This is really rather strange and almost bizarre at points, even moody and super serious often, but sweet and very well acted from all involved, it's about a bit of a sensitive and awkward young boy who has a hard time making friends and fitting in at school, and who has a very loving mother who is pregnant and still working and a nice stepdad who devotes a lot of time to his art projects and possibly needs to mature himself a little, and in the midst of his somewhat turbulent family life and the mean kids at his new school the boy's only 'real' friend is a talking stuffed t-rex doll that loves to sing Elvis songs! This is really well made, I love the sweet mum and how she babies her son a little bit and how he had a bit of a strained relationship with his stepdad but they get a little closer by the end, it felt very true to life, not the dinosaur teddy of course but it was almost like you were in the kid's shoes and how he was seeing the world, the uncertainty of a troubled family life and worries about school and such as bothers us when we're young and 'carefree'. I wondered if Dog the cheeky dinosaur was a figment of his imagination to help him deal with his life and worries because it vaguely suggests that several at times, and he does start to break away from his Dino buddy and leave him at home to take care of his mum as he starts hanging out with a real friend at school and things are a little better all around by the end. I just thought of this today and watched it for the first time in a good twenty five years at least, so it made me feel very nostalgic and think about myself at that age. I had no idea it was an episode of a short lived Jim Henson show, whenever I did see it I saw it as its own standalone little movie, I watched it often as a kid, it was on a tape. Lovely, I love the parents and the kid, and they feel like a real family, and how the problems always seem so big at the time but usually it all sorts itself out by the end with a little help from our friends and family.. Very emotionally satisfying and honest and pretty wonderful for what it is, I may not have watched it in a very long time indeed but it still holds up and definitely has a special place in my heart X.
