In our 107th episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Brad Jost, host of the Jurassic Park Podcast. You can learn more about the Jurassic Park Podcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Episode 107 is also about Gigantoraptor, a large oviraptor.

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In this episode, we discuss:

• The dinosaur of the day: Gigantoraptor
• Name means “giant seizer” or “giant thief”
• Type species is Gigantoraptor erlianensis
• Species name refers to the Erlian Basis where it was found
• Discovered in 2005 in Mongolia
• The holotype discovery was captured on film, when Xu Xing was asked to reenact the discovery of a different dinosaurs, the sauropod Sonidosaurus, in 2005 for a documentary. But when he cleaned the bone, he realized it was the thighbone of an unknown theropod, about the size of Albertosaurus, instead of Sonidosaurus
• Xu described and named Gigantoraptor in 2007, along with Tan Qingwei, Wang Jianmin, Zhao Xijin, and Tan Lin
• Found a subadult, with a partial skeleton (lower jaw, single neck vertebra, most of the back and tail)
• Specimen is about 11 years old
• Large oviraptorosaurian (largest)
• Much larger than other oviraptors (about 3 times as long and 35 times more massive than Citipati)
• Xu estimated Gigantoraptor to be about 26 ft (8 m) long
• No direct evidence of feathers, but it’s possible, though even though other oviraptors had feathers, Gigantoraptor may have been too large and not needed feathers (though Xu Xing and others said it probably had at least arm feathers, since they could be used for display or brooding, and not needed to regulate body heat)
• Not clear what it ate. Though some oviraptors were herbivores, Gigantoraptor had long legs and probably could move fast, and it also had large claws
• Possible it had to be fast to run away from predators though, according to Gregory Paul
• Had a long neck, like many herbivores
• Had a toothless jaw, probably had a horny beak
• Had strongly curved toe claws
• The name Oviraptorosaur means “egg thief lizards”
• They’re a group of feathered maniraptorans that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Asia and North America
• They had short skulls, and widely vary in size (range from the size of a turkey to Gigantoraptor)
• Fun fact: There are a lot of big dragons in fantasy, and it’s interesting to estimate what lift force they would need and how that would compare to Habib’s research… After reading a bundle of dragon forums (and there are a lot of them), here are some estimated sizes Smaug: length: ~60m (about the same as Amphicoelias); wingspan: ~100m conservatively; Weight: 100tons (100,000,000g); from geometry: wing area 1,000m2 ~ 2,000m2 (10,000,000 – 20,000,000cm2); requiring a constant: 5 to 10 g/cm2 (at least twice as much as the best birds can achieve). Even more problematic is that those figures are while gliding (constant lift). When flapping you’d have to create more force on the down stroke to make up for the lack of lift on the up stroke, putting far more than 50 tons of force on each joint where the wing attaches to the body. George R.R. Martin has said that early on he wasn’t sure if he wanted dragons in the series since they require magic since they make no sense aerodynamically and “you need some magic in a fantasy, but too much magic is like too much salt in a soup.”

This episode was brought to you by:

Artemesia Publishing. They not only publish award-winning dinosaur books, but also “coloring puzzles” which can be put together and then colored using markers, crayons, or colored pencils. You can get more information at apbooks.net and you can purchase the “coloring puzzles” at http://www.paleoartisans.com/Catalog/fuseaction/ListProducts/classid/152603.

For those who may prefer reading, see below for the full transcript of our chat with Brad Jost:

Garret: We’re joined this week Brad Jost, and he is the creator and voice and everything behind the Jurassic Park Podcast and we’ve had him on the show, I think twice before although it’s been quite a while since the last time, an embarrassingly long time. But we wanted to talk about some cool new gift ideas for this holiday season and right when we were thinking of that, we noticed that Brad had just posted an awesome list on his podcast. So we’re going to talk about that, and then Brad also recently went to the Jurassic Park Experience, is that what it’s called?

Brad Jost: Jurassic World Exhibition.

Garret: Now there we go, which sounds really cool. So we want to talk about that too. What should we start with?

Sabrina: Start with the gifts.

Brad Jost: To those gifts.

Garret: All right. Your podcast, you talked about some cool stuff on Etsy, there’s an Indominus rex, there’s some custom posters and there are some dinosaur venom. How did you find all this stuff on Etsy?

Brad Jost: Well the good thing about Etsy is you can literally just go there, type in Jurassic Park and the amount of stuff on there is endless, and if people don’t know Etsy is all like hand crafted stuff, it’s all personal items that people have made specifically for this purchase and the stuff is great. And there are so many good posters that I came across and little sculptures and stuff like you mentioned. So some of those ones I put on my podcast last week and just said like look, “People go buy these ones, these are the best ones I could find at the moment,” and there’s still great stuff everywhere, but I love these ones the most right now.

Garret: Nice. We really like this one guy named Joseph [inaudible 00:01:48] and he’s got these bleached t-shirts on Etsy but I think he has kind of a similar problem that you pointed out on your podcast which is when you’re buying stuff on Etsy, a lot of it is handmade which means you probably won’t even get it by the time the holidays roll around.

Brad Jost: Yeah exactly, that was part of the problem. I wanted to point it out, the Etsy stuff especially but because it is handmade and people put their heart into these things, but yeah you’re right it takes a while to turn around some of these things. You mentioned the Indominus rex sculpt, so that’s from sculptedetails.com [ph] and that sends you straight to Etsy. And when you go there, you can see the amount of time it must take to make this thing. It’s actually like a baby Indominus rex, it’s like kind of looks like it’s on its back, in this nice hunched over little pose and it legit looks like the Indominus rex from Jurassic World, just a tiny baby version of it, it like basically fits on the palm of your hand and this thing is awesome.

Sabrina: I wonder how many hours it takes to make.

