At My Whit’s End: Odyssey USA Prelude - You Can (Not) Rap

(Photo: Generic Image of Whit by Bruce Day, Focus on the Family. Image courtesy of The Odyssey Scoop.)

...So.

In Odyssey USA, Whit raps.

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 communicate¹

(If this song made you accept God into your heart? Sorry, it doesn’t count. Pastors out there, does a conversion still “count” if it’s obtained with sinful actions?)

I showed this video to a friend and his response was swift.

“I’m unfriending you.”

Can’t really blame him. This rap is an embarrassingly “hip” attempt to appeal to the youths and not just by 2025 standards. It was mortifying back when it was recorded in 1987. AIO actor Dave Griffin, 10 years old at the time, was there. As he recalls it’s, “a memory of such devastating trauma that I’ve never recovered.”²

Unfortunately this rap, which I regret to inform you is only a small snippet of the full song, sets the tone for Odyssey USA as a whole. As Griffin put it, “I learned that day that The Large People sometimes didn’t know what Us Small People liked but they sure as hell were gonna try to pander to my generation as best they can.” And they did this with, “the greatest creative bomb in the history of the show.”³

(Photo: Odyssey USA logo, Focus on the Family. Courtesy of Dave Griffin.)

After three test pilots and a season of thirteen pilots, Focus on the Family was done with trial runs. A full series was green lit, but, much like when Family Portraits was given the go ahead, frustratingly little direction was provided. While the creative team wanted to do a weekly series, there was strong resistance from the other parties involved.

As writer Phil Lollar remembers, “Our agencies (that) would place the programs on radio stations said, you’ve got to do a daily. Even internally, within Focus, some of the executives were saying ‘you’ve got to do a daily show.’” The writers pushed back, demoralized at the idea of producing a half hour of original drama up to the standard of Family Portraits every single day of the year. The only way it was even conceivable to do a daily show was, according to the writers, making it a soap opera, where, “it’s a 15 minute show every day… and the first ten minutes of the show have to be a recap of the previous episode.”⁴

The other involved parties acquiesced to a weekly show but insisted there be a new episode every week of the year without breaks. 52 episodes in a year.

Dobson and company remind me of a boss I once had who asked, “Can you make an Iron Man suit?” As I reasonably explained I didn’t have that level of experience with visual effects, he cut me off and clarified his request. “No. Can you make it for real?” Much like that boss, the people green lighting what would become Adventures in Odyssey have zero grasp, not just on the creative process, but reality itself.

“We were doomed from day one,” co-creator Steve Harris recalls in horror, but the team didn’t have time to dwell on how screwed they were. Focus had given them the go ahead three weeks before the first episode was supposed to go on air!⁵

Key decisions had to be made and fast. The most critical, the one that would inevitably lead to Whit rapping, was narrowing the show’s target audience. Family Portraits utilized a shotgun method of stories aimed at wildly different age groups, trying to court the whole family. No Disney style “stories for kids that adults can also enjoy.” Instead one week you’d get a story done from a kid POV about going to the dentist and the next would have an adult dealing with generational trauma.

The creative team settled on aiming the new show at 8-12 year old’s.⁶ Future Whit rapping trauma aside, this was the right move. Susan McBride had demonstrated the power of these types of stories and A Member of the Family Part 2 codified it, for better or worse. If the show is meant to spark conversations between kids and their parents, it makes more sense to aim it at the kids. You don’t have to talk down to them of course but-

Now listen here kids, gonna tell you something great,
‘Bout some different ways to communicate.
You can put up a sign, you can write a book,
you can say a lot ‘bout the way you look.

You can grumble, you can mutter, you can stammer, you can blab,
You can shatter, you can tatter, you can lecture, you can gab.
You can use a pen or paper, or slate and chalk.
But the best way to do it is to sit down and talk.⁷

...We’ll get there.

Plus, the idea of doing morality plays for adults is… Well, it kind of gives the game away, doesn’t it? Not blowing any minds here, but Odyssey is a propaganda tool. As I’ve discussed in the past, it’s meant to get you into the Focus on the Family ecosystem. To start believing what they believe, to rely on them for raising your family “right,” and, most importantly, to buy their products. A Christian radio show that teaches kids to not be afraid of going to the dentist is, on the surface, fine. It’s just PBS. (Beneath the surface though it’s PBS without the diversity. Oops.)

But when you try to apply the same tactics a show like Mr. Rogers uses to teach kids about anger but instead for adult issues?

“Hello, grown-up neighbor. How you doing? I’m glad we can be together right now. You know, everyone has lots of ways of feeling about homosexuality. And the way you feel, to cut off your children, is fine. What we do with our feeling is to show God’s love. Whenever I feel a little mad at myself for why my child is a homosexual, I just sing “It’s Not My Fault.”

