User Reviews

A delivery truck turns a corner too quickly and unknowingly tosses out a crate that rolls down the hill and opens in front of the Everett family dog Waldo. It is a box of a natural history museum's dinosaur bones. A gopher has taken out some of Nanny's (Juliet Mills) rose bushes. Waldo hides one of bones in a gopher hole, which Hal (David Doremus) finds and takes to his dad Professor Everett (Richard Long). He tells Hal to see a paleontologist, and he visits the museum to talk with Dr. Charles Walters (the great Jim Backus- "Mr. Howell" from "Gilligan's Island", "Mr. Magoo"). Dr. Walters says it's a dinosaur bone and brings two students to dig up the Everett's backyard. Hal and Butch (Trent Lehman) decide to sell tickets to neighborhood kids for guided tours of the excavation. Prudence (Kim Richards) sells lemonade. The professor is upset by the children's actions. Waldo brings back all sorts of bones overnight and buries them in the backyard where Dr. Walters exclaims it's the biggest discovery since the La Brea Tar Pits. When he consults Dr. Lois Hire (Diana Chesney) they find a discovery that leaves the Everett family in hot water. A nice little episode with light comedic moments.

Backus plays a paleontologist whom Hal goes to see when he finds a mysterious bone in the back yard. Backus is a new-age vegetarian and reformed smoker who identifies the bone as belonging to a dinosaur and gleefully has his two students digging up the back yard to the Professor's dismay - not only is the yard something like the remnants of a minefield, but his kids are selling tickets and lemonade to the neighborhood kids and Butch wants to sell "dinosaur dirt." When the students start finding more bones, the truth comes out, Waldo the dog's involvement becomes clear, and Backus and his boys move on to a neighbor's yard. Backus, as usual, is a bunch of fun.