Brad Jost: I don’t know if it’s set it on, it’s going to be too many, really. It’s listed at $175 which is—it might seem a little steep. But like we’ve been talking about the time, and the hours and the energy it goes into making this stuff, it’s worth it in the end.

Garret: Yeah it’s really cool. And then you also mentioned some really expensive licensed Chronicle Collectibles like they’ve got a T-rex and a [inaudible 00:03:17] and there’s also Velociraptor on their site, is that an established plumed Chronicles Collectible, it looks like they had a lot of stuff.

Brad Jost: Oh yeah they’re legit, and it’s licensed through Universal or whoever, so it’s an official product. It’s all really, really high quality stuff and a lot of the items are actually molded like directly off of Stan Winston, the guy who created all those dinosaurs from the first few movies, these are modeled off of his pieces.

Garret: Cool.

Brad Jost: When you look at that copy there, it’s basically like a life size copy, and it may be like, what was it? Three hundred and something dollars.

Garret: I think some might have been like $1000 dollars.

Brad Jost: No, the copy is $399. That’s probably the best you’re going to get price wise when it comes to that, the cheapest for this stuff. And—but the level of detail on these are insane and like I said, it’s like a life size copy that you can just put on your desk or on a shelf. And the one that you mention which is $1000 dollars is I think the breakout T-rex maybe or no, that was $549.

Garret: Or it might be the Velociraptor.

Brad Jost: The Velociraptor yeah, the Velociraptor bust because like I said the stuff is like one to one ratio sized wise and that’s a giant not a true Velociraptor of course, but…

Garret: The Utahraptor?

Brad Jost: It is like the movie, yeah it’s the movie Velociraptor right there. You could do what you want with it. That’s incredible.

Garret: Yeah it’s cool.

Brad Jost: But the good part about it is, there’s always like payment plans and stuff like that, you can do three to six or ten months, spread it out over a little while and make it a little bit more affordable on yourself.

Sabrina: Nice.

Garret: There you go. And then there’s also quite a few toys, you guys know so much more about toys that we do, so we don’t have to go into all the details, but there’s a lot of different toys and I know Hasbro used to have the Jurassic Park and world license but that’s going to…

Sabrina: Mattel I think.

Garret: Mattel, is that the…?

Brad Jost: Yeah. It’s going to be going to Mattel I believe sometime next year or the year after, I forget it specifically right now, but yeah that whole deal fell through, I guess they probably weren’t satisfied with the product that was out there. I know the toys did well for them, so it’s not about that, but the quality overall, maybe we’ve talked about this before or people know already, but the quality of this Hasbro line from specifically Jurassic World, has been really not that good.

But the thing is, at the same time I do like to point people to pick the stuff up for the holidays because if you go back to some of the older toy lines Jurassic Park last world even Jurassic Park three, some of them are really, really hard to find, and specifically with Jurassic World, this is not going to be around forever this toy line because they’re coming in with a new batch, and you might as well pick it up because for sure this will be on eBay way over priced. Give it some time, it will be there, and you’re going to have to pay a lot more money for it.

So that’s why I kind of suggest, it might not be the best stuff but it is Jurassic World stuff, it is cool dinosaur toy like specifically they came out with the hybrid line that showcases these toys that are based off the mobile game. So it’s kind of replicating all those and this Indominus rex, it’s rampage Indominus rex, it’s like a straight white with gold on its underside and on its feet and red all over its back, that thing is really cool looking actually.

It’s just you got to pay attention because sometimes the actions don’t move quite as well as they should and this thing does roar but sometimes that like roar just like gets stuck and the chomping motion gets stuck and it just kind of repeats, so you got to sit there and test it out in the store. All my episode, I kind of suggested maybe don’t buy it online because you don’t know what you’re going to get.

Sabrina: That’s a good tip.

Garret: It is a good tip.

Brad Jost: It’s fun stuff though; it’s great to have around for sure.

Garret: Yeah and they’re reasonably priced too which is nice because a lot of these dinosaurs things that we talk about all the time are just super expensive, so it’s nice to have something you can give to your kid and not freak out about them touching and playing with.

Brad Jost: I know yeah you don’t really want to give a raptor bust and pay a thousand something bucks and you know have it fall off a shelf and breaks, but this stuff—this Hasbro stuff you can certainly beat up, it’s not as durable as the older toys, but it’s still any kid would love this stuff. Particularly I’ve seen so many kids like absolutely love these toys. I remember, I think I was walking into an air show one time and I saw a kid just playing with it and I was like, “Oh man, he’s got Indominus rex in his pocket,” that’s so cool. I remember it just like seeing kids in the stores going crazy over these toys, so while they’re not like great for collectors and people who are fans of the original film franchise and forward, it’s good for kids.

Sabrina: Definitely, it keeps their interest in. I know like how Jurassic Park kind of from that we got this whole new generation of paleontologists and I’ve heard kind of similar thing with Jurassic World or at least we’ll see in a few years.

Brad Jost: Yeah I think it will. It didn’t—the movie itself didn’t really have the same aspect of paleontology, maybe it was only five minutes, ten minutes worth of time in the first film but it definitely like inspired people to do this and hopefully Jurassic World does that too. I think it will.

Garret: Yeah and I think it helped a lot with—just kind of the whole media, I don’t know industry is popping up with all sorts of dinosaur stuff. We’ve seen tons of new games coming out for all sorts of consuls with dinosaurs and whereas before Jurassic World came out, there was a pretty big low there in good dinosaur games.

Brad Jost: Yeah I saw a really funny tweet I think today and I know I’m paraphrasing here, but it was like, “I think somebody made it illegal to post a dinosaur story without mentioning Jurassic Park,” so it’s 100% spot on because no matter what article you read, there’s always a little footnote that says like something about Jurassic Park in their Jurassic world and I just laugh every time.

