Finally they pass the Precambrian Era and see the dazzling psychedelic fireworks of the Earth's creation.
The serial made no sense. The boys' costumes and hair styles changed; they got taller and shorter; the voice-over narration didn't match the action; no one wonders how they're going to get back home again; and where did boys visiting a museum get a boat, anyway?
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Turns out that in 1966, producer William Cayton took the river sequences from a Czech movie, Cesta do Praveku (1955), then filmed new opening and closing segments in the United States with different boys, figuring that the dumb kids in his target audience would never notice.
Still, it became one of the iconic images of my childhood, maybe because it made no sense. It was a puzzle, a mystery to be unraveled, and that puzzle involved boys facing the world together.
In a pivotal scene, Doc (Josef Lukas) loses the diary with his scientific notes of the journey, and Jo-Jo (Victor Betral) fights off a dinosaur to retrieve it. Their subsequent moment of emotional intimacy reverberated through my childhood.
I noticed, but I didn't care. I was busy watching the boys bonding with each other through science fiction adventure.