Barney, Eat Your Heart Out

When Sue's skeletal remains were bought eight years ago by Chicago's Field Museum for $8.4 million, the biggest bucks ever spent on a dinosaur fossil, plenty of jaws of the human variety dropped. Sue, the largest and most intact Tyrannosaurus rex found anywhere, has proved to be the most marketable dinosaur on the planet. The museum last week celebrated Sue's fifth "birthday" (she was first unveiled in 2000) with theater performances, dino-size puppets and super-size cakes. Along with such merchandise as T shirts and a Sue backpack ($22.95), 14 new Sue-themed toys, including paintable figurines and magnetic sculptures, will soon go on sale across the U.S. Coming next month is a CD, A T. Rex Named Sue, featuring Al Jarreau and other artists. Meanwhile, MGM is developing a movie about the ownership battle that ensued after the bones were discovered. Scholastic has published five children's books on Sue, who stars in an upcoming DVD called Journey to the Land of the Dinosaurs. The Sue industry does have its limits, however. The museum nixed a proposal for an animated TV show featuring "Sue the Dancing Dinosaur." Explains Field Museum senior project manager Patti Tuomey: "She doesn't dance, and she never did. That idea trivializes the importance of her life." -By Wendy Cole