Garret: It’s probably good for the SEO, because they’re Jurassic.

Brad Jost: Yeah it’s got to be.

Garret: And Jurassic is now synonymous with dinosaur too, which is always funny because, they are always talking about T-rex, or they are always talking about Jurassic, and T-rex is from Cretaceous.

Brad Jost: Yes I know yeah it’s so funny that we assume one thing and it’s not that at all, but it’s sort of the way these dinosaurs are interpreted in the first place, like we all assumed for a while that’s the way they were, and it’s coming out that it’s not that way.

Garret: That’s true.

Brad Jost: But that’s the funny thing about these films is people still argue like to this day that the movies are wrong, everything you see is wrong, but that’s not what the movies are trying to do, they’re showing movie monsters, so you’ve got to differentiate it.

Garret: Yeah they’re definitely monster films and they’re—to me all of them are just kind of a snapshot of what we thought back in the early 90s, it’s not the latest and greatest, they made that decision and not really update as they went along, so it’s really just like, it’s a version that we used to think.

Brad Jost: At the time it’s like, ”Wow, man these guys are spot on, they know their stuff,” and then obviously things change, but I think once you establish that can and you can’t really change the way things are, people would be too freaked out. Everybody keeps saying like, “Where is the feathers, where is the feathers Jurassic Park?” But if they did that, you got to think about how many people would actually be really upset if they did.

Sabrina: Yeah, a lot.

Brad Jost: Even if it is more accurate like people would be like, “That’s not what a dinosaur looks like,” it’s just misinforming people.

Garret: I think they should bring in like a new species and then have that one have feathers.

Brad Jost: They should.

Garret: They could leave the Velociraptors or whatever they call the big featherless Utahraptors. They can leave those the same, but then come in with like Dakotaraptor now and have that thing covered in feathers.

Brad Jost: I really hope they do and I know we’ve probably talked about it before, but in the future it sounds like there’s going to be multiple companies maybe working on these dinosaurs. And that sounds like a plausible idea to me. If they don’t run with that, I’d be a little upset because it’s setting it up perfectly like to have multiple companies working on their own designs and maybe one of those designs turns out to be feathers, I think that would be an amazing way to throw that in there.

Garret: Yeah definitely. So speaking of Jurassic Park and toys, there is some knock off Lego Jurassic World toys and I’m thinking about buying these because usually in order to get one of these Lego dinosaurs, you have to buy a whole kit, and for the Indominus rex one is like 120 bucks or something and the only thing I want is the Indominus rex Lego. I don’t care about the big gaits, the crane that moves the stuff around or whatever, all that stuff that’s whatever, I can build that with a little regular two by four blocks.

Brad Jost: This is actually the fact that you pointed out. This is great because it’s a basically legit set like there’s no distinguishing difference between the two, you could put these right next to them and they look identical I’m sure. I know people that have these ones, I have them myself picked them out, but the ones that I’ve seen look spot on. So there’s like no, don’t hesitate to buy these if you’re feeling unsure about it, just buy it for sure.

Garret: Nice. I think I want to buy them and I want to buy like a bunch of them for my nieces and nephews who are probably going to listen to this and then know what they’re going to get but…

Brad Jost: That’s not true, he’s not getting them.

Sabrina: It’s a surprise, don’t worry.

Garret: I wish it’s true. I wish they had those kind of—I guess Lego was still under patent when I was a kid, but it was always like there was one piece you wanted out of the kit and you had to buy this huge thing in order to get it. I like this pack of just dinosaurs looks super cool.

Brad Jost: It is and it drives me nuts how much Lego, how expensive they are because you want to play with them, you want to kind of put them together but as adults we’re just probably going to put it together and throw it on a shelf, store it somewhere, we’re not like tearing it apart and continuing to use it like a kid would, so it’s hard to justify that like hundred something dollars price tag for a full set.

Sabrina: Definitely.

Garret: Exactly. And I really like the reviews. There’s this picture that a guy did, he’s got the—I don’t know what they’re called, but it’s like a kind of a doll house version of Legos, I don’t know, they are kind of like police school or something? He’s got the dinosaurs like in all the scenes in their house like they are having tea or wherever, that’s hilarious.

Brad Jost: That’s awesome.

Garret: So I have to buy these?

Brad Jost: Definitely do it, don’t hesitate.

Garret: And it’s only—what is it, seventeen bucks I think with prime for free shipping?

Brad Jost: That’s a good deal.

Garret: Yeah it’s got eight dinosaurs, well seven dinosaurs on a—what do you call those things, flying thingy?

Sabrina: Pterosaurs?

Garret: Pterosaurs, that’s the word I’m thinking of.

Brad Jost: You’re the expert, right?

Garret: I’m in the dinosaur stuff but…

Sabrina: It’s been a long day.

Garret: Before I guess. Cool. I’m glad you think those are worth getting because now I’m just going to use that as carte blanche to just buy a bunch of them.

Sabrina: How long until you think we just start 3D printing our own toys?

Brad Jost: Wow, I got to get a 3D printer first.

Sabrina: That’s true.

Brad Jost: The thing is, people do this already especially in the Jurassic Park community, I see people like giving these away all the time, they print up their own little dinosaur designs or whatever and sell them or just give them away for free, so it’s already here.

Sabrina: Yeah I think the biggest barrier is access to the 3D Printer, but give it a few years and you’ll be like having a regular printer probably.

Brad Jost: Well, we will all have them.

Garret: That would be cool. I can’t wait. I haven’t bought one yet because it’s like it still seems too early like I’ll just be constantly fiddling with it trying to get it to work.

Sabrina: It does take a long time. You just used one at work and you took three hours to print a small thing.

Brad Jost: They’re still not the cheapest thing, so it’s like a period of time where the VHS or the DVD player was like $1000, now you can get it for 35 bucks at Wal-Mart or something, it will come down eventually.

