Jurassic Park Almost Got a Cartoon Series—And The Trailer Has Just Been Excavated (Watch)

Jurassic Park: Why Steven Spielberg Ignored This Famous Visual Error in T-Rex Attack

Remember that strange period in the 1980s and ’90s when certain movies were randomly turned into cartoon shows?

Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice, The Mask, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Men in Black, Dumber and Dumber, Back to the Future, Jumanji and Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla were among the most notable titles to be retrofitted for animation. These series were, in all likelihood, an attempt by studios to widen the demographic of a successful movie that might otherwise only attract older audiences.

It appears Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park almost fell victim to this phenomenon based on a newly-unearthed trailer from July 1993. Produced by Universal Cartoon Studios (now Universal Animation Studios), the minute-long footage serves as proof of concept for a cartoon based on the massively successful dino-centric blockbuster, whose PG-13 rating dissuaded many parents from allowing their children to see it in theaters.

As Amblin’s former vice president of marketing Brad Globe explained in James Mottram’s Jurassic Park: The Ultimate Visual History, certain merchandise was aimed at younger fans: “Instead of actual artwork from the movie, we would create designs that were interpretative in a way that wasn’t scary to the child.

The small screen adaptation—titledEscape from Jurassic Park—would have brought back Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, John Hammond and his grandchildren, Lex and Tim, for more adventures on Isla Nublar.

Watch Trailer For Scrapped Jurassic Park Cartoon Series

A story bible detailing the first-season arc made its way online in 2016. The introduction states that the goal was to make “the most distinctive and elaborately animated series ever produced for the medium of television,” with design work handled by renowned film and comic book artist William Stout.

“The Jurassic Park series will build from the film and book into continuing stories told in multiple-episode story arcs,” continues the introduction. “Each individual episode will tell a complete story, but will form part of a greater tapestry which will play out over the course of the series. Philosophically, the series will be consistent with the storytelling integrity of the motion picture and the novel. While new characters and dinosaurs will be added to the mix, the essential cast from the film will be featured in the series, and the tone and temper of the storytelling will be the same as in the motion picture.”

Set directly after the events of the movie, Escape from Jurassic Park follows Hammond working to stabilize the overrun island with help from Grant, Sattler and Malcolm, who only agree to participate if the park is reopened as a biological preserve only used for study and research.

At the same time, InGen’s underhanded rival Biosyn is still determined to have its own prehistoric animals for an attraction in the Amazon Rainforest dubbed “DinoWorld.” Having failed to acquire embryos from the late Dennis Nedry, Lewis Dogdson leads a raid on Isla Nublar to capture fully-grown dinosaurs, particularly pregnant ones. The Biosyn project fails and dinosaurs escape into South America, prompting Grant, Sattler and Malcolm to recapture the animals.

Much to their chagrin, Hammond goes back on his promise and opens Jurassic Park as a public tourist attraction. The season ends with newly-hired PR director Brad Levy announcing to the world press, “Welcome to Jurassic Park.”

According to Stout, the show never saw the light of day because Spielberg “was burnt out on Jurassic Park merchandising and all of the film’s commercial exploitation.”

Instead, the story continued in comic book form, though these stories (published by Topps) were ultimately rendered non-canon by The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III.