- This page is about the first part of the Season 3 special. For the second part, see Back in Creature Time: Tasmanian Tiger.
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"Back in Creature Time: Day of the Dodo", also known as "Back In Creature Time – Go Dodo Go, Part 1" and various other names, is the 25th episode of Season 3 of the PBS Kids show Wild Kratts. It is the 91st episode of the series overall. It premiered on July 7, 2014, along with "Back in Creature Time: Tasmanian Tiger", as an hour-long special called "Back in Creature Time". This episode was separately released on July 8, 2014.
In the episode, Aviva unveils the Time Trampoline, a trampoline-shaped machine that permits time travel. The Kratt brothers and Koki use it to travel to Mauritius Island in the 1600s to see dodos. There, they learn a little about dodos and even save several dodos from becoming the next meal of an ancestor of Chef Gourmand. Meanwhile, inventor Zach Varmitech spies on the Wild Kratts. After realizing that Aviva invented a time-travel machine, he heads to the Tortuga to take a closer look at it.
Plot[]
The episode begins with a live-action segment. The Kratt brothers head to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, where they find skeletal remains of extinct mammals on display in the Hall of Primitive Mammals. After explaining several of the mammals, they ask their "What if?" question and the show transitions into the animated segment.
The Kratt brothers are in their Tarsier Creature Power Suits in a Philippine rainforest, doing a checkup on Philippine monkey-eating eagle eggs. They finish the checkup just before the father of the eggs arrives. The father shrieks thinking that Chris and Martin are trying to steal his eggs. They hop away and land on Aviva, who takes them back to the Tortuga.
After deactivating, the Kratt brothers and Aviva head upstairs into the main room, where a female Philippine eagle is recovering from a broken wing. Aviva and Koki tell their teammates that they need to protect the eagles from going extinct. Aviva explains that if the number gets down to zero, there are no more Philippine eagles in the world forever. Koki tells Aviva not to say the word "extinct", but she unfortuantely says it, resulting in the Kratt brothers panicking about never being able to see extinct creatures, and subsequently, they fall into a coma-like trance. However, Aviva sees this as the perfect moment to unveil the Time Trampoline, a trampoline-shaped machine that permits time travel up to 500 years back in time. The Kratt brothers, now out of their trance, want to use the Time Trampoline to head back in time to see extinct creatures. Martin, excited to use the Time Trampoline, is about to jump on it, but Aviva stops him before he can do so by grabbing him with her Extendo-Arm and explains that she has never tested it before. She also states that they have to do everything right or he will get lost in the past. Chris also says that they have to figure out what creature they can find. They use Koki's database to find out, but due to many choices, they're unable to decide. To help them decide with one to see first, they spin a spinner with pictures of extinct creatures on it.
The episode shifts to Zach Varmitech's skyscraper, where he enters his building and shows his Zachbots his current inventions and explains that he would have had many more varmint robots, if the Wild Kratts didn't bother him by rescuing their precious "living free and in the wild" animals. He wonders what the Wild Kratts are doing. Unbeknownst to the Wild Kratts, he sends one of his Zachbots to spy on them. All he finds out is that they're playing a little game with a spinner and a trampoline, which is useless. He tells his Zachbot to wake him up when they do anything interesting, which the Zachbot literally does. Subsequently, Zach decides to create another invention.
The spinner lands on the dodo. Aviva sets the Time Trampoline to take them to early seventeenth-century Mauritius Island, where the dodo was once endemic. She hands the Kratt brothers the Time Trampoline's Remote Trampoline, which is to be used in the past to bring them back to the present. She warns the Kratt brothers and Koki not to let the time jump connection run low or destabilize or they will be trapped in the past. The Kratt brothers, along with Koki, jump, and jump, enter the time warp, and successfully land on Mauritius Island after Martin throws down the Remote Trampoline. Not long after, a dodo pecks Martin's face. Martin gives a rock to the dodo, which he names Rocko. Aviva tells Martin, Chris, and Koki that they can't see through the time connection, but they can hear them. Aviva asks them if they found a dodo bird. They indeed found a dodo bird. Aviva is happy that the Time Trampoline was successfully made.
