"Walking With Dinosaurs"

WHEN THE angry, life-size mama T. rex came roaring through a curtain to defend its young during the St. Paul, Minn., run of "Walking With Dinosaurs — the Live Experience," Kristi Curry Rogers momentarily stopped thinking like a professor and responded like a protective mom herself.

"I have a 5-year-old daughter, and at that moment I thought, 'I'm really glad she didn't come with me,' " said the dinosaur expert from Macalester College in St. Paul, who was there to apply the cool eye of science to one of America's hottest entertainment tours. "The adults gasped, and almost all the young children started crying."

Since last summer, what's likely the BIGGEST cast ever to command a spotlight has roamed America's arenas, to the accompaniment of smoke, sound, light effects and dramatic music -- and a fact-filled narration by an actor-ringmaster playing the part of a paleontologist.

The 42-foot-long T. rex and nine mobile giant dinosaurs made their Southern California debut with 10 performances scheduled at the Honda Center in Anaheim and a seven-show Staples Center engagement runs Sept. 25 to 28. At the controls are a driver at the bottom of each creature, and two-member teams of high-tech puppeteers stationed in a booth high above the floor. Five smaller carnivores that round out the cast are inhabited by realistically dinosaur-suited actors who have no intention of being confused with Barney.