Garret: Cool. I also wanted to talk about some books which I know are not the most exciting gift but it does make up like a third of my Amazon wish list, so I would feel remiss not to mention books.

Sabrina: Most of my wish list right now too.

Brad Jost: Got it. You’ve got to read though.

Garret: So we have a sponsor [inaudible 00:16:46] publishing and they’ve got coloring and activity books for kids which are obviously a great option if you’re a kid or you are buying a gift for a kid.

Sabrina: I love coloring.

Garret: But then for adults, there are also tons of good books. Most of the ones are a little bit heavier. So there is a new edition of the Princeton Field Guide to dinosaurs which is currently on my wish list because it looks really cool. And the new edition just came out, so I’m sure it’s up to date in everything, I haven’t read it yet.

Sabrina: At least for a few months, right?

Garret: Yeah, until there are a ton of new discoveries. So that’s definitely a good choice and one of the key things I always point out on Reddit and stuff when people are asking about dinosaur books is I usually go for the newest ones because since dinosaur stuff like Sabrina is saying is constantly changing. If you buy an old book, it’s got so much outdated information in it, that you don’t know which parts of it have been updated and you don’t know what the drawings actually if they are still interpreted that way, if the dinosaur name has been synonymized with another one, so that dinosaur is new and considered valid anymore, there’s so much stuff that changes, so unless there’s if it is really pretty old you can buy an old book. That’s my exception too.

Brad Jost: Very true, very true.

Garret: So then another one is the sauropod dinosaur’s life in the age of giants, and Sabrina picked that one up from the author at SVP.

Sabrina: And the illustrator, we got both of them to sign it.

Garret: Yeah and it looks really cool. It’s got awesome drawings and all the latest science in there, so if you’re into the sauropods like Sabrina, that’s probably the book that you want to get.

Brad Jost: Yeah and I’m looking at this right now actually just the cover alone is drawing me in, like the look at these dinosaurs on here, this is awesome.

Sabrina: It’s a really…

Brad Jost: I’m really going to check this out.

Sabrina: It’s a really pretty book.

Brad Jost: Yeah, even on the inside. I’m looking at—it’s like one of the happiest book in [inaudible 00:18:52] I have ever seen.

Garret: And both of those books are only like 30 bucks, pretty cheap for a big hardcover dinosaur book.

Brad Jost: Nice.

Garret: Reasonably priced. The next one is not so cheap and I think it’s because it’s called, “Dinosaurs, the Textbook.” So since textbooks just have to be expensive, I guess it’s like three times as much, but we grabbed that one at SVP also, and it’s really good. I’ve only finished the first couple of chapters of it so far, but it’s a very, very good summary of dinosaurs from kind of the perspective of an undergraduate level college student.

So there’s no background information or knowledge necessary. It starts at the beginning with dinosaurs are a type of reptile, and lizards aren’t in that same group. And then it goes from there into the hips and then into the source skin and these skins and then all the complexities that arise from that, but you could start a page one knowing nothing about dinosaurs and by the end you understand cladistics and all that good stuff.

Brad Jost: Looks nice, and you guys are informing me, I got to go get this stuff right away.

Garret: Yeah, this one, I’ve been really impressed with this book and apparently it’s the sixth edition, the first one came out I guess in the 80s or something and the author says in the forward that he wrote it because he was going to start a dinosaur class, and there wasn’t a textbook for it, so he made this textbook.

Sabrina: That’s cool.

Garret: It’s a very good source, I’m really liking it.

Sabrina: Nice.

Garret: And things that took me a long time, like hours of online research to clarify whether something was true or not, is like in the first page or two of the book.

Sabrina: Books are still relevant.

Garret: Oh yeah, they are really, because that’s the whole problem with the Internet, it’s there forever and with something like dinosaurs that are constantly updating, you get so much outdated information everywhere, but with this not so much. Of course it’s edited by a professional and not just a random person on a message board, so it’s also good.

Sabrina: Good stuff.

Garret: That’s probably enough of the books. There’s also some really cool replicas and actually in the process of looking into which replicas I would recommend, I realized that both of our big dinosaur replica things that we have are from the same place which is gaston designs and we’ve met with the maker and…

Sabrina: The owner.

Garret: Yes, owner of Gaston Designs, his last name is Gaston.

Sabrina: Makes sense.

Garret: Not surprising.

Brad Jost: It’s a good name for a site then.

Garret: And he’s got really cool stuff on there. They’ve got individual bones like we have a Stegosaurus plate which is I don’t remember it’s like two feet tall or so it’s a big old replica. And we also have an Allosaurus hand, but you can go way bigger if you want. You can get a sauropod leg, it’s—that’s one is a little expensive, I think that’s like three grand, but it’s a museum quality replica, it’s like actually a replica. Like we were talking about the Velociraptor bust where it’s made from the original, it’s the same kind of thing; it’s from a fossil rather than from the prop.

Brad Jost: The true original.

Garret: But I mean it’s a different niche because this is just a bone, it doesn’t look exciting with the eyes and the lips and the scales and everything.

Brad Jost: It’s a whole lot more dead.

Garret: It is much more dead.

Sabrina: Less likely to…

Brad Jost: That’s what’s cool though.

Sabrina: Less likely to scare you at night if you walk into the room and forget it’s there.

Garret: Yeah, unless you can buy a full articulated dinosaur like…

Brad Jost: This one here that you forwarded over is $32,000?

Garret: Yeah.

Brad Jost: Wow.

Brad Jost: That’s not the most expensive one either, I think there is…

Sabrina: I think that’s meant for museums, right?

Brad Jost: Okay, all right that makes a little bit more sense.

Sabrina: Of course.

Brad Jost: Because it’s awesome, I mean if I had that, I would buy it for sure.

