''The Ballad of Big Al'', marketed as ''Allosaurus'' in North America, is a 2000 special episode of the
nature documentary
A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on video taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of t ...
television series ''
Walking with Dinosaurs
''Walking with Dinosaurs'' is a 1999 six-part nature documentary television miniseries created by Tim Haines and produced by the BBC Science Unit the Discovery Channel and BBC Worldwide, in association with TV Asahi, ProSieben and France 3. Envi ...
''. ''The Ballad of Big Al'' is set in the
Late Jurassic
The Late Jurassic is the third epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time from 163.5 ± 1.0 to 145.0 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic strata.Owen 1987.
In European lithostratigraphy, the name ...
, 145 million years ago, and follows a single ''
Allosaurus
''Allosaurus'' () is a genus of large carnosaurian theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 145 million years ago during the Late Jurassic epoch ( Kimmeridgian to late Tithonian). The name "''Allosaurus''" means "different lizard" alludin ...
'' specimen nicknamed
"Big Al" whose life story has been reconstructed based on a well-preserved fossil of the same name. ''The Ballad of Big Al'' was like the other episodes of ''Walking with Dinosaurs'' made by
Impossible Pictures and was produced by the
BBC Natural History Unit
The BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is a department of BBC Studios that produces television, radio and online content with a natural history or wildlife theme. It is best known for its highly regarded nature documentaries, including '' ...
, the
Discovery Channel,
ProSieben and
TV Asahi
JOEX-DTV (channel 5), branded as (also known as EX and and stylized as TV asahi), is a television station that is owned and operated by the subsidiary of certified broadcasting holding company , itself controlled by The Asahi Shimbun Comp ...
.
The episode was aired together with a 30-minute behind-the-scenes episode, ''Big Al Uncovered''.
Plot
![Big Al Allosaurus](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Big_Al_Allosaurus.jpg)
The special begins at the
University of Wyoming's Geological Museum, showing the bones of a sauropod followed by an ''
Allosaurus
''Allosaurus'' () is a genus of large carnosaurian theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 145 million years ago during the Late Jurassic epoch ( Kimmeridgian to late Tithonian). The name "''Allosaurus''" means "different lizard" alludin ...
'' named
Big Al. After the ghost of Big Al wanders the museum passing by his own skeleton and a nest of fossilized eggs, the film then travels back in time to 145
Mya showing a similar nest. Al and his siblings hatch and are helped out of the nest by their mother. She brings them to a river bank and the hatchlings start to hunt for
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...
s. When the mother leaves the
hatchling
In oviparous biology, a hatchling is a newly hatched fish, amphibian, reptile, or bird. A group of mammals called monotremes lay eggs, and their young are hatchlings as well.
Fish
Fish hatchlings generally do not receive parental care, similar to ...
s temporarily, a one-year-old ''Allosaurus'' comes out of hiding and kills one of them (luckily, the victim was not Al).
Al is then shown at the age of two years. He tries to hunt a flock of ''
Dryosaurus
''Dryosaurus'' ( , meaning 'tree lizard', Greek ' () meaning 'tree, oak' and () meaning 'lizard'; the name reflects the forested habitat, not a vague oak-leaf shape of its cheek teeth as is sometimes assumed) is a genus of an ornithopod dinosaur ...
''. He has not yet learned how to ambush so he fails to kill one of the swifter, smaller dinosaurs. Later, he snatches a lizard from a branch to keep him satisfied. Al comes across a dead ''
Stegosaurus
''Stegosaurus'' (; ) is a genus of herbivorous, four-legged, armored dinosaur from the Late Jurassic, characterized by the distinctive kite-shaped upright plates along their backs and spikes on their tails. Fossils of the genus have been fou ...
'' and an ''Allosaurus'' waiting for death in a pit of sticky mud, which forms a
predator trap
A predator trap is a natural hazard where prey animals become trapped or incapacitated, and the attracted predators suffer the same fate. More predators, scavengers, insects and birds become attracted to this mounting accumulation of carrion, until ...
. Meanwhile, a two-year-old female ''Allosaurus'', attracted to the ''Stegosaurus'' carcass, also gets stuck. She struggles to free herself, but fails. Al luckily avoids the same fate, because he has learnt to avoid
carrion and the large carnivores that it usually attracts. Unable to escape, the trapped ''Allosaurus'' pair die of exhaustion, their corpses left to ''
Anurognathus
''Anurognathus'' is a genus of small pterosaur that lived during the Late Jurassic period ( Tithonian stage). ''Anurognathus'' was first named and described by Ludwig Döderlein in 1923.Döderlein, L. (1923). "''Anurognathus Ammoni'', ein neue ...
