
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 5, 1993                   TAG: 9307030139
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

YOU JUST KNOW THEY WON'T STOP AT ONE `JURASSIC PARK'

When you are an astute, well-rounded, well-read, intelligent, dashing and stable individual such as yours truly here, you don't scream a whole lot.

But that is what I plan to do the next time I hear, read or sense a thing about this movie "Jurassic Park."

Come on, enough's enough. The media didn't give that much space or time to World War II.

So, these dinosaurs come to life and all that stuff. So what? Yul Brenner did essentially the same thing as a robotic gunfighter in a movie years ago.

I don't care for dinosaurs. More than 30 years ago, my son went crazy about those things. Knew all their names and what they ate, and that was long before Walter Cronkite started fooling around with them.

Sure. I was proud to be the father of a 4-year-old who could say "Tyrannosaurus rex" in polite company, but after a while all that stuff tends to get on your nerves.

(Actually, I have a recording of him saying "Tyrannosaurus rex" with this cute little lisp. Every time he hedges on changing the oil in the Cherokee or cleaning out the gutters, I threaten to distribute copies of it to his friends and associates.)

There is little in my memory of dinosaurs that isn't painful - that fad, for example, that insisted that any kid who was truly loved by his parents wore sneakers with dinosaur shapes imprinted on the soles.

I was glad when he became a Trekky later on and was happy to buy this plastic version of the Starship Enterprise despite the fact that we never could make the dome light work.

"Jurassic Park" has been pulling in big bread this summer, and all of us who suffered through the "Rocky" series know what that means.

That's right, boys. "Jurassic Park II" and then III and IV and V. Those film types aren't going to let a good thing like that get away before they feed on the last buck the public is willing to offer.

I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me to see one of these numbered movies feature a boxing match between a Iraqi dinosaur and Sylvester Stallone.

If we're lucky, some natural disaster that doesn't kill human beings will strike the Earth and the dinosaurs will become extinct again.

Or some of the guys who flail out scripts for dinosaur movies will all get writer's block or have trouble with their carpals or develop consciences.

None of the above is going to happen. We all know that. The world doesn't run that way.

But you have to look on the bright side this days of you go insane.

For example: Some of us may be safely on the Other Side by the time "Jurassic Park XX" is released.

by CNB