Chiodos on Modern Marvels featuring dino bits and pieces

The Chiodo Brothers were featured on a "Modern Marvels" episode a while ago. Sure they worked on big projects like "Team America" and "Elf", but the segment also featured glimpses of some the great stop motion they did for the Gary and Eric dino shows.

After lying dormant for 15 years, it finally erupted!

After completing several specials about dinosaurs, we thought a show about volcanoes might have the same type of primal appeal, so in the early 90's we started work on "The Volcano Show". The first location shoot was Eric's visit to Hawaii's Volcanoes National Park. The landscapes were amazing, the lava tube was eerie, and standing next to a creeping lava flow was humbling! 

Here's Charlie Chiodo's pre-production sketch of the opening scene in which Gary and Eric discover that a volcano has begun to erupt in Eric's backyard....

And, below is a scene from the opening of the show, that was actually shot last...after all the location work. The little volcano was built by Chiodo Bros Productions.

Right after we finished all the shoots, our home video company at the time decided they no longer wanted to pursue the children's video market. We forged ahead and recorded David Spears's score for the show, and just had some final editing to do when the Disney Channel changed executives... and programming philosophy. So,with no home video or broadcast distribution deals in place, The Volcano Show ended up on the shelf along with segments that had been shot for shows about Space (some footage is a special feature on the "More Dinosaurs" DVD), Insects, and Sea Life. 

When we were preparing to release our old Dinosaur Shows on DVD, we decided to go ahead and do the final post production on the Volcano Show, so it could be seen for the first time. 

"The Volcano Show" finally made its debut on the "More Dinosaurs" DVD.

 We think it was a fun addition to the series, and would be interested to know what you think.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Well, it's hard to believe, but it was on Thanksgiving evening all  the way back in 1984 that "Dinosaurs" (the first Gary and Eric "dino" show) premiered on KABC-TV at 7:30 PM. Here is the opening of the show, plus the  beginning of Act 1. The freeze frame after Eric disappears in the first scene is because he reappears at Epcot Center and we no longer have the rights to show that.  The positive reaction to the program led to "More Dinosaurs" and the rest of the specials that later aired on the Disney Channel.