"Jurassic Park" was penned by Yankovic after he remembered the enjoyment he had when he combined a classic rock track with a recent movie theme with his 1985 song "Yoda".

The song was paired with an elaborately animated music video, which was created by Mark Osborne and Scott Nordlund almost entirely via claymation.

[3] Backing Yankovic were Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz on drums, Steve Jay on bass, and Jim West on guitar.

[5] "Jurassic Park", however, features synth strings courtesy of keyboardist Brad Buxer, who programmed the section himself.

[4] When it came time for a video for "Jurassic Park", Yankovic opted to use stop-motion and claymation; he joked during a Q&A that this was because "it's just too hard to find real live dinosaurs these days.

[15] Yankovic initially heard of the duo from Bill Manspeaker, the lead singer of the comedy rock band Green Jellÿ.

[17] The video parodies scenes from, as well as the general plot of, the 1993 movie, and contains a myriad of sight-gags—as is usual for Yankovic's videos—such as a claymation version of Steven Spielberg running from dinosaurs, Barney having his head bitten off, and a Velociraptor attempting to break down a door, only to realize it has a key.

[20] However, the video was played and remained popular on VH1 well after its release; it ranked within the Top 50 Most-Played Clips during the months of August and September 1999, according to Billboard magazine.

"[26] Chris Hicks of the Deseret News called the single "absolutely hilarious", and rhetorically asked "who else would think of adapting that ridiculously popular movie's themes to new lyrics for Jimmy Webb's classic ditty 'MacArthur Park'?

[11] Amanda Cohen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that it combined "the schlock of the original song with schtick about the dinosaur movie" and proved that "Yankovic is as funny as ever".

[27] In a review of the Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation, Arthur Salm called the piece a "knockout" and praised the humor, specifically highlighting the claymation cameo of Steven Spielberg and the "goofy velociraptor" from the opening of the video.

[28] Rob Owen of Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote that the song "does nothing but recount the plot of the hit movie" and that "dinosaurs don't lend themselves to music".