This is Throwback Thursday #325. In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general. If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc …), please send them to esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! email:esconi.info@gmail.com.

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Ok, who remembers “Journey to the Beginning of Time” on Garfield Goose on morning television in Chicago? Just recently, the trailer to the US version of the movie recently appeared in one of my feeds, so I did a little research to find out more about the film/episodes.

Youtube has another video of stop motion scenes… I remember some of these. My friends and I always looked forward to the next episode and talked about them in school. To us, they seemed so real at the time!

Did you know this was originally a Czechoslovakian film? It was directed by Karel Zeman in 1955. The film was a non-fictional/science fiction story about four boys that set sail in a wooden boat on a journey back to prehistoric earth. The US version of the film was released in serial form in 1966. It was partly re-filmed and changed for US audiences.

Karel Zeman (1910-1989) was a Czech film director, artist, production designer, and artist. He was known for his creative use of special effects and animation. There is a page about “Journey to the Beginning of Time” on the Karel Zeman Museum website. The movie was inspired by Jules Verne’s novel “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel “The Lost World.”

This non-fiction film from 1955 tells the story of four boys who set sail on a wooden boat up the river of time on a fantastic journey to the prehistoric Earth. One by one they explore the Quaternary, – including the Ice Age – the Tertiary, the Mesozoic and the Paleozoic Eras up to the Silurian sea, where they find a living trilobite. Thanks to this film, a whole generation of children were first introduced to the history of our planet, with its ancient plants and animals, brought to life on the big screen by the creativity and artistry of Karel Zeman‘s special effects. Rated one of the best children‘s adventure films of all time, it is also a pioneering work of world cinema. Its popularity was testified to by its being put on distribution in America in 1966 with a newly extended introduction. The film was made in the Kudlov Studios in Zlín and in the film studios in Hostivař. Exteriors were shot on the Slovak river Vah, on the Souš at Tanvald, in Strmilov, in Jindřichov Hradec, and at the Zlín dam. The final scene was filmed on the sea coast on the island of Rügen in Germany.

The Czech version of the trailer can be found on Youtube.