“That job was one of the most difficult Sequoia Creative ever attempted. Each figure had a hand-sculpted, one-of-a-kind skin of foam made with no tooling or molds. Thus, there was no way to provide replacement skins.” - Bob Gurr, 2007.

“Terry (Van Gorder) caught the wave just perfectly for dinosaurs... When the kids who were studying dinosaurs in school saw one that large hanging over their heads, they thought, “Wow! This is something pretty spectacular!” And there was another wave later with Jurassic Park. But if you look at when that came out... Terry’s was in 1987!” - Robin Hall, 1994.

During November of 1986, after never-realized designs for a dinosaur-themed attraction underneath the Corkscrew roller coaster; Knott’s COO Terry Van Gorder approached the Design and Planning department with the challenge of opening a dinosaur dark ride in time for next years summer season - just six months away. At a cost of $7 million, Kingdom of the Dinosaurs would take guests through the time of the Ice Age into the era of the dinosaurs. Robin Hall, Laine Houser and Christian Hope would all contribute beautiful designs to “KOD”, as it affectionately became known. This unique attraction took a serious look at the prehistoric creatures, and the moving soundtrack by Kevin Nadeau added a touch of majesty to the ride. Unfortunately, the lack of time traditionally needed for creating animatronics caused the figures to have serious mechanical problems. By the early 1990s, during Halloween Haunt, it became the target of parody. Re-dubbed ‘Kingdom of the Lounge Lizards’, the Tyrannosaurus Rex was given an oversized Elvis wig and white sequined jumpsuit. It was quietly closed in 2004.