Season 1
8 episodes Mar 28, 2024 9.1
Bad Dinosaurs
“Terrible Lizards”
2024
Canceled • 1 Season • 8 Episodes
Director: Simone Giampaolo
Creator: Joel Veitch
Overview
A lovably mischievous Tyrannosaurus family explores their colorful prehistoric world, having slapstick fun with the silly dinosaurs who live there.
Seasons
1 listed- Status
- Canceled
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 8 episodes
- First aired
- Mar 28, 2024
- Last aired
- Mar 28, 2024
- Network
- Netflix
Latest episode: S1 E8 Raptors' Revenge / Ma Attacks / Volca-nooooo!!!!! (Mar 28, 2024)
Cast
9 people
Talullah Veitch
Baby Pink T-Rex (voice)
Adam Diggle
T-Rex (voice)
Josie Long
Young Purple T-Rex (voice)
Luisa Guerreiro
Young Red T-Rex / Pterodactyl (voice)
Darren Strange
Various (Voice)
Reviews
4 min readThe Last Laugh of the Cretaceous
I’ll admit it: I wasn’t prepared for Bad Dinosaurs. Not because it’s a kids’ show—though it is—but because it’s a kids’ show that refuses to talk. No dialogue, no voiceover, not even a single word of exposition.
Just grunts, sighs, and the occasional wet splat of a dinosaur slipping on a banana peel. (Yes, there are banana peels in the Cretaceous. Don’t ask.) And yet, somehow, it works.
Or at least, it works enough to make you wonder why more animated series don’t try this.
The premise is simple: a family of Tyrannosaurs—mom, two rambunctious kids, and a baby who may or may not be a genius—stumble through a prehistoric world that’s equal parts Looney Tunes and The Land Before Time, if The Land Before Time had been directed by the team behind Happy Tree Friends. There’s a volcano erupting in the background, a drought turning the river into a mud pit, and a whole ecosystem of dinosaurs who are, without exception, terrible at being dinosaurs.
The Triceratops can’t charge straight, the Pterodactyls crash into trees, and the Stegosaurus? Let’s just say its plates are more decorative than functional.
What’s surprising is how much emotional weight the show manages to wring out of this setup. Common Sense Media, in one of the more astute observations about the series, notes that Bad Dinosaurs "sets itself apart by veering away from the episodic formulas" of typical physical comedy. And it’s true—the show commits to a serialized narrative, following the family’s struggle to survive after a natural disaster (the aforementioned volcano) forces them from their home.
There’s a real sense of stakes here, even if those stakes are often undercut by a well-timed fart joke. The mother T-Rex, in particular, is a standout: her exasperated sighs and protective growls give the show a grounding presence, a reminder that beneath the slapstick, this is a story about family. Or at least, a story about a family that keeps getting pelted with coconuts.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsNetflix’s Bad Dinosaurs: The Short-Lived Prehistoric Comedy That Almost Was
Bad Dinosaurs (2024) arrived with the promise of slapstick chaos and a lovably dysfunctional T. rex family, but its journey from YouTube hit to Netflix series was as rocky as the Cretaceous landscape it depicted. Created by Joel Veitch and Simone Giampaolo, the animated series followed the misadventures of a Tyrannosaurus clan navigating a world of "incompetent dinosaurs" 
. latestnetflix.com's take is that Yet despite its pedigree—rooted in Veitch’s 2015 web series Dinosaurs: Terrible Lizards—the show lasted just one season before Netflix pulled the plug .
From Viral Sketches to Netflix Ambitions
The origins of Bad Dinosaurs trace back to Veitch’s earlier work, Dinosaurs: Terrible Lizards, a YouTube series that blended crude animation with absurdist humor. The web shorts, co-created with Alex Mallinson and David Shute, cultivated a cult following for their irreverent take on prehistoric life . When Netflix announced the TV adaptation in 2022, fans anticipated a full-fledged expansion of the franchise, now under the production banner of Snafu Pictures.
The series’ premise—centered on a T. rex family’s "hilarious shenanigans" in a "colorful prehistoric world"—suggested a mix of The Flintstones and Looney Tunes, with a modern twist . The cast, led by Veitch’s daughter Tallulah and featuring comedians like Josie Long and Adam Diggle, seemed tailor-made for the show’s brand of anarchic humor . Yet despite the talent involved, Bad Dinosaurs failed to escape the streaming giant’s chopping block.
A One-Season Wonder
Netflix’s decision to cancel Bad Dinosaurs after a single season came as a surprise to few in the industry. The platform has a history of axing animated series with little warning, and Bad Dinosaurs appeared to follow that pattern. While no official reason was given, the cancellation aligns with Netflix’s broader trend of prioritizing high-profile IP over mid-tier projects . The show’s fate mirrors that of other Snafu Pictures productions, which have struggled to secure long-term homes on streaming services.
Rumors swirled about behind-the-scenes tensions, including creative differences between Veitch and Netflix executives over the show’s tone. However, these claims remain unconfirmed, as neither the creators nor the platform have publicly addressed the cancellation . What is clear is that Bad Dinosaurs joined the growing graveyard of Netflix originals that never got a chance to find their audience.
Legacy and What Could Have Been
Despite its short run, Bad Dinosaurs left a mark as a rare example of a web series successfully transitioning to television—even if only briefly. Its cancellation raises questions about the viability of niche animated comedies in an era dominated by algorithm-driven content. Fans of the original Terrible Lizards shorts may still hold out hope for a revival, but for now, Bad Dinosaurs remains a footnote in Netflix’s ever-shifting lineup.
For those who caught it, the series delivered exactly what it promised: a silly, fast-paced romp through prehistory. But with no second season on the horizon, its legacy is as extinct as the creatures it parodied.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.