Professor Chump (Sebastian Smith) falls asleep and dreams that he is in a prehistoric cave. On the floor of the cave, he finds dinosaur bones. The professor takes a nap in the cave. He is awakened by an actual dinosaur attacking him. He tries to shoot the dinosaur but is chased out of the cave.
Outside of the cave he finally defeats the dinosaur and is praised by the local cave people. Unfortunately, more dinosaurs show up and chase everyone.
Back in his room the Professor’s wife, Martha (Mrs. Sebastian Smith), finds him still asleep. She wakes him up by spraying soda water on him.
“Prehistoric Peeps” was released in 1905 and was directed by Lewin Fitzhamon. It is a British science fiction comedy silent short. The film was produced by the Hepworth Manufacturing Company. The four-minute film is believed to be the first dinosaur movie ever.
In the 1890’s Edward Tennyson Reed created a comic strip called “Mr. Punch’s Prehistoric Peeps”. A series of shorts were created from the comics, one of them being this film.
The film has never been shown anywhere. The only known prints of the film are in the possession of the British Film Institute. The only way to view the film was to go to the Film Institute’s library, in England, and watch it on one of their computers. At some point a bootleg copy got posted to the internet. I suspect someone taped it from the computer screen either by using a cell phone or some other video method.
I’ve heard that the film had been restored but the bootleg copy floating around isn’t all that clear. The bootleg copy is in rough shape and extremely fuzzy. In addition, there is a white strobe flash going through it. I also think that the copy available is only part of the whole film. There are no intertitles. It’s just a strip of film that is difficult to see but historically speaking, it is extremely valuable.
I’m not sure which dinosaurs are represented I don’t think they are species specific. There is a giant chicken. That one is easy to spot. Other than that, it looks like they created anything with four legs but one was tall, one was short, one was fat and one was skinny. They appear to be puppets made of everyday materials such as papier mache, cloth, and one seems to have a tail made from a broom. They are reminiscent of those two guys in a horse costume sort of outfits that you see at Halloween parties. That type of effect is called a Pantomime puppet. They looked similar to Chinese Dragon Puppets.
It is also the first film to incorporate cavemen and dinosaurs together.