The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs is the sixth book in Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen's The Magic School Bus series.
Synopsis
The kids are transforming their classroom into Dinosaur Land for Parents Night, as they are studying dinosaurs. Ms Frizzle then gets a letter from an old high school friend who is now a paleontologist and she decides to take the class on a trip to the dig. When she discovers that they are missing the bones of some Maiasaurs, she turns the bus into a time machine to travel back to the age of dinosaurs to find the bones. The class sees dinosaurs and learns the name of the different periods of the era and other information.
Notes
This book is the first time Ms. Frizzle's first name is mentioned. This is the first appearance of Keesha and Carlos in the original series books; the TV series debuting the same year this book was released. The book seems to feature a predestination paradox. In the present, the palaeontologists find Maiasaura bones, but have difficulty finding their nests. An astute reader will notice that the Maiasaura were apparently separated from their nests because of the Troodon pack the class inadvertently led to their nesting grounds.
Television adaptation
The episode's main aim was to show that dinosaurs weren't all terrifying monsters, like movies often make them out to be. This episode is loosely the television adaptation of The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs (from the book series). The book shows all the time periods but the television adaptation shows just the Cretaceous period. All three time periods (Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous) were seen in the book. Unlike in the book (which focuses with all the time periods), the cartoon adaptation only focuses with the Cretaceous. This version shows only the Cretaceous because it was due to time constraints. Time constraints forced this version to show only that period in order for the episode (The Busasaurus) in the TV series to be up to 30 minutes (like all other episodes).
In this episode, the kids visit Ms. Frizzle's old friend, Dr. Carmina Skeledon at a dinosaur dig, as opposed to Jeff in the book. Dr. Skeledon lets Arnold see a fossilized dinosaur egg that Ms. Frizzle finds as the kids are leaving, and he still has it when they go back in time. The kids watch as they entered the Ice Age and finally end in the Cretaceous. Having gone back "67 million years, give or take a month or two", as Ms. Frizzle tells them, the kids are frightened away by the appearance of large, long necked dinosaurs called Alamosaurus (well, actually a titanosaur).
They separated and scattered, Arnold running to Phoebe and Liz. He trips on a rock, and the egg went flying, Liz catching it in time. Arnold lets Phoebe see the egg, but an Ornithomimus steals it from her. Arnold runs after the dinosaur, yelling "That egg doesn't belong to you! Come to think of it...it doesn't belong to me either!". Phoebe runs after him, Liz quickly running to tell Ms. Frizzle.
The rest of the class and Ms. Frizzle re-group, Liz explaining that Arnold and Phoebe ran off. Carlos, being paranoid about getting eaten by dinosaurs exclaims, "I knew this would happen! The dinos did them in!" The class hides out on a river bank, looking out for Arnold and Phoebe, and Ralphie spots them. They cross a herd of Parasaurolophus (where the Bus takes form of a Parasaurolophus) and land in an Edmontosaurus nest. The class continues on their way, only to find themselves with a Triceratops herd in a field. The Bus then takes form of a Triceratops. A pack of carnivorous Troodon chase a baby Triceratops, and the smaller Troodon are scared off by the larger Triceratops. While most of the dinosaurs encountered on the field trip were herbivores (plant eating dinosaurs) including Alamosaurus, Parasaurolophus, and Edmontosaurus, Troodon was a carnivore. At that, Dorothy Ann sees them and takes note that the Troodon eat meat indeed.