Pop culture is a funny thing right now. Characters lost to time and vague, foggy memories tend to reappear at some point in incredibly random ways.
Take Baby Sinclair of the short-lived 90s series Dinosaurs. The pink-skinned, diapered ball of sarcastic wit was a beloved character for the four seasons the show was in syndication from 1991 to 1994.
Then, 30 years after his last, original televised appearance, there he was. On Foos Gone Wild. "This is a meme that was 69 million years in the making," the anonymous admin behind the account says when asked about his inspiration to catapult the character into his foo universe.
Elle-Emm-Eyy-Oh and whatnot! So how did he and we even get here?!
Baby Sinclair was one of the main characters in the Jim Henson Productions show Dinosaurs, which debuted a year after Henson’s death. The show included his father Earl (who he referred to as Not The Mama because he’s...not the mama), his mother Fran, his sister Charlene and his brother Robbie in a weekly, 30-minute family sitcom.
In typical Jim Henson fashion, the show offered sophisticated puppetry (or is that muppetry?), the Sesame Streetcreator’s trademark sense of humor, and plenty of satirical takes and lessons on topical issues, such as drug abuse, sexual harassment, racism, xenophobia and others.
The star of the show was clearly Baby, who did not have an actual name other than Baby Sinclair. The character was a sarcastic, quick-witted and adorable ball of energy who the show writers blessed with numerous catchphrases: “I’m the baby, gotta love me,” “Not The Mama” and “Again!” which he usually shouted in glee after a slapstick comedy routine.
The show was cancelled in 1994 and disappeared from TV soon after, reappearing (probably) as bar trivia and (definitely) on YouTube and fan sites throughout the years.
So what accounts for this newfound popularity? It helps that the show was added to streaming services Hulu in 2017 and Disney+ in 2021. It’s since been available in Spanish-dub on Disney Latino and in Portuguese-dub on Disney Brazil. From there, it’s a short step to the show’s original audience rewatching it alongside a newer audience that gets to watch it for the first time.
You also don’t need to be “fully online” to know that there are tons of nostalgia-baiting social media accounts focused on specific eras. The 90s are one such era, and Dinosaurs were an important part of the early-to-mid 90s, even if not the most formative.
Months before Baby Sinclair appeared in foo form, however, he was popping up in various meme account pages online last year.
Most of these memes came from Spanish-language accounts, such as:
It was only a matter of time for Baby Sinclair to evolve from Peque Sinclair/Bebé Sinclair to Baby Foo-clair.
Baby Sinclair has retained his popularity over three decades, despite being off the air for most of that time. That popularity has now reached levels of Foo-dom never imagined by Jim Henson!
Which begs the question: which hood would Baby Foo-clair rep?