Sabrina: You also need the space for it.

Brad Jost: What is this, 18 foot? Okay I don’t know if I can fit that.

Garret: They also have a Lythronax which is a theropod, looks kind like a small tyrannosaurid and that one is $38,000, it’s twenty two and a half feet long, super awesome looking. I would love to have that; obviously I don’t have the space for it or money for it.

Brad Jost: Imagine just on your front yard just chilling out there.

Garret: That would be so cool.

Sabrina: Yeah you always talked about that.

Garret: I don’t know if you can put it outdoors though.

Sabrina: I don’t think our neighbors would appreciate it.

Brad Jost: Too freaked out.

Garret: I think these are all resin; you probably need to keep them indoors. I’ve talked about getting some metal ones because they are people who make these metal versions that are really cool. I also kind of want to have a mural on the side of our house that is all dinosaurs.

Sabrina: It would be the dinosaur house.

Garret: Or the garage door, people do that, that will be cool. But they have stuff you can buy just like a claw or a finger or something for 50, 60 bucks. So the whole spectrum whatever dinosaur you love and want a replica of, there’s a decent chance they have something for you.

Brad Jost: The claw is something classic, everybody wants one of those, every kid does. I know I had one at least I think I broke it, but I remember I loved that thing, that thing was awesome.

Garret: We really like our replicas, we picked one of them up at the Dinosaur National Monument, they said, “Are you teachers,” like why are you buying them? Like, “No,” we just really like dinosaurs.

Brad Jost: Enthusiasts.

Garret: Then we got together one for our wedding registry.

Brad Jost: Nice.

Garret: Registered for the Stegosaurus plate and an understanding family member got it for us.

Brad Jost: That’s a good family.

Garret: It’s a really good gift. Outside of that, if you don’t want an actual dinosaur in your living room taking up the entire thing, you might just want some clothing and not so much real clothing but you could get the T-rex inflatable Jurassic World costume and…

Brad Jost: Oh yeah.

Sabrina: We have one.

Garret: We got one of those and we love it.

Brad Jost: Nice, I saw that.

Garret: It’s so fun.

Brad Jost: I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anybody that had one. So you say you love that thing, it’s really good?

Garret: It is great. We also picked up one where it’s like a T-rex that sticks out in front and behind you and it looks like you’re riding it.

Brad Jost: Oh yeah that one is cool.

Garret: That one is cheaper and a lot easier to wear, like because you have access to your face so you can like take a drink of water or something while you are in it.

Brad Jost: You’re stuck in this thing, right? It’s like huge.

Sabrina: Yeah the Jurassic World one. Once you put on the…

Garret: You don’t have to wear the mitts, yeah.

Sabrina: You can’t really do anything with your hands.

Garret: They’re like mittens, if you were wearing mittens that squished your thumb in with the next one or two fingers because they are like finger things, so they’re like these weird two hands in the fingered mittens and then in order to wear it properly, you have to basically keep most of your arm in the suit, so you can’t really reach anything either. But it’s surprisingly comfortable because the way it works is it’s constantly blowing air in through like a little fan, and then the air leaks out by your hands and your feet, so you’re constantly getting fresh air in there, it doesn’t get really stuffy and it’s super fun.

Sabrina: At SVP, I don’t know if it was the same person throughout or if people were taking turns or just different people had this costume, but like a T-rex would appear sometime in the halls, and like by the exhibits and where people were selling things and then also there was a party on the last night and there was somebody in the costume just dancing. I think they were swinging it at one point.

Garret: They were dancing really well too.

Sabrina: It’s great and then at the end of one of the songs I saw she like walked out the floor, it must have been too hot or something and then like unzipped the outfit and then just like springs up hands in the air like, yeah and then everybody’s around her in a circle cheering, yeah.

Garret: It’s a great costume. And if you’re going to get it, it’s like the perfect time to get it. I thought about getting it last year and around this time it was also about $80, but then we ended up waiting until we were going to SVP to get it, and by that time it was near Halloween and everyone was selling out so you had to go to somebody that was reselling it for like a 100 bucks. I think I ended up finding somebody who had one used for like 90, but it’s good to get it now because it’s a costume too that you could wear for more than one year. It’s not just a onetime Halloween costume.

Sabrina: You’re not going to outgrow it if you have a growth spur or something. Both Garret and I could wear it comfortably.

Garret: Yeah, and she’s 5’2 and I’m 6’3.

Brad Jost: You’re like the life of the party though every time if you wear this thing. I don’t think anybody gets sick of it.

Garret: It’s so cool. And you can do anything in it as YouTube has shown us, you can do ninja warrior.

Sabrina: That one was impressive.

Garret: You can do that shoveling, whatever you want to do.

Brad Jost: Ride motorcycles, anything, it’s all possible.

Garret: There’s also the Jurassic Park score, that’s been re-mastered and released and they have a limited copy, I think it’s 5,000 of them there’re other sending out.

Brad Jost: Yeah his thing is from Land Records, it’s something I hadn’t heard about before and when you kind of go to that site you’re like, “Is this legit, I don’t know if this is real or not,” but it is. It’s official, and they’ve done so many different soundtracks and what they do is, they kind of re-added them, re-mastered them and put them in a nice package together and it’s this collection I have, I actually just got it in the other day. It’s a John Williams Jurassic Park collection, so it has Jurassic Park, and it has the last world, those are the only two that he did.

I absolutely love this collection because it has like unreleased songs—not songs but scores from the movie, stuff that you probably heard in the movie in the background somewhere but it’s new stuff basically and some of the stuff you can maybe find on YouTube, but the thing about that is you can tell that they’ve drowned out a lot of the sound effects, and the people talking, so you can hear all that stuff.