It’s not my fault
The demons’ inside
It’s not my fault
When I call and they cry

It’s not my fault
It’s his impulsiveness
It’s not my fault
He’s not here for Christmas

It’s not my fault
He chooses to sin
It’s not my fault
He hasn’t checked-in

It’s not my fault
He loves sodomy
It’s not my fault
He now lives on the street

It’s not my fault
It’s God above all
It’s not my fault
When I get the call

It’s not my fault
He’s an abomination.
It’s not my fault
I opted for his cremation.

It would be obvious what Dobson and company really think of you.

They think you’re an idiot.

So stupid that the only way you’ll learn anything is if you’re spoken to like a five year old. It’s why episodes like Spare Tire, House Guest, and The Letter were such flops as dramas. They tried to tackle adult level issues with the same energy of a sheep hand puppet waggling its hoof at you and admonishing, “don’t be a big meanie!” Yes, I had some praise for the “adult” Family Portraits episodes but most weren’t anywhere near as strong as the kid focused ones. Stick with what you’re good at, aka what Susan McBride was good at, guys.

While the decision making process to focus the show on 8-12 year old’s was done in haste, Focus on the Family has since claimed the show was, “part of a push in the mid-1980s to offer kids wholesome, faith-affirming entertainment and educational materials.”⁸

Dave Griffin, who was raised in, as he refers to it, “Evangelicaltopia” has a more blunt summation of the show’s intended purpose. It was created, “as a direct response to the unholy godlessnesssexificationprofanityladensatanworshippingwhorevision being pumped into our kids brains every day.”⁹

This lines up with the seminal interview where noted kid-puncher James Dobson had been told it wasn’t enough to “simply decry the lousy programming on television and radio-they also need to produce high-quality alternative programming.”¹⁰ This makes it sound like the intentions behind the show weren’t so bad. Who doesn’t want safe TV for their kids?

First off, that already existed and it was called PBS. You can’t get safer than Sesame Street. But no, all that wording from Dobson and Focus were just smoke and mirrors to cover up that the creation of Odyssey was part of a larger reaction by Evangelicals to progressive social change in 1960s America. As Talia Lavin explains in Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America, Christian conservatives were opposed to the social change embodied in the civil rights and feminists movements. This led to a new wave of fundamentalism among Evangelicals.¹¹

Dobson saw his own biblical parenting, and thus Focus on the Family as a whole, as a, “necessary curative for the permissive, sinful culture that had swept through the United States in the 1960s.”¹² And by “sinful culture,” he means people of color, women, queer people, and other minorities, have rights. Dobson and later Focus saw things like the integration of schools and, in one of their many racist moves, set out to create, “a parallel culture that existed alongside but apart from secular Americana.”¹³

Basically, Odyssey is the truck-kun meant to isekai you to James Dobson’s fantasy world of everlasting white power.

To keep you away from the secular siren song of demonic (aka diverse) PBS. (“Come on and Zoom”? More like “Come on and Zoom” straight to hell!)

In the 80s almost all Christian media, especially ones targeted at kids, were not up to the task of competing against secular entertainment. We were years off from the oasis of Christian quality that is VeggieTales. As Odyssey Writer Paul McCusker puts it, most of that media was “embarrassing.”¹⁴

I’ve shown an example of Odyssey’s competition before but I know that most of my readers automatically assume ALL Christian media is embarrassing. No, you don’t understand. Compare this bit from Psalty the Singing Songbook-

Lisa: “Hold it. Let's not forget to pray, Psalty!”

Psalty: “Check, check. Thanks for reminding us, Lisa. Will you pray for us?”

Random Kid: “Yeah. Lisa, you're good at praying!”

Lisa: “Dear Lord. Thank you for letting all of us go camping. It's going to be a lot of fun. I hope. My big brother told me that there are lions, tigers, and bears out there. Is that true? If so, could you please put them in a zoo? Just for tonight. Thank you once again. And amen! Your best friend, Lisa.”

Everyone: “AMEN!”¹⁵

To Odyssey USA.

Officer Harley: “Say, what's the matter, Johnny? You look a little confused.”

Johnny: “I just had a really strange conversation with Linda.”

Officer Harley: “I had a strange conversation with a girl once.”

Johnny: “Really? What happened?”

Officer Harley: “I married her. But that's beside the point. Sorry, Johnny. Duty calls. There's a car parked in that red zone over there. I've got to write a ticket.”

Johnny: “Officer Harley, that's your car.”

Officer Harley: “It is. Oh. I know! But ignorance of the law is no excuse!”¹⁶

Comedic timing. Distinct memorable characters. Not needing to mention the bible every other second. Actual jokes! And, you know, real actors. Psalty is giving ‘Youth Pastor just off camera mouthing the words and mimicking the actions because they were required to cast every single kid in the Church for fear of donations drying up and Pastor Jeff not getting the new expansion to his house.’ Odyssey though? Grade-A professionals giving it their all.

