Ah, Turok. A criminally overlooked franchise of yesteryear. Today, he's mostly remembered as video games on the Nintendo 64, but once upon a time back in the 1950's, he was a comic book believe it or not! As such, he gained a massive cult following amongst Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers who followed the original comic book until its cancellation in 1981. In the 90's, it was turned into a reboot comic where Turok fights aliens and South American druglords (See Turok Dinosaur Hunter Comics for reference) followed by a video game named after the reboot comics. That was pretty much it for the cult legacy of this unsung comic book franchise, or was it? Fast forward to 2008 when Turok is given a breath of fresh air for the end of the decade when Weinstein Studios in conjunction with Key Gold Comics and Film Roman made this animated cult classic film that only played in theaters for 2 weeks and was pulled quickly due to poor box office and little to no advertising for the film. It was called the worst thing to happen to the franchise, but I liked it for what it was (especially since how many unsung Comic Book franchises can you name that got their own adaptation for movies or tv? Okay, quite a few actually like The Tick, but still). The animation leaves a lot to be desired (No offense to Mr Phil Roman, yes the same Phil Roman who animation subcontracted The Simpsons when Klasky Csupo stepped down and did such cartoons as Bobby's World and Garfield and Friends) and the story starts out slow, but when you really get into it, it's a great animated cult classic
Today, Turok is only remembered as a video game, but as a retro snob o' specific tastes and a vast encyclopedic knowledge of unsung and criminally overlooked retro, I feel it is my job to make sure original stuff gets its long overdue credit where credit was due to start with (See "The Hey You Guuuuuuuys Trials: The Electric Company Original Vs The Goonies" if you want to see credentials. Okay, I made that trial up lol) and Turok is no exception to this. Reprints of the original comics run for some serious dough but if you can find the original comic book series in any way, shap and/or form, check it out. Other than that, here's the animated film of Turok you didn't know existed. Enjoy!
