Check Out this Concept Art from the Abandoned ‘Jurassic Park’ Cartoon Series

For years I was content in not knowing that I missed out on having a mature cartoon series based on “Jurassic Park”, but now that I have that knowledge I’m severely disappointed.  At one point, during the height of the “Jurassic Park” craze, an animated series was considered and worked on.  Unfortunately the idea never got too far, but now some concept art has surfaced that shows what the series would’ve looked liked.

Tumblr blog From Director Steven Spielberg pointed out this post by artist William Stout which revealed that one point an animated series based on “Jurassic Park” was in development.  Here’s how Stout described the initial concept of the series:

Upon the success of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park movie, all kinds of ancillary projects abounded: toys, games, novelties, apparel, etc.

Towards the end of all of this merchandising I got a call from artistWill Meugniot, asking if I’d be interested in designing a Jurassic Park animated series. This was not going to be a kiddy show (although kids of all ages, including myself, could enjoy it). They wanted the show to be a mature prime time series with top writers and state-of-the-art television animation augmented with quite a bit of CG animation. Universal Cartoon Studios wanted a “graphic novel look” to the series. I came in, showed my portfolio and was hired.

We made a trailer to communicate the look and feel of the series, also showing how we would combine computer animation with traditional animation. All we needed was Spielberg’s approval.

I heard through the grapevine that he never bothered to watch what we had done. By that time the word was out that he was burnt out on Jurassic Park merchandising and all of the film’s commercial exploitation. So, it never got made.

Stout also reveals that he owns a copy of the trailer, but didn’t indicate whether or not he’d let it see the light of day.  However, while we don’t have the trailer, Stout showcased some of the concept art he had worked on and it features some dinosaurs we didn’t see in Jurassic Park.  Check it out below.

Source: Collider