This 1967 color installment of a news magazine program for young people hosted by Bill Owen and Virginia Gibson offers an educational look at volcanoes, featuring a visit to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park (TRT: 22:12).
Red hot molten lava spews forth from the mouth of an active volcano in Hawaii (0:06). Title overlay: “Hawaii, Land of Volcanoes.” Discovery ‘67 animated opening sequence (0:28). Hosts Bill Owen and Virginia Gibson introduce themselves outdoors in Hilo, Hawaii (0:57). Labels on a staircase indicate: “Lady Fair Beauty Salon, Hilo Fashion School,” etc. (1:18). A sign for “Mamo Cafe, Meals, Sushi, Okazu.” A street sign for Kamehameha Avenue. The Canario Building. Automobiles driving on a sunny day (1:22). A neon sign advertises “Hilo Kow Kow Korner, Delicious Chinese, Hawaiian, Filipino Foods.” Filipino Hawaiians. A movie advertisement for Leopoldo Salcedo and Gloria Sevilla in “Divisoria Quiapo” (1955). A poster “for Nemuri Kyōshirō 9: Burai-hikae masho no hada” (1967), aka “Sleepy Eyes of Death 9: A Trail of Traps” (1:34). A group of girls fishing. A woman lights a torch (1:45). Signs: “Kobayashi Travel Service, Mahalo Stamps, Ichiriki Take Out” (2:03). Exterior: The Hilo Public Library and the Naha Stone (2:10). A map of the Pacific Ocean zooms in on Hawaii. Topographical illustrations show the region’s mountain range (2:36). The Hawaiian Islands are listed: Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Maui, and Hawaii, “The Big Island” (3:17). Poolside at a resort hotel, Owen wears a floral shirt (3:36). Footage of erupting volcanoes resumes (4:03). Our hosts reappear at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, near Kīlauea Iki Crater. Charred ohia (ōhiʻa lehua) trees and volcanic ash (4:23). A field of ash and cinders extends to the horizon (5:23). Footage from November of 1959 shows the same area in full eruption (5:35). Owen returns from a commercial break (6:17). A man in a red hardhat loads a crate of cargo, and lowers it on a pulley tramline (6:43). A group of geologists wearing backpacks walks down to the crater of Kīlauea Iki on foot, surrounded by green foliage (7:04). A handful of solidified igneous rock (8:16). The mouth of a drilled hole. Geologists insert a thermocouple and take a temperature reading with a potentiometer (8:36). A view of the distant glowing lava. Drilling continues, cooled by water. Steam evaporates (9:45). A core sample of hard lava is examined (10:39). Gibson narrates (11:09). A panorama of the park. A Volcano Observatory office. A seismograph on paper, and on film (11:26). The geologist approaches a chalkboard illustration of a volcano’s interior, below sea level (13:18). A 1960 eruption is illustrated (15:45). Pahoehoe lava flows are discussed and illustrated. Footage of a pahoehoe lava flow from Kīlauea in Kapoho (16:10). Papaya trees fall amid the natural destruction. Fast moving lava flows (16:52). Owens returns, surveying the changed landscape. Our hosts at the windswept seaside (17:21). An igneous rock. A panorama of foliage in Kīpukapuaulu, aka “Bird Park” and a kīpuka, or decomposed lava flow (18:17). A Hāpuʻu fern and its hairlike pulu (18:58). A landscape of steam vents and sulphur banks. Aerial footage of a Kīlauea eruption taken shortly after the hosts’ visit at Halemaʻumaʻu crater (19:29). Hosts wrap up (20:32). Owens and Gibson stand atop an airstair outside a United Airlines jet airliner to offer some book recommendations for young readers: “Hawaii, Hawaii Nei, Kimo and Madame Pele” (20:57). End credits. The United Airlines logo (21:25).
This episode of Discovery ‘67 was produced and directed by Jules Power and Daniel Wilson, written by Joseph Hurley, and edited by Stuart Grant for ABC News and Public Affairs in cooperation with the National Park Service and the United States Geological Survey, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