But these ones, these are all new, they’re all fresh and there’s no talking or sound effects over them, and it’s really, really awesome stuff, and I’m so thankful to have like the Last World soundtrack fully intact because back when it came out in 97, it only came out with 14 tracks and that’s like not nearly as much as there was in that movie and that movie specifically had some really, really awesome work from John Williams. So I’m so happy to have like a full soundtrack now for that movie.

Garret: Those songs are amazing. I remember back in middle school, I think one of the Jurassic Park movies was coming out, it wasn’t the first one, maybe the second or third one, and I played trombone and our whole band did the big opening Jurassic Park music.

Brad Jost: Nice.

Garret: And it was so fun playing and there’s so much intricacy in those songs. This was great, I love it.

Brad Jost: That’s one thing I always wished my school band played that stuff too, and you’re lucky, you got to do it. It’s just amazing to have this like uncovered, it’s like finding a new dinosaur species all of a sudden these new tracks just came out of nowhere, stuff we really haven’t heard before, because sometimes they do drowned out in the movie so you don’t exactly pay attention to it, so it does sound brand new here on the on the CD. And it’s funny because I haven’t bought a CD in so long, I’ve been doing a lot of digital stuff or streaming and it felt funny, I was like how do I get this on my computer again?

But it’s a great collection, it comes with a nice booklet on the inside that has basically the entire story of Jurassic Park like from the inception when Michael Crichton like realized he wanted to write the book, to the filmmaking and everything like through all the way through to the Last World, and it’s really informative and some really cool like back story to how everything was made, so that’s kind of worth it in itself, but I absolutely picked this up. I think I don’t remember specifically, it’s probably right around the fifty eight, fifty nine dollar mark, but like you said it’s 5,000 pieces, so it’s going to be gone pretty quickly.

Garret: I bought it right before we started recording today because I was looking at it, and I remembered you saying that on your podcast and I was like, “Crap I should probably buy that before it disappears.” And I was half expecting what I showed up on the website for it to say, “Sold out,” but luckily it’s not sold yet.

Brad Jost: Not yet, it’s still available but I don’t know what the outlook looks right like right now, I don’t know how many are sold, but I know a lot of people have bought it.

Garret: They don’t give you any information, it just says, “limit of 5,000,” it doesn’t say anything about how many have sold so far.

Brad Jost: No, and especially with Jurassic Park exclusives, like I’ve always tried to buy artwork or stuff like that’s released like say through Mondo, or sometimes they do the old school albums with a nice cover art and everything like that.

Garret: Oh cool.

Brad Jost: Those things typically go really fast and like by the time I sign on to the website it’s gone. And I’m like, “No” So this is one of those things that I did not want it to slip away.

Garret: Yeah it’s really cool looking. Thanks for the tip by the way.

Brad Jost: Yeah, get it.

Sabrina: You look at the end of this now, it’s just, we all want to rush out and buy even more dinosaurs and Jurassic Park stuff.

Brad Jost: That is the problem. You just realize how many things you didn’t put on your list and then you’re like, “I got to rearrange stuff, how important is that other stuff, this stuff is going to the top.”

Garret: Yeah so sure. Cool. So I think that’s enough of the gifts people are probably all out of money by now, so we can move on to the Jurassic World Exhibition, did I get it?

Brad Jost: Yeah.

Garret: Nice.

Brad Jost: Yeah you got it. Don’t stop buying gifts just yet because if you do, you live in the Northeast, buy this as a gift for somebody.

Sabrina: Oh yeah that’s a good one.

Brad Jost: You got it. It’s—if you’re in—it’s in Philadelphia right now at the Franklin Institute, so if you’re in that area, maybe even drive an hour or two, it’s fine, go to this thing. I think it’s like thirty something bucks and what it is, is basically the Jurassic World Exhibition in Franklin Institute. You go in the museum and off to the left there’s like a walkway you go down and it leads you to basically like you’re traveling to in a new bar from the movies. And you get on a fairly and you’re watching like cool really like in world movies that they’ve filming and created kind of looks like an advertisement for the park and everything, so you basically get on a fairly and travel to the island and I don’t know if there’s anything better than.

Garret: That’s really cool. That’s more elaborate than I was expecting it basically to just be like a room full of props.

Brad Jost: Well, technically yes, but this room that you go into it’s all set dressed to look specifically like a fairy. And the cool part about this fairly thing is like on the walls, it has like portals, so it looks like you’re on a boat and you look out and you see water churning and everything and then—if you’ve ever gone on a cruise ship sometimes you turn on your TV in the room and it has like the front of the ship, like maybe some cages on it, it has that was going up the front before the video starts, so it seems legit and then you enter, once that whole experience is over because like what it is it’s timed, so you buy your time slot.

We went at 9:30 in the morning on the first day. And so we got in the room at nine thirty and then you wait for a few minutes and then you go in. So you kind of got a little group of people that you travel with the entire time almost depending on how long you stay in certain exhibits. But what it is, is just amazing animatronics, a huge—I was kind of blown away by how big these things actually were.

Garret: Cool.

Brad Jost: You guys have seen like what Walking with Dinosaurs and stuff like that.

Garret: Yeah.

Sabrina: But from far away.

Brad Jost: And you love that, right?

Garret: Yeah. That’s was—that’s one of our favorite dinosaur anything is Walking with Dinosaurs, that was great.

Brad Jost: Yes, so that was like in an arena kind of a thing, right?

Garret: We saw it in Sacramento in the Sacramento Kings Stadium. So we were like in the upper bowl or something, so you’re really far away from the actual animatronics.

Brad Jost: That’s—I’m sure it looked amazing, right? But this time you get to be like literally up close with them. It’s amazing. I’ve never been this close to a giant, life like animatronics. So when you’re like in a theatre or a giant arena like you were, the stuff probably looked incredible because you have that distance between you. So you kind of think like when I get up close, it might not look as good, but this stuff does, it looks amazing. I was blown away by how good the stuff looked.

