Walk the Dinosaur

"Walk the Dinosaur"
Single by Was (Not Was)
from the album What Up, Dog?
Released	September 1987
Genre	Dance-pop, funk[1]
Length	4:22
Label	Chrysalis Records (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 hit single recorded and released by the band Was (Not Was) in 1987, later featured on their hit 1988 album, What Up, Dog?.

Song info

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

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, Jacobs says. "It became a dance 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]

When released in the UK in 1987, the song reached #10 on the charts, becoming the group's first Top 10 hit there. After the music video---which featured four scantily clad cavewomen dancing to the song, a Flintstones-style TV playing clips from Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur, and then modern people dancing to the song in the "Everybody kill the dinosaur" part---received heavy rotation on MTV, the song reached #7 on the U.S. chart in 1989, two years after its UK success. The song is the biggest hit single for the band in their home country.

In popular culture

George Clinton recorded a cover of "Walk the Dinosaur" which was the theme song 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.^[3]

This song appeared on the trailer of the 1995 film Theodore Rex.

This song appeared on the TV spot of the 2000 film Dinosaur.

"Walk the Dinosaur" featured in the soundtrack of 1989 film The Dream Team.

Queen Latifah recorded a version of the song for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. The lyric "slave" was replaced in her version with "friend" to make the song more family-friendly. However, It was not included on the official soundtrack. It was produced by Cool & Dre.

Matthew Wilkening of AOL Radio ranked the song at No. 61 on the list of the 100 Worst Songs Ever, warning the listeners to look out for a meteor, followed up with a "Boom! Boom! Aka-lacka-lacka-boom!" and the exaltation that the song "is knocked into extinction. Our ears are saved!"^[4]

In 2011, a cover of Walk the Dinosaur was included in the animatronic show at Chuck E. Cheese's. The band members poked fun at the ambiguity of the name Was (Not Was).

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, 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.

Chart positions

References