Today marks exactly 33 years since Jurassic Park roared into cinemas worldwide. While Belgian audiences had to wait until October 20th to see it on the big screen, the buzz had already reached us months earlier. Merchandise was appearing in stores, promotions were running, and an 11-year-old version of me was about to have his world changed forever.
I already loved dinosaurs. I collected fossils, built dinosaur models, and could rattle off prehistoric facts like a walking encyclopedia. I even already had my own little museum at home. But nothing prepared me for the moment I turned into a toy aisle one ordinary afternoon and found it completely transformed: wall to wall Jurassic Park.
The packaging stopped me cold. The designs were bold, fresh, and unlike anything I’d seen. From that moment on, I was hooked.
The Alan Grant Action Figure
My gateway into the Kenner toy line was the Alan Grant action figure — and the reason comes down to one word: Pteranodon. It was my favorite prehistoric creature at the time, and Alan Grant came packed with a collectors card featuring exactly that. I remember studying that card obsessively, marveling at the illustration. It wasn’t just a toy; it was an invitation into a whole universe. This figure started everything.
Jurassic Park Dinosaurus Zoutjes
When I was 11, I organized a small fossil and dinosaur exhibition in my parents’ kitchen for my classmates. Yes, really. That same week, the local grocery store was running a special promotion on Jurassic Park-branded crisps — Zoutjes — and so our little class outing became a field trip to the store to grab a bag each. We crunched through them, talked dinosaurs, and felt like the coolest kids alive. I still have that empty bag. It sits in my collection today as a reminder that Jurassic Park wasn’t just a movie — it was a shared cultural moment, even for a group of Belgian primary school kids.
The Merlin Sticker Album
Sticker albums were serious business in the early 90s. I’d already filled a Panini prehistoric creatures album, so when Merlin released their official Jurassic Park edition, I was on a mission. I collected every single sticker — and I still have a mountain of spares to prove the dedication it took.
But my absolute favorite part of that album wasn’t even the stickers. It was the back cover: a full promotional image of Kenner’s entire Jurassic Park toy line. I could stare at it for hours, dreaming about each piece. The one that haunted me most was the Command Compound. I never got it as a kid — but I’m happy to report that adult Kristof eventually made things right.
The Jungle Explorer
If I had to name one item that defined my childhood Jurassic Park experience, it’s the Jungle Explorer. It sat near the top of my Christmas wish list, and as December crept closer, I became convinced something would go wrong — that it would sell out, that Santa would miss the memo, that I’d be devastated. The anxiety got so bad that my mother, bless her, quietly showed me she had already bought it — just to put me out of my misery.
On Christmas Eve, tearing open that package, I was the happiest boy in Limburg. Probably in all of Belgium, honestly.
These objects are more than plastic and paper. They are time capsules — snapshots of a kid who fell in love with prehistoric life and found, in the summer of 1993, that the rest of the world had finally caught up. Happy 33rd anniversary, Jurassic Park. You changed everything.
