MOLINE - Ed Sullivan probably never envisioned this when he said, "We've got a really big show!"

"Walking with Dinosaurs - The Live Experience" takes people to a world where dinosaurs ruled using special effects and life-sized replicas of the real deals.

The show's current tour of the U.S. offers two chances to attend. The i wireless Center, at 1201 River Drive in Moline (formerly The Mark), hosts Walking with Dinosaurs March 5-9. Rockford's MetroCentre hosts the show March 12-16.

Walking with Dinosaurs played for 10 sold-out weeks in Australia. The North American premiere drew more than 52,000 and broke attendance records at The Tacoma Dome. The show is on a two-year tour here.

The family-friendly presentation features Huxley the paleontologist, who takes audiences on the 200-million-year journey of the evolution of dinosaurs. The journey is complete with the climactic and tectonic changes that took place that led to the demise of many species.

The performance, which is neither a movie nor an exhibit, is based on an award-winning BBC television series. The script has been verified by actual paleontologists and the BBC to ensure accuracy.

According to the show's Web site, the arena is laid out with a proscenium stage at one end and the entire arena floor is the performing surface. Because the dinosaurs are the size they were in real life, the only venues large enough to accommodate them are arenas. Both live and recorded video is used. A team of master puppeteers operates each dinosaur via the use of new and special technologies invented to bring them to life.

Walking with Dinosaurs has scenes of interactions between dinosaurs. The audience sees how carnivorous dinosaurs evolved to walk on two legs, and how the herbivores fended off their most agile predators.

The dinosaurs interact with audience members with hair-raising realism, too.

"Those big ones look right up … they get right up into the second tier looking people into the eyeballs up there," said director Scott Farris.

"It is the closest you'll ever get to experiencing what it was like when they walked and ruled the earth," added producer Bruce Mactaggart.

Ten species are represented for the entire 200 million year reign of the dinosaurs.

Show facts:

• Each life-size dinosaur weighs about 1.6 tons apiece.

• The show depicts the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Plateosaurus and Liliensternus from the Triassic period, the Stegosaurus and Allosaurus from the Jurassic period, and Torosaurus and Utah raptor from the Cretaceous period.

• The largest of them, the Brachiosaurus is 36 feet tall and 56 feet long.

For more information, visit www.DinosaurLive.com. Watch a preview at http://youtube.com/watch?v=m_9GnP-lhaY