Garret: That’s really cool.

Sabrina: So is it each room you walk through is a scene from the movie?

Brad Jost: Sort of. You kind of—so you go in and you’re kind of looking at specific paddocks throughout the exhibit. So you first come upon like a [inaudible 00:37:01] paddock, and it’s got a giant neck coming out of the ground. So I think they like dressed up with some plants and leaves and things. So it looks like you’re in maybe a tree top or something, but yeah this animatronic is so fluid, and you’re looking straight up at the thing and it sounds lifelike and you hear like the whatever that weird noise that it makes, I don’t know, imagine some weird deep noise, that’s what it sounds like.

Garret: A whale kind of.

Brad Jost: Kind of, so you’re imagining that and you see that thing right in front of you and then you kind of—what you do is you just kind of go along the path and you come across like different dinosaurs throughout the exhibition. And kind of in between some of the exhibits is like you were talking about parts from the movie. So you come across the Hammond Innovation Lab, so you’re—if you remember from Jurassic World, it’s on the beginning in the movie, Dr. [inaudible 00:37:56] is kind of like explaining what the Indominus rex is to a few investors with a stylus Howard’s character.

So that room where the lab is taking place, you see technicians doing stuff and eggs hatching and all kinds of stuff. That’s what you get at the exhibition, so there’s a cool room where you can kind of explore and poke around and do some cool things and look through microscopes and play with tablets and different things.

Garret: Awesome.

Brad Jost: It’s really interactive. So you can spend time and not just kind of breeze through it.

Garret: Is the interactive stuff kind of like kiddie or is it more adult or kind of something for everyone?

Brad Jost: I would say it’s for everybody. There is definitely a lot of kid stuff. There was—you could design your own dinosaur I think, and when I looked over I didn’t get a chance because there was so many kids over there, but it was like so many really, really colorful dinosaurs, so it was some really inspirational stuff.

Garret: That’s cool.

Brad Jost: And you guys I know you talk a lot about the different costumes that you can wear and stuff like that for dinosaurs. Not like that blow up Jurassic World one, but the legit ones. They do have one and it’s a Velociraptor, it’s like a new experience for Philadelphia because this exhibition used to be in Australia first, and this is a new added feature where this Velociraptor kind of walks out in its little pan and kind of goes up to the pan and tries to scare you.

I’ll say it’s not the best looking costume or I shouldn’t say that, the costume looked good, but the fact that you can see a person walking, it kind of takes away from that little experience, but overall that part was still cool. I think the lifelike Velociraptor sculpt and everything, the way it was painted, it all looked like a really good, probably one of the better ones I’ve ever seen. But the fact that I saw this guy or somebody like underneath just waddling with the suit just kind of like made me laugh a little bit too much.

Sabrina: It probably looked different to the kids.

Brad Jost: Yeah maybe, I did hear—I mentioned it once on my podcast that people were kind of like giggling about it. So I’m like, “Oh maybe they are giggling about something else,” but it was right when the person turned around and kind of like waddled out of the room, and I was like they are definitely giggling at this person, because it’s tough. And you guys know like with those suits, it’s almost impossible to hide that somebody is there. Now I’ve seen some actually out in I think, I don’t know if it’s Universal Hollywood or Japan, one of those have like a person that walks in a raptor costume, and the legs are hidden, they’re actually like the raptor legs.

Sabrina: Cool.

Brad Jost: But it still looks kind of goofy.

Sabrina: I think in Japan they just—they’re working on building some like Dino Theme Park where people are walking around and I think the legs are hidden in those costumes.

Brad Jost: That’s good, yeah that would be good.

Garret: Yeah that makes a difference.

Brad Jost: I think you need to make it somewhat believable and with this exhibit it’s really believable and then that moment I was like, “All right that’s not too good,” but overall there’s a pack of dinosaurs that you come across and the size of that thing was so massive. I was blown away by how big it was. I did not expect it to be so huge and like I said you’re right up next to these things, and you’d think it’s not very believable but these are, they’re so good. And that one specifically is one of my favorite ones for sure.

It was in the gentle giant’s paddock. You got to hang out there, there’s like a nice gentle giant sign and there’s others actually some dino dung that you stick your arm in, and you got to try it, it’s really funny because you put your arm in this giant pile of dino poo, and just reach around and it feels nasty.

Garret: That’s funny.

Brad Jost: You got to try it. It might seem disgusting but it’s clean, I swear. Let’s see, some of the other things in there, there was actually a sort of back to that time, the experience, so you go in and you see the T-rex and you kind of wait in this room for a second and it walks out. So this is actually, I believe it’s like legit the same one from Walking with Dinosaurs, because it’s the same company that made this experience.

So when you’re watching those from far away just imagine a T-rex but inside a room and it’s now walking in front of you, like ten feet or less depending on where you’re standing right there and that thing, it might not look like the one from Jurassic Park or Jurassic World, but it’s so impressive, it’s huge, it shakes your body with the roar and everything, so that is so impressive. I sat in there for a few turns just to watch it over again, it’s awesome.

Garret: That’s really cool. How much does it cost to do the experience?

Brad Jost: I think it was $35 or so.

Garret: That’s not too bad. I think Walking with Dinosaurs was like $80 in kind of crappy seats.

Brad Jost: Wow really.

Garret: It might have been $40 a person, I don’t remember if that’s was total or?

Brad Jost: This is $34.95 for adults and $29.95 for children three to eleven. That’s for a daytime ticket and actually if you go to—sorry for the plug, JurassicParkPodcast.com, we actually do have $5 off promo code that you can use at the Franklin Institute.

Garret: Nice.

Brad Jost: So we’re working closely with them to give the—like the Jurassic Park and dinosaur fans directly a nice experience and a few bucks off.