I’ve already discussed how the talent of Hal Smith brought Katie Leigh into the fold but she wasn’t the only one. Actor Will Ryan (Officer Harley) also worked with Smith on Dumbo’s Circus and came to work for Odyssey because of that connection.¹⁷ Ryan’s credits are extensive, including Rabbit and Tigger in Welcome to Pooh Corner, Petrie in the original The Land Before Time, Digit in An American Tail, Winnie the Pooh on Family Guy, and so much more.

Odyssey scored two more of its main actors, Walker Edmiston and Chris Lansdowne, through Production Engineer Bob Luttrell. Edmiston had worked with him on the Salvation Army radio drama, Heartbeat Theater, while Lansdowne met him at a voice demo and the two bonded over a Jesus fish sticker she had on her car.¹⁸

Walker’s credits are just as extensive as Ryan’s. Inferno in Transformers G1, Enik in the original Land of the Lost, Sebastian in Dumbo’s Circus, Fire Lord Azulon in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harvery Gabor on Jem and the Holograms, Kingpin in Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, and, of course, so many more.

I swear, ever since I started writing this blog series I’ve noticed AIO actors are EVERYWHERE. (My fiancé has borne witness to these revelations with increasing bemusement.)

Watching a video essay about Lego Island? “June Foray played Mama Brickolini?! She was also Natasha on Rocky and Bullwinkle. She did multiple AIO projects!”

Discussing which The Land Before Time dinosaur would be a cop (it’s Cera, don’t @ me)? “Wait, hold on. Aria Curzon played the third Ducky?! She was a main kid actor on AIO for years!”

Looking up Walker Edmiston and noticing he has a Star Trek Memory Alpha page. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Tom Riley’s voice actor played the kid voice of Balok in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode The Corbomite Maneuver?! WHAT?!?!?!!?!?!?!”

(Photo: Production Engineer Bob Luttrell and voice actress Chris Lansdowne during the early days of Odyssey. Courtesy of The Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast.)

Lansdowne may be the most easily recognizable of the cast to readers of this blog, as she’s best known as the voice of Barbie in the ‘90s (including the Barbie Fashion Designer video game.)

Most of the cat were voice actors with decades long resumes. They brought a wealth of experience unmatched in Christian entertainment. They weren’t all FAMOUS but they were some of THE character actors of the Hollywood voiceover scene. Which, for a radio drama series, is ideal. If audio’s all you got? You need the talent of a cast like this to pull it off.

With this massive talent pool in place, the creative team developed the characters they’d portray. Unlike Family Portraits, which was more of an anthology series, Odyssey would feature a main cast that would appear in most of the episodes. Mr. Whittaker was ported over from the previous series, no surprise there with the talent and star power of Hal Smith. The character was cemented as the lead and given new depth.

(Photo: Early Illustration of Whit from 1987, Artist Unknown, Focus on the Family. Courtesy of The Complete Guide to Adventures in Odyssey.)

“We needed to make Whit more Aslan, for lack of a better phrase,” writer Phil Lollar recalls; Aslan being the Jesus-like figure in The Chronicles of Narnia book series. “A bit more mysterious. The guy who would swoop in and fix (a) problem.”¹⁹ This also entailed some changes to Whit’s End itself, transforming from the more mature bookstore/coffee shop to, as Whit himself describes,

Whit: “A place of adventure and discovery filled with books and activities, fun and games, arts and crafts, and uplifting conversation. But most of all, it will be a place where kids of all ages can just be kids.”²⁰

Whit’s End now serves coffee AND ice cream and while it would still have books, Phil Lollar admits that couldn’t be the main draw.

“I highly encourage kids to read, but they weren’t going to sit around and read all the time. They weren’t just going to sit around and talk. So we had to do other things.”²¹

(Photo: Early Illustration of Whit’s End, Artist Unknown. Courtesy of AIO Wiki.)

Whit’s End gained a small theater, an electric train room, and much more as the show went on. As co-creator Steve Harris put it, “We wanted “Whit’s End to be the kind of place that was always way bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.”²² And thus, Whit’s End takes form as a “Discovery Emporium,” basically a really fancy recreation center geared towards kids, befitting Odyssey’s new 8-12 demographic. To fund such a lavish business, and give Whit that air of mystery, the writers made him a millionaire. Where did he get the money? Why did he create Whit’s End? Audiences wouldn’t have to wait long for answers.

(Remember how Whit was introduced in Whit’s Visitor with a joke about how little he pays his staff? If he’s a millionaire that makes it extra screwed up! Trickle-down economics my ass!)

