Producer(s)	David Was Don Was (1987 version) Cool & Dre (2009 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs version)
Was (Not Was) singles chronology
"Spy in the House of Love" (1987) "Walk the Dinosaur" (1987) "The Boy's Gone Crazy" (1987)

"Walk the Dinosaur" is a song by Was (Not Was), released in 1987, from their 1988 album, What Up, Dog?.

Song info

The song features a tight, funky sound, punctuated by horns and a cowbell, along with what sounds like cavepeople chanting in the background.

When released in the UK in 1987, the song reached no. 10 on the singles chart, becoming the group's first UK top 10 hit. The music video featured four scantily clad 'cavewomen' dancing to the song while a Flintstones style TV played clips from Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur. Modern people danced to the song in the "Everybody kill the dinosaur" part. The video received heavy rotation on MTV. The song reached no. 7 on the US chart in 1989, two years after its UK success. The song became the band's biggest hit single in their home country.

According to an interview with co-writer Randy Jacobs, it "was an infectious sing-along with a Flintstonesque video that probably got played on MTV way too much. But even that seemingly good-time anthem had a dark side. [...] The song’s about nuclear Armageddon. It became a dance (anthem) because of the video. They connected it with the girls in the little Pebbles and Bam-Bam outfits. All the sudden it became, like, 'do the mashed potato' or 'the twist.'"^[2]

Chart performance

In popular culture

• "Walk the Dinosaur" featured in the soundtrack of the 1989 film The Dream Team.
• George Clinton recorded a cover of "Walk the Dinosaur" for the 1993 film Super Mario Bros., with slightly modified lyrics to reference the film.
• This song appeared on the soundtrack of the 1994 film The Flintstones.^[22]
• This song appeared on the trailer of the 1996 film Theodore Rex.
• This song appeared on the TV spot of the 2000 film Dinosaur.
• There is a famous shock site called walkthedinosaur.com which plays this song in an endless loop as a pornographic gif of two dinosaurs play out.
• In 1997 , a cover of Walk the Dinosaur was included in the August 1997 show at Chuck E. Cheese's. The band members poked fun at the ambiguity of the name Was (Not Was).
• Queen Latifah recorded a version of the song for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009). Her version features minor lyrical changes to make the song more family-friendly. However, it was not included on the official soundtrack. It was produced by Cool & Dre.
• As of February 2012, the song can be heard in the prehistoric area of Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park. As well, a snippet of the tune can be heard during the Electrical Water Pageant float parade at Walt Disney World Resort in the Seven Seas Lagoon.
• The song was featured in the cancelled Saints Row: Enter the Dominatrix (2013), played as the protagonist leads an army of talking alien velociraptors against an alien dominatrix. The playable segment was included as part of the first DLC episode for Saints Row IV.
• A popular prank on the 4chan internet message board sees users post long-winded, seemingly true stories, only to end abruptly and unresolved with the out-of-context lyrics, "Open the door, get on the floor/Everybody walk the dinosaur" (similar to a shaggy dog story).

References

External links

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics