THE NATURALISTS was produced in 1972 by Denver's KRMA-TV and first aired on KRMA on March 11, 1973. The Naturalists was later broadcast on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). THE NATURALISTS was the first PBS series to be distributed internationally with special foreign language voice tracks, with a Spanish version available in July of 1974. Jim Case was the special projects director for KRMA-TV and was the producer-director of The Naturalists. He spent several years on preliminary research. The naturalists featured in the series were John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, John Burroughs and Henry Thoreau. Case believed the understanding of the work of these four men would be a valuable addition to the life of the nation. Titled THE NATURALISTS, the programs were originally produced by KRMA-TV. THE NATURALISTS was filmed on location in areas closely associated with the four men, from the California Sierras to Oyster Bay, Long Island. The first program focused on Thoreau. The narration included significant excerpts from their writings, with filming on location where each man lived. Their attitudes toward nature and conservation proved prophetic in terms of contemporary American society. America's system of national parks, monuments, forests and bird and wildlife preserves was the work of Muir and Roosevelt. Thoreau and Burroughs emerge in these portraits as more intellectual naturalists -- finding in nature the means of understanding the interrelationships of all living things. Each film used the unique mixture that was that naturalists's life -- his home, environment, work --- to tell his story. Cameras move about the homes, into the fields and woods, on to the streams and rivers, lakes and mountains that influenced these men. Each film uses excerpts from its subject's letters, prose, poetry and journals to reveal his intellectual and emotional life. The object of the series, according to its producer, is to help contemporary society "re-learn" the values and laws of nature that these men came to slowly and naturally.
