- This article is about the Red Dwarf character. For the Red Dwarf episode, see RD: Pete I.
Pete was Birdman's nine-year-old pet sparrow, who lived with Birdman in The Hole. Pete died of old age, and excitement at being free of The Hole.
An attempt to bring the bird back to life with the Time Wand devolved Pete millions of years into a female Tyrannosaurus Rex. The T-Rex Pete rampaged around the cargo decks of Red Dwarf before the situation was diffused and Pete was returned to his normal state.
The dinosaur however had laid a T-Rex egg that hatched, and the hatchling tormented Captain Hollister.
History[]
Pete as he originally appeared
When Rimmer and Lister were put into the Hole as punishment for giving Captain Hollister a virus that ate all his clothes, they met another inmate who was already there with his pet, a sparrow named Pete.
Pete was nine years old and sat quite happily in Birdman's hands. At the time, he had a cold and sneezed a lot. When Birdman escaped the Hole with Rimmer and Lister, he brought Pete with him in a small cage.
The excitement of being free from captivity was too much for Pete, who keeled over dead in his cage. Birdman was devastated, so Kryten tried to make Pete young and strong again using the time wand. The controls on the wand were poorly marked, so instead of reversing Pete's life it turned back evolution by several million years.
The Tyrannosaurus Pete still had a cold and sneezed all over Birdman before eating him. He then began to rampage around the cargo deck, eating Bob the skutter and the time wand he was holding. In order to get Bob back quickly, the Dwarfers lured Pete into eating a cow vindaloo. This was too hot even for a dinosaur and Pete ran off into the cargo bay, eating along the way all the ship's supply of mint choc ice cream, orange ice pops and Coca-Cola.
Captain Hollister sent three platoons of troops against Pete, but his earlier meal caused him to defeat each platoon with a massive belch, a vomit deluge and a tidal wave of diarrhoea respectively. One of the platoons managed to sedate Pete, after which Hollister ordered Rimmer and Lister to turn him back into a sparrow with the time wand, which Pete had "ejected" along with Bob.
When Lister found Pete asleep in the cargo bay, he used the "undo" function of the time wand to first bring Birdman back to life and then turn Pete into a sparrow once more, who then flew off to Birdman's hand for some seed. Realising that the wand was too dangerous, Lister destroyed it. This turned out to be a mistake, because Pete had already laid a dinosaur egg (proving that Pete was actually a she). The egg hatched into a baby Tyrannosaur which proceeded to give Hollister a massage with it's tongue. The event traumatised Captain Hollister, who booked himself into The Hole. ("Pete I", "Pete II").
Behind the scenes[]
- Like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, the dinosaur Pete was created through both large animatronic models, and CGI.
- Pete is present in the interactive animated menus on the Series VIII DVD, and can be seen chirping in his/her birdcage in Lister and Rimmer's cell in The Tank.