Meanwhile, Zach is working on his invention, when his Zachbot rings an alarm clock on him, causing Zach to jump and scream. The Zachbot shows Zach that Aviva successfully invented her Time Trampoline. Zach is upset because he claims that the time machine was his idea and that he should have made it first. While lamenting about his failure, he accidentally kicks a can onto his mannequin, which gives him a great idea to compare Aviva's latest invention with his. He also tells Zachbot that it's not just a cape, but an Invisibility Cloak. He then tells his Zachbots to come with him to the Tortuga.
On Mauritius Island, the team hears a man call out "Land ho! Drop anchor!" The man, who reminds Martin of Chef Gourmand, who is Great Great Granddaddy Gourmand (great 15 times), rows to shore from his sailing ship. He finds dodos and, hoping to make them part of his next meal, stuffs several in a bag. Afterward, he jumps into his ship's boat and rows back to his ship. To save the dodos, the Kratt brothers activate their Dragonfly Power Suits and fly off to the man's ship. Using a berry, they lure all the dodos out of the ship and into the ship's boat. However, the Kratt brothers realize that they need to get Great Great Granddaddy Gourmand away from Mauritius Island forever in order to truly keep the dodos safe. Chris tells Martin to bring the dodos back to the island while the former goes back to the boat to deal with Great Great Granddaddy Gourmand. Later, after Great Great Granddaddy Gourmand marks Mauritius Island on a map, Chris erases the mark and instead marks Antarctica, without Great Great Granddaddy Gourmand knowing, so that the latter ends up there.
Chris flies away to help Martin pull the ship's boat to shore. They make it just in time to go back because the time jump connection is starting to disintegrate. Martin tells everyone to come with him. Koki sees a dodo chick in his hands and stops him, telling him that he can't take the dodo chick with him. He back-answers her, saying that if they bring a dodo chick back, they can save the dodo species. He thinks that they won't be extinct anymore. Koki says that they shouldn't mess with anything in the past, because it might affect the future in some way they can't predict. Martin back-answers her again saying it could save the dodos. Chris reminds him that the dodo chick saw how mean and dangerous bad guys can be and says that he may be needed in this time in order for the species to have a chance to survive and perhaps he would know how to stay away and hide from them. Martin eventually agrees, putting him back down. Before leaving, Martin and Chris tell the dodos to stay safe and make sure to keep away from humans. The Kratt brothers and Koki jump on the Remote Trampoline and return to the present, while "Great Great Granddaddy Gourmand" ends up in Antarctica.
Zach, who found out about the Time Trampoline after the Kratt brothers and Koki successfully traveled back in time, arrives in the Philippine rainforest and puts on the Invisibility Cloak. Chris compliments Aviva of her Time Trampoline. Martin says that dodo birds are awesome and Chris think that they might have saved them from extinction. Martin, hearing what Chris said, then remembers to find out whether they are extinct or they survived. Koki checks their current status. Unfortunately, they are still extinct. Chris says that they should've taught them how to run and hide from them some more. However, they are unable to go back because going back to the same time and place right away will cause the Time Trampoline to automatically stop working resulting in them getting trapped back there. Zach, overhearing what Aviva said, hitches a plan to trap them in the past, so that they'll be extinct forever. However, the Kratt brothers are itching to go on another trip to the past. Aviva tells them that they can still make one more trip to the past and she also decides to come with the guys, and she spins the spinner of extinct creatures to find out which creature to see next.
The episode transitions into the concluding live action segment. The Kratt brothers are in the AMNH's Hall of Biodiversity. They find a dodo skeleton and replica and explained the extinction of these species. Afterward, they conclude the episode by saying "Keep on creature adventuring; we'll see you on the creature trail!"
Characters[]
- Chris Kratt
- Martin Kratt
- Aviva Corcovado
- Koki
- Jimmy Z
- Zach Varmitech
- Zachbots
- Great Great Granddaddy Gourmand
Animals[]
Animation[]
Note: Featured animals are in bold.
