Deep Dive: Cadillacs and Dinosaurs

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Aug 1
5 min read

Updated: 5 minutes ago

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is a unique post-apocalyptic adventure taking place 450 years in the future and saw a wide range of iterations in the '80s and '90s. It spawned 3 comic series, a Saturday morning cartoon, an arcade game, a home console video game, a TTRPG, a full toy line, and even promotional chocolate bars. The story sees the surface of the Earth become uninhabitable due to a series of cataclysmic events and pollution. People create and flee to underground city bunkers to wait until it's safe to return. Humans stored all the technology they could in these massive bunker cities and lived out the 450 years underground. After eventually leaving the bunkers, now the 26th century, humankind found that the Earth had been reclaimed by nature and previously extinct life, calling it the 'Xenozoic era'. Technology is extremely limited, and those with mechanical skill are highly revered.

The story follows the main character Jack "Cadillac" Tenrec, an 'old blood' mechanic and shaman, and scientist/ambassador/love interest Hannah Dundee. Tenrec operates a garage where he leads The Mechanics and works on the few remaining machines and cars, mostly Cadillacs. He believes strongly in the machinato vitae, the machinery of life, and that humans must live in balance with nature. He often fights poachers, communes with dinosaurs, gets involved in the politics of the 'City in the Sea' (the remains of Manhattan), and generally uncovers the mysteries of the past and the wonders of their new life.

Xenozoic Tales Comic

It started in 1986 when artist Mark Schultz created a 12-page epic titled 'Xenozoic!' which was included in the horror comic anthology Death Rattle #8 by Kitchen Sink Press. It would find its home there and be released as a comic series Xenozoic Tales in 1987. Xenozoic Tales #1 starts before the original Xenozoic!. The comic series ran irregularly for 14 issues until 1996 and was published in black and white. It would later be re-released by Topps, Dark Horse Comics, Flesk Publications, and a subsidiary of Marvel Comics. Though well received and winner of four Harvey Awards and three Eisner Awards, it ended mid-story arc with issue 14.

The collection was released as a 325 page graphic novel by Flesk Publications in 2021 and is on Amazon!

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs Comics

Xenozoic Tales became Cadillacs and Dinosaurs with reprint of issues 1-6 now in color by Epic Comics, a subsidiary of Marvel Comics in 1990 and ran until 1991.

The series saw renewed interest in 1993 when Jurassic Park was released in theaters, causing the world to go dino crazy. Topps Comics picked up the title from 1994 to 1995 and published 9 issues, 1-6 each with a variant cover. These were finally a new story taking place around issue #10 of Xenozoic Tales, stretching out a minor story arc with Mark Schultz's blessing. Issues 7-9 were a 3-issue spin-off called The Wild Ones in 1994, which centered around an all female motorcycle gang in search of technology and... men. They were from a vault that had recently opened where all of their men had "weirdly died." Their leader, Big Red, was a leather and lingerie-clad vixen out to get Jack Tenrec.

Saturday Morning Cartoon

Capitalizing on pop culture's renewed interest in dinosaurs, a Saturday morning cartoon was created in 1993 and ran for just one season until 1994 . It was created by Steven E. de Souza, who had worked on Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Knight Rider, and The 6 Million Dollar Man. The violence of the comic was lessened for children but kept the core concepts of conservation and living with nature. Tenrec was voiced by David Keeley, known for The Manchurian Candidate and Warehouse 13. Hannah Dundee was voiced by Susan Roman, known for the voice of Sailor Jupiter in the original English dub of Sailor Moon, as well as a ton of 80's and 90's animation. Other notable voice actors include Lenore Zann, voicing Milla who was X-Men's Rogue. Only select episodes were released on VHS and have never been released on DVD.

You can watch the full series for free on Tubi, Archive.org, or with RetroRerun on YouTube.

Arcade Game

The arcade game was developed by Capcom and released in 1993 alongside the cartoon. Capcom based it directly on the Xenozoic Tales comics, staying true to the content material. It's pretty violent where players are able to pick up guns and throw grenades that reduce poaches to bloody chunks. It's a side-scrolling beat 'em up where up to three players at once can battle through eight stages fighting the poachers and the Black Marketeers. Players could pick one of four characters: Tentrec, Hannah, Mustapha (a mechanic), and a character named Mess. Each character has a different play style and has two special moves each, but one of these moves uses the player's health. Dinosaurs appear but are neutral and attack everyone on screen. There are various weapons that can be picked up and used, but guns have limited ammo. In typical beat 'em up fashion, there are power-ups and environmental objects you can use or destroy. The game has special stages and segments where you drive a Cadillac to mow down or fight off enemies, providing some variety to the gameplay. The game was very well received in the US and Japan, where it was known as Cadillacs Kyouryuu Shinseiki. The game was never ported to any consoles and was only ever available as an arcade game. However, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm, a rail shooter, was released for the Sega CD (pictured in the Misc gallery at end) and worked on by Elon Musk, who was a programmer for the developer Rocket Science Games at the time. The Sega CD game did extremely poorly.

The arcade game is playable on Archive.org, on Andriod from the Google Play store, or find and download it for your favorite MAME emulator!

Tabletop RPG

In 1990 Game Designers' Workshop published 144-page soft-cover book for a TTRPG based on the Xenozoic Tales comics and was written by Frank Chadwick using the rules from another GDW post-apocalypse RPG, Twilight 2000 (2nd edition), with artwork by Mark Schultz, Steve Bryant, Steve Stiles, and Kirk Wescom. It was moderately well recieved by fans citing a wealth of information given, but had a complex combat system and critics considered it generally "rather boring".

It can be found on Archive.org.

Toy Line

The toy line was released in 1993 to coincide with the cartoon and was released by Tyco Toys. There were six action figures (Tenrec, Jungle Tenrec, Hannah, Mustapha, and bad guys Hammer and Vice), three vehicles, four dinosaurs, and one playset (Jack's garage). The Triceratops and Kentrosaurus were originally from Tyco's Dino Riders but repurposed with the weapons and harnesses added for the Cadillac's and Dinosaurs toy line.

Misc. Gallery

Here is a collection of other random Cadillac and Dinosaur collectibles. The promotional chocolate bar, hand held game from Micro Games, and a make your own tatoo kit, and an image of the SegaCD game.