Welcome Back to Jurassic Park!
Michael Crichton’s science fiction classic Jurassic Park made its ebook premiere this week. First published in 1990, the novel was an immediate success among dino-loving readers captivated by the mix of cutting-edge science and thrilling action. It ultimately became Crichton’s best-selling novel and spawned a blockbuster 1993 movie.
The movie spawned several sequels, not to mention uncountable also-rans in the form of half-baked straight to VHS movies and knock-off novels. It became a cultural touchstone; a part of the cultural lexicon. Jokes, memes and pop-culture references have exploded in the nearly 20 years since its release. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Clever Girl: A staple of rage comics, “Clever Girl” is often invoked to illustrate the author’s appreciation of a woman’s intelligence, often when he – or she – is outsmarted in some way. “Clever Girl” references the scene in Jurassic Park when the hunter Muldoon is flanked by one velociraptor while attempting to shoot another. Muldoon utters the phrase in appreciation before the dinosaur attacks him.
Life Finds a Way: “Life finds a way,” or more accurately, “I’m simply saying life, um, finds a way.” is the explanation that Dr. Ian Malcolm offers to incredulous Jurassic Park scientist Henry Wu when it is discovered that the island’s all-female dinosaur population has reproduced. The phrase has popped up here and there over the years, most recently on Fox’s Family Guy.
Rex in Jurassic Park: “Rex in Jurassic Park” takes one of the movie’s most horrific scenes (the tyrannosaurus attack on a park jeep) and replaces the ravenous dino with his friendly cousin “Rex” from Toy Story. Hilarious, but disturbing.
Futurama’s “Jurassic Bark”: Just mention this episode to any dog-loving Futurama fan, and get ready for the waterworks. Arguably one of the saddest installments of any comedy cartoon series ever, “Jurassic Park” find Fry cloning his long-dead dog using the same technology from Jurassic Park. I won’t even link to this. Google it yourself. *sniff*
Weird Al Yankovic: “Jurassic Park”: Bard of the bizarre Weird Al knows a target ripe for farce when he sees it. His song “Jurassic Park” (a parody of the song “MacArthur Park”) was released the same year as the movie. Say what you will about Al, but his timing is impeccable – even if his taste isn’t!
Bonus: “Hey”
