If the aim was to convince incredibly gullible children that they were real it worked on me

I distinctly remember watching these and being like why is no one talking about this this is INSANE and then my mom had to explain that it’s fake

Sorry for believing animal planet. The channel that tells me facts about animals 99.9% of the time

To be completely fair to the dragon show:

• It was titled Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real in North America
• There's a big disclaimer at the start of the program that it's all fake
• The narration calls them "the most incredible animals that never existed"
• Most of it takes place in the distant past (there is a long segment of footage that takes place in the Cretaceous) and would have needed to be faked for the show anyways
• There was an attached making-of program that showed how they made it all up, as well as a promotional magazine (which I own a copy of) that also shows how they made it all up
• Pretty sure the website back in the day also included info about how they made it all up
• The credits clearly list the VFX team and creature designers (one of whom was John Sibbick!), as well as who the actors were during the live-action segments
• The back of the DVD makes it clear: "[Dragons] never existed in real life. But what if they had?"

The mermaid show was not this open about its true nature.

And yet I fell for the dragon one and not the mermaid one lmao