''.
Three years pass, and a herd of ''
Diplodocus
''Diplodocus'' (, , or ) was a genus of diplodocid sauropod dinosaurs, whose fossils were first discovered in 1877 by S. W. Williston. The generic name, coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878, is a neo-Latin term derived from Greek Î´Î¹Ï ...
'' are migrating across the prehistoric
salt lake, heading for a nesting site to the south. Al, now 30 feet (9 meters) long, is joined by several other ''Allosaurus'' (possibly, his siblings) and they manage to panic the herd into leaving a weakened sick individual behind. But as the ''Allosaurus'' gather for the kill, Al is struck down by the neck of the ''Diplodocus''. The pack decides to wait for a few hours until the ''Diplodocus'' is brought down by heat exhaustion and his illness. Though they feed, within the hour, a five-year-old female ''Allosaurus'' scavenges the kill. Al takes some remnants of the carcass for himself and leaves, trying to find a safer place to eat.
A year passes by, and Al, now 33 feet (10 metres) long with the crests over his eyes reddening, is shown drinking at a pond. His presence however makes other dinosaurs around the pond nervous and the smell of blood he brings with him puts off a pair of ''Stegosaurus'' that were attempting to mate. Away from the pond, he discovers the scent of a nearby six-year-old female ''Allosaurus'' and issues a
mating call
A mating call is the auditory signal used by animals to attract mates. It can occur in males or females, but literature is abundantly favored toward researching mating calls in females. In addition, mating calls are often the subject of mate choic ...
. She is not interested, but the inexperienced Al persists, and the female turns hostile when he gets too close. Al is lucky enough to escape from the ensuing fight with his life, although he sustains injuries to his right arm as well as smashed ribs. Later the dry season comes, and Al is attempting to hunt a flock of ''Dryosaurus''. Whilst ambushing them however, he trips over a log that falls in his path and ends up breaking something in his right foot in the resultant fall; he limps away, his chances of survival as prey gets scarcer now very unlikely. As the dry season turns to a drought, Al's limp from the fall gets worse and his right middle toe -which he broke in the fall- has become badly infected. Soon, unable to hunt because of this handicap, he dies in a dried-up riverbed, where two hatchling ''Allosaurus'' are hunting for bugs and come across his emaciated carcass. He is said not to have reached full size, dying as a mature adolescent and that the process of his fossilisation was so perfect it preserved even the injuries he sustained in his lifetime including -amongst others- lumps where his ribs healed after their break and the raging infection on his middle toe. The narrator concludes the special stating how Big Al, in death, represents a frozen moment in the fast and furious life of a carnivorous dinosaur.
Episodes
Reception
Reviews
Julie Salamon gave ''The Ballad of Big Al'' a positive review in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', deeming it an excellent follow-up to the original series of ''Walking with Dinosaurs'', praising the computer animation, the authentic animal designs and the presentation of the programme.
Awards
''The Ballad of Big Al'' won two 2001
Emmy Awards, one for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Non-Fiction Program and one for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming More Than One Hour).
It was also nominated for Outstanding Special Visual Effects (For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special).
The
Online Film & Television Association also awarded ''The Ballad of Big Al'' with two awards, one for Best Visual Effects in a Series and one for Best Informational Special.
In other media
Children's book
''The Ballad of Big Al'' was adapted into a children's book by
Stephen Cole.
Titled ''Allosaurus! The Life and Death of Big Al'',
the book was published in North America by
Dutton Children's Books
Dutton Children's Books is a US publisher of children's books and a division of the Penguin Group. It is associated with the Dutton adult division. It was previously an imprint of E.P. Dutton, prior to 1986. They have been publishing books sinc ...
on 4 June 2001.
Website
An accompanying website to ''The Ballad of Big Al'' was launched in 2000, featuring a written retelling of Big Al's story by the researcher Alexandra Freeman and an online
role-playing game, the ''Big Al game'', based on the episode.
Notes
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballad of Big Al, The
BBC television documentaries
Discovery Channel original programming
Documentary films about dinosaurs
Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program winners
Walking with...
pl:Wędrówki z dinozaurami#Ballada o Wielkim Alu