The Ballad of Big Al

***The Ballad of Big Al*** (distributed in North America as ***Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special***) is a British two-episode special and companion to *Walking with Dinosaurs*. It was produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and Discovery Channel and narrated by Kenneth Branagh, and first aired in the United Kingdom on Christmas 2000 before subsequently airing in the United States in 2001.

## Plot

The special begins at the University of Wyoming, showing the skeletons of dinosaurs, including an Allosaurus nicknamed "Big Al", whose ghost briefly appears walking through the museum. The film then travels back in time to the Late Jurassic of 145 million years ago.

Al and his siblings are born at the end of the dry season and are helped out of the nest by their mother. She brings them to a riverbank, where they start to hunt insects. The mother temporarily leaves the hatchlings to hunt for herself, and a year-old Allosaurus appear and kills one of them; fortunately, Al is not the victim.

At the age of two years, Al begins to hunt on his own. At first, a group of Othnielia seem a potential meal, but they are too close to a Stegosaurus; and a mother Ornitholestes tending to her eggs easily wards him off. Al then starts to stalk a flock of Dryosaurus, but because he has not yet learned how to ambush, he fails the attack. He then snatches and eats a lizard to satisfy his hunger. Nearby, a larger female Allosaurus appears, attracted by the smell of a dead Stegosaurus lying in a pit of sticky mud, with another Allosaurus waiting for death trapped alongside it. The female attempts to feed and also becomes stuck, and Al, having learned to avoid carrion, walks away. The two trapped Allosaurus eventually die of exhaustion, and a flock of Anurognathus arrives to feed on their corpses.

Three years pass, and Al joins several other Allosaurus in stalking a herd of Diplodocus migrating across a salt flat. They manage to break up the herd and isolate a weakened individual that is left behind. When Al is struck down by the sauropod's neck, the rest of the pack decide to hold back and wait for the Diplodocus to die of heat exhaustion and its sickness. As the pack prepares to feed, an adult female Allosaurus arrives on the scene to scavenge the kill. Seeking a fresh place to eat, Al takes a piece of meat and walks away.

A year later, Al, now 33 feet (10 meters) long, has reached sexual maturity, the crests on his head beginning to redden. His presence at a nearby pond and the smell of blood he brings with him makes the other dinosaurs nervous and puts off a pair of Stegosaurus that were attempting to mate. Away from the pond, he discovers a pile of dung left by a female Allosaurus and issues a mating call. The female is not interested, but Al's inexperience shows, and she attacks him; Al barely escapes with his life, albeit with an injured arm and smashed ribs. Later the dry season comes, and Al attempts to stalk a flock of Dryosaurus. During the ambush, a log falls in Al's path and he trips, breaking the middle toe in his right foot. The dry season turns into a drought, and Al's injured toe has become badly infected. Unable to hunt, he dies in a dried-up riverbed, where a pair of Allosaurus hatchlings looking for insects come across his body. The narrator states that Al died as a mature adolescent who never reached his full size, and that the process of the fossilization was so perfect it even preserved the injuries he sustained in his lifetime, including the lumps where his ribs healed and the raging infection of his toe.

## Episodes

### American version

The American version was titled *Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special* and aired on the Discovery Channel on April 8, 2001. For this version, Avery Brooks replaced Branagh as narrator much like with the original series, and the special was combined with the evidence for Al's life. Additionally, this version removed one of the trapped Allosaurus, as well as scenes discussing bird and crocodile behavior along with shots of Al in the 21st century.

Footage from the special was included in the *Prehistoric Planet* "Top 10" episode, which aired in April 2003.

## Awards and nominations

 Outstanding Sound-Editing for Non-Fiction Programming

## Home media

Main article: *Walking with... (videography)*