Seatbelts, everybody! Just a few weeks in the past I reviewed The Magic College Bus within the Time of the Dinosaurs, and mused on the finish that I may need to hunt out the TV episode on the identical theme…which was on no account an attraction for commenters to do the work for me and supply a hyperlink, oh no. (As if I’d be so lazy.) Nonetheless, Zain Ahmed obligingly supplied a hyperlink to a YouTube video. Thanks, Zain! (Admittedly, it’s not precisely onerous to seek out on there.) As such, I’ve duly given it a watch, and it’s actually an attention-grabbing affair for somebody who managed to keep away from the franchise as a baby. Was Ms Frizzle at all times this psychotic?
The plot of The Busasaurus has naturally been altered and simplified from the guide; whereas the latter had the gang journey via the Late Triassic, Late Jurassic and Late Cretaceous, they solely go to the Late Cretaceous in The Busasaurus. The preliminary premise may be very related, although – Ms Frizzle and the children go to a dig website the place palaeontologists are uncovering a dinosaur skeleton, solely right here it’s Tyrannosaurus moderately than Maiasaura, as a result of T. rex is way sexier and it permits for a way more apparent level to be made later about how dinosaurs weren’t all monstrous. Frizzle’s palaeontologist pal Jeff has additionally been excised in favour of a woman named Dr Skeledon, which is a really foolish identify that I don’t approve of. Dr Skeledon additionally doesn’t discuss with Frizzle by her first identify (Valerie), which makes her appear much more like a Time Lord. However I digress.
As within the guide, Ms Frizzle herds the children onto the bus and turns it right into a time machine, though within the present there appears to be rather more of an implication that Frizzle has terrifying godlike powers that she wields with reckless abandon. Frizzle winds the clock again in a fairly literal sense till they find yourself within the Late Cretaceous, at which level the doorways are opened and her fees are allowed to wander round at will. However in fact.
Naturally, they encounter dinosaurs, the primary of which is an unnamed, considerably generic-looking sauropod. By far probably the most attention-grabbing facet of those is the best way they’re animated – the birdlike head-bobbing movement they make once they stroll isn’t one thing I recall seeing anyplace else, and I do surprise what the choice was behind it. Maybe it was to stress their innocent nature, by making them harking back to different innocent animals that kids would know from life? If that’s the case, I do commend them for not going with the ‘massive cow’ angle, no less than.
When fairly understandably operating in terror from these gigantic creatures, a baby named Arnold drops an egg that had been given to him by Dr Skeledon again on the dig website. Naturally, it was a fossil egg, however it by some means grew to become ‘unfossilised’ through the journey again in time despite the truth that it was contained in the bus, which actually makes me surprise what the foundations are on this time-traveling-schoolbus situation. Why don’t the kids quickly de-age after which come out of existence? (Ms Frizzle, being an ageless godlike being, would clearly be fantastic.) It’s fairly the head-scratcher, I inform you.
In any case, Arnold’s dropped egg is stolen by an ornithomimosaur, and so Arnold and one other child give chase. Naturally, which means that they deserve to satisfy a horrible demise for his or her foolishness, a destiny that the present sadly neglects to mete out to them. As an alternative, Frizzle and the opposite kids should head out to seek out them. On the best way, they encounter Parasaurolophus, proven with an excellent quaint crest flap a la Nineteen Eighties and early ’90s palaeoart, one other hadrosaur implied to be Maiasaura (as per the guide), Triceratops, and a few marauding Troodon. For a children’ cartoon from 1995, the dinosaur designs are actually fairly first rate. The Maiasaura could have beaks that resemble wrinky lips, however they in any other case fairly intently resemble depictions in palaeoart of the time. The one actually goofy ones are the Troodon, that are peculiarly fat-bodied, pointy-mouthed issues with out sickle claws (fairly aside from the scaliness, however y’know, it was 1995).
In contrast to the guide, the place Frizzle and the children are largely passive observers on safari, the TV Frizzle is ready to conjure varied inconceivable props to assist the occasion of their run-ins with the dinosaurs. These embrace a Parasaurolophus-aping horn and Triceratops shields that deter the Troodon. By the way, the reedy noise that the Parasaurolophus make is totally garbage; everybody is aware of that they’re imagined to have a great deal of BASS. Bro.
Naturally, the climax of the dinosaur encounters is with Rexy himself, who’s simply making an attempt to have a kip when some annoying brats from the far future flip as much as destroy his day. Naturally, Tyrannosaurus offers chase, after which begins attacking the bus. (At this level, one can actually inform that this was made a few years after Jurassic Park, what with the ground-shaking, vehicle-threatening and normal look of the T. rex.) Apparently unconcerned along with her pupils being eaten – maybe as a result of her horrible powers make her resistant to any repercussions – Frizzle initially solely responds by checking whether or not the insurance coverage coverage for her magic physics-defying bus covers assaults by Mesozoic wildlife. Nevertheless, on additional prompting from the children, her answer to thrust back the T. rex is to quickly develop Arnold to an infinite dimension in order that he can combat it. Maybe as a result of a dinosaur-on-giant-child combat to the demise is way extra amusing than scaring off the bloody factor via actually every other means.
Probably the most weird a part of all that is the ‘Arnold meter’ that Frizzle makes use of to increase and shrink Arnold to the required dimension. WHY IS THERE AN ARNOLD-METER IN THE BUS? WHAT IS SHE PLANNING? I’ve a sense that this type of factor would hassle me loads much less if I’d seen actually every other episode of the present.
In any case, the T. rex is scared off by Honey I Blew Up the Arnold, Arnold is shrunken in order that he can match on the bus, and so they all bugger off again to the long run (Nice Scott! and so on.). As soon as they arrive, they discover that the Butterfly Impact may be very actual and the US is now being dominated over by a bizarre-looking creature that speaks gibberish and instructions a military of cult followers. The tip.
It’s all good enjoyable. As a child, I feel I’d have been aggravated by the dearth of dinosaur-on-human violence (as a result of I’ve at all times been horrible), however happy by the depiction of dinosaurs as animals. The Triceratops encircle their younger to guard them, the Maiasaura regurgitate meals for his or her infants, and the sauropods are depicted as largely being excited about filling their stomachs, which might be pretty correct. As an grownup, I do discover the kids moderately annoying, however that’s par for the course. Would I watch this kids’s cartoon once more? Fairly gladly. Such is my life.
Low-cost political jokes apart, the crew do discover Arnold’s big fossilised coach print. Which implies they actually did screw with the timeline, canonically.
One very last thing: as I discussed final time, I’ve no childhood nostalgia for this franchise – it by some means handed me by. (My fiancée Agata does keep in mind the TV present, although, albeit as Magiczny autobus in fact.) Nonetheless, I used to be saddened to be taught of the latest demise of Bruce Degen, the illustrator of The Magic College Bus books, whose work I’d solely simply found. If he produced any extra dinosaur-related work, I’d actually like to trace it down and have it on the weblog.
