ttholt-1

This is one of the first adaptations of youth fiction done by Disney that stopped being true to the book and was changed for "improvements" that ruined the movie in the end. The book is way better. "The Mad Scientist's Club" by Bertrand R. Brinley (Also spelled Brinkley) is about a club of smart boys who figure out how to play pranks and solve mysteries in their small town by using their brains and scientific methods. "The Flying Man..." would have been a better episode but I'm guessing the author had some trouble with the liberties the company took with "The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove." Yes, the boys successfully pull a prank on their teacher, but the movie over-elaborates the monster as too cheesy where the book was less and therefore more believable.

My apologies. My first comment by my wife was about "The Boy Who talked to Badgers", not about this one. I tried to delete but this program will not. So I change it now... Disney actually did a great job adapting really good youth fiction books to the small screen for his television series "Disneyland" and eventually replayed on "The Wonderful World of Disney". many of these odd titles in the series are actually made from books found in the youth fiction section of the library. Because no one, especially kids, reads books anymore, many of these books have been lost or thrown away, removed from library shelves, and copies are difficult to find. My wife and I do not remember this episode in reruns or otherwise, we're guessing because it lacked that Disney "cute" charm that so permeated their other, more popular movies and short films, that these lesser-known book adaptations are over-looked and under-appreciated. Again, my apologies for the first comment with synopsis being wrong. Would be interested in knowing the real plot of this one.

THIS is the one my wife vaguely remembers - about a boy with a younger brother who had learning disabilities, but that's not what they called it then. The younger brother refused to go to school, or something like that. I can't remember if he ran away from home on purpose or just plain got lost on the prairie, but the boy had made friends with a falcon and a badger and followed both around the prairie searching for food and shelter. The falcon or the badger (can't remember which) lead the boy home, and the badger protects the boy from the attack of another wild animal - bobcat or wolf, again, can't remember which. I do remember trying to learn to whistle to attract my own falcon and I never did learn - I'm still practicing! I got into bird watching and bird identification because of this show because I wanted my own cool falcon as a pet, which probably wasn't a great idea in Los Angeles but would have been cool at the time. To this day I gave my daughter a cool falcon name and pay attention when the red-tailed hawks cry up in the sky here in Central California. I'm still hoping to one day learn falconry just because of this show.