The Land Before Time is an American animated musical television series, based on The Land Before Time film seriesâ characters created by Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss. It was developed for television by Ford Riley for Cartoon Network and was produced by Universal Animation Studios and Amblin Entertainment (Amblin Entertainment produced the first film with Sullivan Bluth Studios), and animated by Wang Film Productions in Taiwan and Toon City in the Philippines. It premiered on YTV in Canada for a test on January 5, 2007 and premiered on Cartoon Network in the United States on March 5.
It was made as traditionally animated with CGI backgrounds, which the past sequels from ' onwards have used, with occasional cel-shaded computer-animated characters in wide shots. The main antagonists in the series are Red Claw, an evil villainous Tyrannosaurus, and Screech and Thud, a pair of henchmen Deinonychus. The TV series takes place between the events of ' and ', due to Chomper and Ruby being absent in the former film.
The show premiered on Cartoon Network in the United States on March 5, 2007. Reruns of the series began airing on Sprout in January 2017, and were subsequently moved to Universal Kids upon the channel's launch on September 9, 2017.
Michael D. Schaffer of the Philadelphia Inquirer said that the animation in the series, although below that of the original 1988 film, was above-average for modern television. Although he praised the theme song, saying it had a "bouncy, almost calypso beat", he was less pleased with the songs "Adventuring" and "Talking Big". He finally described the series as "bland, inoffensive stuff", and appropriate viewing for very young audiences.
Universal Studios Consumer Products Group and Playmates Toys announced a domestic licensing agreement, whereby Playmates served as the master toy license for the then-upcoming animated television series, The Land Before Time. The 22-minute animated series aired on Cartoon Network beginning in spring 2007. The toy line launched in fall 2007 with the introduction of a full line of figures, vehicles, playsets and plush.
Twenty-four episodes of the series were released on DVD by Universal Studios Home Entertainment between 2007âÂÂ2008 in North America (region 1) and 2010 in Australia (region 4) in the form of six four-episode volumes. A six-disc box set was later released in the UK (region 2) in 2012 containing the 24 episodes from the previous volumes. Two episodes were not included in those releases: "The Hidden Canyon" and "The Big Longneck Test". Only "The Hidden Canyon" was later released as a special feature on the stand-alone DVD release of '. In June 2022, a complete TV series DVD was released, not only marking the first time "The Big Longneck Test" has been released on home media but also the first time any episode has been released in widescreen format on a Region 1 DVD.
The songs are written by Michele Brourman (music) and Ford Riley (lyrics).
The theme song is performed by the South African choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The theme is written by Rocco Gagliese, Steve D'Angelo, and Terry Tompkins of Eggplant LLC. The music score is by Cory Lerios.