Present[]
- Philippine Eagle
- Horsfield's Tarsier (called tarsier)
Past[]
- Dodo: Rocko, Brainio
- Globe Skimmer (called dragonfly)
Live Action Videos[]
Note: Live action animals are linked to Wikipedia.
- Pig
- Dog
- Japanese macaque (called macaque monkey)
- Goat
Mentioned[]
Note: Mentioned animals are linked to Wikipedia.
Live Action[]
Note: Live action animals are linked to Wikipedia.
- Black rhinoceros
- Ethiopian wolf
- Bornean orangutan (called orangutan)
- Golden bamboo lemur
Fossils[]
- Scott's horse (listed as Equus)
- Gomphotherium productum
- Toxodon burmeisteri
- Blastoceros pampaeus
- Megaladapis edwardsi (called Megaladapis)
- Smilodon fatalis
- Lestodon armatus
- Glossotherium robustum (called giant ground sloth)
- Phascolonus gigas
- Wheatley's ground sloth (listed as Megalonyx wheatleyi)
- Scelidotherium cuvieri
- Paraceratherium transouralicum (listed as Indricotherium)
- Edaphosaurus pogonias
- Ophiacodon retroversus
- Hipparion proboscideum
- American mastodon
- Columbian mammoth
- Irish elk
- Narwhal (listed as Monodon monoceros)
Mounted and Preserved Specimens and Models[]
- Indian Ocean oriental sweetlips
- Black marlin
- Green moray eel
- Spotted ratfish
- Australian ghostshark
- Great cormorant
- Snowy owl
- Scarlet ibis
- Knobbed hornbill
- Raggiana bird-of-paradise
- Kiwi
- King of Saxony bird-of-paradise
- Mantled guereza
- Fur seal
- Salt's dik-dik
- Garden dormouse
- Common wombat
- American alligator
- Atlantic puffin
- White-nosed coati
- Pangolin
- European hedgehog
- Northern tamandua
- Fire-footed rope squirrel
- Capybara
- Bat
- American lobster
- Giant panda
- Green sea turtle
- Black-and-white ruffed lemur
- Giant squid
Trivia[]
- The episode's original title was "Go Dodo Go". However, it was later changed to "Day of the Dodo". Despite this, the episode is sometimes referred to as the initial title.
- The Kratt brothers do not like to hear the word "extinct", and will go into a trance when they do.
- Besides the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger (which the Kratts visit in the next episode), the other extinct animals on the spinner of extinct creatures are the Rocky Mountain locust, the golden toad, the baiji, the great auk (which was called an auk penguin in this episode even though it is not related to penguins), Megaladapis, and the passenger pigeon.
- The Megaladapis, the great auk, the Tasmanian tiger, and the golden toad were also shown on the screen when Chris and Martin were figuring out which one they would see first.
- In addition to the Rhino-dozers from "Let the Rhinos Roll!", the T. Devil security bots from "Tazzy Chris", and the Mosquito-bots from "Mosquito Dragon"; the other inventions displayed that Zach made include the Runnerbot from "The Amazing Creature Race", the drums carrying the cleaning waste from "Aquafrog", and the Bubble Bot from "Skunked!".
- The macaque shown on Chris's Creature Pod while he explained the extinction of the dodos is the Japanese macaque. However, the crab-eating macaque was the species that was introduced to Mauritius.
Key Facts and Creature Moments[]
- Hunting and invasive species are often blamed for the extinction of the dodo in the 17th century.
- The dodo is a three-foot-tall member of the pigeon family.
- The dodo can't fly because there were no predators on the island of Mauritius before the arrival of humans, so dodos evolved to be flightless ground birds without anything to be afraid of. They were also too big, plump, and heavy to fly away.
- Dodos eat rocks to help them digest. The rocks sit in the dodo's stomach and help grind up the fruit they eat.
- When people first came to the island of Mauritius, dodos were an easy meal for hungry sailors, and people brought other animals to, such as pigs, dogs, and macaque monkeys, which ate dodo eggs and chicks, destroyed dodo habitats, and not long after that, there were no dodos left.
Gallery[]
