We were just babies, living in Mesozoic times. We didn't even have pagers. It was Cray.

Not too long ago a man* asked me, "What is your favorite dinosaur"?

Not hesitating, I answered Brontosaurus.
This response was mostly due to nerves and not wanting to take too long to answer such an important question but to a greater degree, I capriciously answered Brontosaurus because of my longstanding involvement with Littlefoot. 

You know, the longneck with the Tree Star

I am not certain why exactly I identify so strongly with this fella. His journey was rife with sorrow, obstacles, rejection, and other challenges unforeseen.

His mission:

to find the Great Valley and reunite with his grandparents. . . but while on his migration with a band of misfits, Littlefoot finds what he was looking for all along—a feeling of belonging. 

So yeah, maybe there is an obvious hook here. A strong protagonist, a hero type. Or maybe it was all the GD awesome puppets I was collecting from Pizza Hut®. 

Between BOOK IT! and The Land Before Time puppets my sister and I must have kept my parent's ears ringing with harmonized pleas to have Pizza Hut® for dinner. They kindly humored us many, many times. 

And when I'm not thinking about Cera, Littlefoot, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike. . . I'm thinking about these dinosaurs. . .

One of my favorite writers, Jane Espenson, cut her teeth on this series.

From the mind of Jim Henson and into the creative hands of Bob Young and Michael Jacobs, Dinosaurs was a (sometimes forgettable) referential sitcom about an anthropomorphic dinosaur family, The Sinclairs. 
The episodic series made efforts to weave topical subjects into classic family satire as many other shows were successfully doing. Dinosaurs even spawned the popular catchphrase, "Not The Mamma",  in curious celebration of Baby Sinclair's aversion to his father, Earl. Baby Sinclair would often bludgeon Earl with a baseball bat. This oedipal like behavior is also present in today's Family Guy, albeit Stewie Griffin has a more consolatory voice. 

As a youth I was drawn to the novelty of the show but when I revisited Dinosaurs as an adult I found myself completely miffed by Baby Sinclair. This is to say, I wanted to bludgeon him with a baseball bat. 
If only Kevin Clash had auditioned with his Splinter voice. . . we could have had a sophisticated "Stewie Griffin like" dino-baby.  Perhaps we weren't ready for that. 

Beyond these examples a couple of other images come to mind when reflecting on dinosaurs:

This, for example

or this. . .

. . . and of course THIS!

If I had to revisit the question, "What is your favorite dinosaur?", I would say this:

The Ankylosaurus. 

The Ankylosaurus, meaning 'fused lizard', was one of the last remaining dinosaurs prior to extinction. Large plates of bone and a massive club tail helped the Ankylosaurus defend itself. 

It liked veggies and was hard to knock over. ----> dude, me too!

*The man was Matthew J Mammola ♡