Garret: That’s good especially if you have like a $30 limit on your Christmas gift, that brings it just underneath.

Brad Jost: I know yeah and I’m glad we could work that out right before the holidays here, because it’s a—any amount is helpful, I’m sure. But I guess lastly at this exhibition, there’s a few different others Stegosaurus, there’s a few but…

Garret: They got an Ankylosaurus in there?

Brad Jost: No, actually they don’t, I wish they did. That would have been really awesome. It would have been prime because if they played directly off the movie, it would have worked well because there is a fight scene with the Indominus rex and the Ankylosaurus, but the Indominus rex is in this exhibition and it’s so impressive, and I keep raving about it to everybody I talk to because it’s like if you see how good those ones look in the movies, those animatronics because they blend animatronics and CGI in the movies, the animatronics look so good in the movies and this one is on par I think with those ones.

So you’re staring at what looks like a real Indominus rex which is not real obviously, but it looks like it’s real, but that thing is insane. I can’t really fully describe it to you, but it’s crazy. There’s no other way to explain it because it’s the best thing I’ve seen, and it tops off the exhibition. It’s the last one you see and it’s so incredibly impressive and life like.

Sabrina: I really hope they come to California.

Garret: Me too.

Brad Jost: Really, we don’t know where it’s going exactly just yet. So hopefully it gets on that side of the country soon.

Garret: Yeah that would be good; Philadelphia is a little ways away.

Brad Jost: Yeah I know it’s always tough. I see people asking, “Can it come here, there, anywhere, we’re not near Philadelphia,” but it’s there for now and it’s there till April, the end of April, so if you do want to see it I suggest going there if you can. If you can make it, if you can travel your way out there because you don’t know, it might go overseas somewhere next, we don’t really know.

Sabrina: Yeah, that’s true. It’s coming from Melbourne.

Garret: Exactly.

Brad Jost: Yeah exactly, so you don’t know, it could go somewhere and I’m trying to think with the timeline, the next movie comes out in June 2018, so you have all of—not all of 2017 because it ends in April. So it will probably leave there and pick up again a few months after that, but it’s not going to have a lot of time before the next movie comes out and I don’t know what their plan is, so definitely if you do have the chance to drive to Philadelphia or take a train or fly or do whatever, go do it because you’re going to miss it.

Garret: We might have to. I wish they published where they were headed, but they don’t have any information on future venues.

Sabrina: Maybe they don’t know yet.

Brad Jost: I know, yeah they could be still working out deals but that would make it very helpful to kind of plan because if you guys decide, “Hey I’m going to fly out,” and you guys are out in California, right?

Garret: Yeah.

Brad Jost: And so if you fly all the way out here and then it comes to California next, you’ll be so upset.

Garret: That would be pretty annoying.

Sabrina: Or we just see it again.

Garret: I guess.

Brad Jost: That’s true yeah; you got to make a weekend out of it.

Garret: Yeah but I’m guessing they know though because we were talking to somebody in the museum and they were saying the popular traveling exhibits at least the museums I realize this isn’t really a museum thing, but those tend to book up like a year or two in advance, so this thing must be super popular, you’d expect people to be really trying to get them locked in.

Brad Jost: Yeah and I know the Franklin Institute which is the first time I’ve been to that museum. It’s a cool place, it’s more for, I say it’s more for kids like out in New York they have the Liberty Science Center, so it’s kind of like a lot of class trips and stuff like that, but the museum is fun for sure. So we did the rest in museum as well, but I’ve been hearing that it’s breaking all kinds of records at that place. So I’m sure they’re very happy to have it out there.

Garret: Which means all these other museums I’m sure are hearing that they’re breaking records and then they want it.

Brad Jost: We need it, get it.

Sabrina: Do they do any nighttime activities?

Brad Jost: Not anything that I’ve heard yet. There is like night admission let’s see, I think till 8.00 pm, but nothing specific, nothing crazy enough.

Garret: Around here most of the museums or the two big museums do like adults only, alcohol like night time thing at least twice a week.

Brad Jost: Oh man.

Garret: Those are pretty fun. They will be good with dinosaurs.

Brad Jost: That’s got to be, hopefully they do something. Do you mind if I plug one more thing?

Sabrina: Go for it.

Brad Jost: We do have a meet up for Jurassic Park fans or Jurassic World, any dinosaur fans, anybody that’s listening; we have a meet up going on January 7^th, 2017. It’s man, I can’t believe 2017 is coming up, but so we’re meeting out there at this exhibit, exhibition, I keep mixing up those words every time, but we’re going to meet up. I know, I’m bringing a lot of people I know, and I know I’m meeting a bunch of Jurassic fans out there already. So we’re getting the plans in place and we have the promo code and everything, so we’re working to get a bunch of people out there. So if anybody is interested head on out January 7^th, and I think we’re looking probably about twelve o’clock showing or so.

Garret: Nice.

Sabrina: That’s awesome.

Garret: If we were around, we would definitely go.

Brad Jost: I’m really excited about it, so I can’t wait.

Garret: Cool. Well thanks so much Brad for coming on our show again and talking to us about all the toys and the Jurassic Park—no Jurassic World Experience, exhibit?

Sabrina: Exhibition almost.

Brad Jost: One of those words, you Google, it’ll come up.

Garret: Okay good. If any of the listeners want to see more about the different gifts and gift ideas that you have, they should definitely listen to your podcast or head over to your website that’s where I went and you can grab all the links, you can see the specific Etsy stores that Brad was talking about and the Hasbro toys as well as these Chronicle Collectibles, the Jurassic Park score.

Sabrina: Also the promo code and more details on the meet up if you’re in or near the Philadelphia area.

Garret: Yeah definitely. It sounds like a great time.

Brad Jost: Thanks for having me guys. That was a lot of fun.

Sabrina: Thank you.

Garret: Thanks.