Turu the Terrible

Z-15, , 12/24/64 (now on Thursday nights*), 5/20/65.

*Note: Although TV Guide reports the change to Thursday night occurred the next week, Hanna-Barbera's official list of broadcast dates shows the date was Dec. 24, 1964. Many thanks to classic fan "James W." for sharing with us his vivid memory of that night and leading to this correction.

Flubs:

In the scene where Dr. Quest and Race visit the top of the plateau at night, and are discovered by Turu's master, there's what appears to be a shadow across Race's legs, but it's white instead of black, like someone forgot to color it in!
The bad guy's wheelchair rolls uphill without effort from the occupant, but it doesn't appear to be motorized; later the man uses his arms to propel himself along. (Reported by Ian Allan)
At one point, Dr. Quest states that he knows how prehistoric man must have felt. Of course, he does not, since prehistoric man did not co-exist with any dinosaurs, including pteranodons. (Reported by Kevin Shelton)
When Dr. Quest is telling the story of his capture by Turu, the nozzle of his rocket belt is not colored in. (Reported by John Boyd)
Near the end of the episode, we see Jonny standing toward the front of the boat playing a harmonica. The scene then cuts to Dr. Quest and Race talking to the rescued natives. The harmonica music can still be heard in the background. When they cut back to the boys, Hadji is now playing the harmonica. I suppose Jonny could have had time to give the instrument to Hadji, but it must have been a quick exchange. More likely, the writers wanted Jonny to be holding the stick that is attacked by the crocodile instead of Hadji and made the switch, figuring no one would notice. (Reported by Paul in the forum)

Note:The following scenes in the opening and closing credits are from this episode:

pteranodon swooping through the skies (2x in opening credits, once in closing credits)
Race and Dr. Quest on rocket packs (OC) (Although the jagged rock background scenery in the closing credits was not used in the episode; they were moving through the native village instead.)
Panther jumping (OC) (This scene, and the crocodile scene below, were previously used in the episode "Pursuit of the Po-Ho".)
Crocodile diving into river (OC)

John Boyd writes:
Now for something to demonstrate how I've gone completely over the edge: In Turu the Terrible, I've always wondered what Dr. Quest and the captain of the "Amazon Queen" are saying with their flashlights. I've never been good enough with Morse code to decipher the conversation in real-time. But I had an idea. I paused the tape and advanced frame by frame writing down the number of frames for each flash and the number of frames between flashes. Separating them into long (dah) and short (dit) flashes, and using the gaps to determine letter and word separations, I decoded the message. As expected, it's just a random series of flashes that don't seem to spell anything. (Parents can rest assured, the captain does not flash any profanities, as Dr. Quest alludes to!) Here is what I came up with:

Dr. Quest: TKM
Captain: KOTR NEM EZI EBTTIE II

Oh well, it would have been cool if the writers had put in a real message but I guess not. [But...] Who knows? Maybe I just got a dit or dah wrong in a couple of places and it really has some sumliminal message!

Link to the restored end credits for the episode.

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