At My Whit’s End (Intro): What Even IS Adventures in Odyssey?

(Photo: Focus on the Family, Courtesy of the AIO Wiki)

There’s nothing more isolating than growing up on Christian kids media. You go to your secular school and try to excitedly explain the plot of Adventures in Odyssey and just get blank stares. It’s been like that since I was five years old. It’s still like that 30 years later. The conversation these days usually goes something like this.

Coastal Elite Friend: “Adventures in Odyssey? Like the one by Homer?”

Me: “No, it’s a Christian radio drama show for kids.” 

Lesbian Classmate With Church Trauma: “Ugh, it must be terrible.”

Me: “Most Christian kids media is, don’t get me started on Bibleman. But no, this show is… Good actually???”

Pagan I Dated for a Week: “So what is it then?”

And that’s what always trips me up because there is nothing like Adventures in Odyssey. For awhile I’d say,

“It’s like One Piece for Christians. A sprawling narrative with plots that get set up and paid off decades later. It’s run for nearly a thousand episodes!”

But people assumed it was a pirate show. It’s not… Most of the time. So I’d switch to saying it’s Christian Star Trek. A mass media empire that encompasses not just radio but books, animation, and rap music. (Somehow Adventures in Odyssey beat Star Trek to having rap by over 20 years. I am cursed with this knowledge.)

Of course they’d then assume it was a Jesus-y sci-fi series. It’s not… Sometimes. I resort to just listing off random episode plots such as…

-Family gives up TV for a month.

-Uncovering who took money out of the local ice cream shop cash register.

-An espionage spy thriller where a child is threatened to have his head shoved in a tank of swarming piranhas.

-Star Trek parody where “William Shattered” fights off “deception aliens” with his trusty scripture phaser.

-”Blackbeard the Pirate” inadvertently leads a character to God.

-”Time” “travel” to witness the crucifixion of Jesus.

-Wacky trip to Hawaii.

-Young girl gets cancer and dies, leaving her best friend to pick up the pieces and struggle to carry on.

-Recounting the story of the Underground Railroad which sets up lore for an 11-part saga that’s been built up to for ten years and involves an ice cream shop, a Christian street gang, bio weapons, and the world being held hostage.

-Babysit a cat.

Yeah. There’s nothing like Adventures in Odyssey. It defies description. It’s not like other disposable pieces of Christian kids media that have well earned reputations for low production values and children’s choirs that, charitably, your Grandma wouldn’t come to see.

Even when people politely sit through my wild explanation of the show I still get looks that say, “Are you SURE this is real?”

It’s frustrating because for a long time Adventures in Odyssey was the only media I ravenously consumed day and night. My friends grew up with Evanescence, Destiny’s Child, Michelle Branch, and Linkin Park CDs on loop.

I grew up with Adventures in Odyssey cassettes. They’re burned into my memory.

(Yours truly listening to an Adventures in Odyssey cassette in the ‘90s.)

I’d jam a whole story arc worth of cassettes in my pockets to take on hikes around my neighborhood. At the dinner table I’d listen to episodes on my Walkman while also reading The Complete Guide to Adventures in Odyssey for the 100th time. The series dominated long car rides with my family well into my teen years. One time I foolishly only brought a single cassette on a trip and listened to the same episode 10 times in a row. If I wasn’t directly talking to someone, Adventures in Odyssey was playing.

It defined the kinds of media I still gravitate to, which, in fitting with the list above, are often described as having “tone whiplash.” They gave me a moral compass. They taught me right and wrong. Wrongs like you should never date anyone who isn’t a Christian. Which I fully believed well into high school until I played the episode that moral came from to a non-Christian friend of mine, whose response was simply, “disgusting.”

Even after I’ve long abandoned my faith and become a glorious pansexual who wrote a sacrilegious story about the Christian vegetables of VeggieTales losing their faith, I still carry a lot of Adventures in Odyssey in me, more than I think I even realize.

That’s why I want to revisit this show. What about it has stayed with me? Is it all bad? Is it really one of the few “good” pieces of Christian media out there? Is there a way to sum this franchise up that won’t make people judgmentally stare at me?! What do you mean you don’t all know the “Communicate!” rap from Lights Out at Whit’s End?!?!?!?!

(Audio: Lights Out at Whit’s End: Written and Directed by Steve Harris and Phil Lollar, Sound Design by Bob Luttrell, Focus on the Family.)

God can take someone who’s lost in sin
And make their life brand new again
But how they gonna know new life is great
If Christians like us don’t communicate?

Communicate
Just open up your heart and communicate
We gotta share the gospel before it’s too late
And the best way to do it is communicate

(Confession. I typed this out from memory and double checked AIO wiki to see how close I got after not hearing it for over 20 years. I was a few words off. Jesus wept.)

As much as I want to go back to the very beginning and give you the whole history of how this franchise even came to be, those of you who have no experience with it need a better example of what you’re in for. A more appropriate taste of what the show is really like. So let’s start with the first episode I ever listened to. The one that got me hooked on this franchise.

(Photo: Focus on the Family, Courtesy of eBay user Boughtnowcommerce)

Castles and Cauldrons.

Will it be a cozy small town adventure? Or one of the more extreme episodes I mentioned earlier? Let’s just hit play on this cassette and...

(Audio: Castles and Cauldrons, I: Written and Directed by Paul McCusker, Sound Design by Bob Luttrell and Dave Arnold, Focus on the Family)

“Kids, I want to take a moment to talk to you and your parents about today’s episode of Adventures in Odyssey. I’m sure that many of you have heard about the so-called fantasy role playing games that are available in stores these days. Some kids who used to be caught up in these games now say that their involvement led them into contact with demons and even Satan worship. You younger listeners need to be warned about how dangerous these games can be.”

…

Why don’t you come along for a time of wonder, excitement, and satanic panic?!

Welcome to At My Whit’s End: A Deconstruction of Adventures in Odyssey.

Next Time: Mr. Whittaker Judo Chops A Ouija Board.