(Photo: Tom Riley, Art by Bruce Day. Focus on the Family. Image Courtesy of eBay user Julie's Amazing Finds.)

To give Whit a contemporary (aka not a kid) and a character who’d lived in Odyssey all his life, “simple” farmer Tom Riley was born. Played by Walker Edmiston, Tom would serve as someone, “who (Whit) could knock ideas around with and reveal what was going on in his thought processes.” Tom had made a few appearances in Family Portraits but would be central to Odyssey going forward. His Christian faith would also play a big role, as Steve Harris outlined. “He was a gentle man who demonstrated Christian virtues at their best without getting overbearing–a quiet man whose faith was real.”²³

And he’s a terrible rapper!

Be swift to hear
Be slow to speak
Be slow to anger
Do you get it?

Be meek!

“Hey, I think I got it. This is fun!”²⁴

This is how you know Edmiston was a pro. No matter how embarrassing, he took that script, got into character, and played it for all it was worth. Still terrible but, hey, that’s the life of a character actor.

Two new leads emerged out of an all-day brainstorming session that included someone other than the current creative team of Odyssey. For a single day they met with writer Joe Glauberg, best known at that time as a staff writer from Happy Days, who’d created the character of Mork, played by Robin Williams. This was more than enough to give him credibility with the creative team, though Phil Lollar once again gets his facts wrong about AIO history. He claims Glauberg was a staff writer on Mork & Mindy when in fact he’d never written a single episode, he was only credited for the creation of the Mork character.²⁵

(Photo: Officer Harley, Artist Unknown, Focus on the Family. Image Courtesy of eBay user LeAnnSomethingForYou)

Even still, Glauberg’s comedic sensibilities more than likely helped in the creation of bumbling police officer David Harley, portrayed by Will Ryan. Unlike Whit and Tom, who would only have some humorous moments, Harley was designed purely as a comedic character.²⁶ Always tackling problems with the best of intentions, though easily confused, Ryan’s portrayal gave Harley a zany cartoon energy.

You know, now that I think about it, the three lead male characters of the series are all channeling different aspects of James Dobson.

Whit: The wealthy businessman.

Tom: Dispenser of “folksy” advice.

Officer Harley: A cop, so (probably) advocates police-level brutality to beat children!

All three of these characters would be friends but Glauberg suggested the show needed, “some kind of antagonist.”²⁷

(Photo: Early illustration of Connie, Art by Bruce Day, Focus on the Family. Image courtesy of The Odyssey Scoop.)

What better than a high school girl, the most wicked of creatures God created to test the hearts of men? Thus, with actress Katie Leigh in mind for the role²⁸, Connie Kendall was born. A teenager in high school, she’d be, as Harris explains, “a little older than the target age range of the audience. So she’s kind of a role model, but she’s kind of not.”²⁹ This tactic of using main characters that are older than the target demographic is a common one used by kids media. As television producer Robert Hughes (Big Bad Beetleborgs, Out of Control) explained to me back in 2013, “Nine year old kids look up to 11 year old kids and 11 year old kids look to 13 year old kids.” It’s why so many Disney or Nickelodeon shows you remember watching as a young kid were about middle or high schoolers.

Glauberg recommended that the upbeat Connie be positioned as a direct foil to “the Whit guy.” (or, as Adobe Premiere accidentally transcribed, “the white guy.”) The major element the Odyssey creative team added was that she’d come from a “broken family.” This would open up different stories to moralize about.³⁰ The only major female character in the show could be used to demonstrate how divorce turns your kid into an evil demon spawn that must be mind crushed into compliance? Lord Dobson would have been extremely pleased.

Despite Odyssey’s target demographic of 8-12 year old’s, Connie was the closest the series would get to a kid main character, at least in the beginning. Episodes would feature younger kids but they’d all be one-off’s, each learning a different lesson.

With these key pillars of the series in place, writing began, with the team already behind schedule. Harris recalls that, for the first month of production, he and Lollar, “were putting in 80-hour work weeks. It was ridiculous.”³¹ To help ease the burden of writing, Paul McCusker, a freelance writer for Family Portraits, joined the writing staff full-time. Several episodes of Family Portraits would be re-aired in order to buy the producers more time, thus enshrining them into the new canon. So we can blame the absurd expectations of Focus on the Family leadership for “Whit is a child beater” being part of AIO canon. Thanks, Dob.

The last detail to fall into place would be the series title. Family Portraits wouldn’t work, now that the show was aimed at kids. Simply calling it “Odyssey” was deemed “too generic” so they settled on Odyssey USA.³² Yes, because adding “USA” makes it so much less generic.

Finally, on November 21, 1987³³, Odyssey USA premiered on 200 radio stations across the country. Time slots varied but Focus was “targeting the series for Saturday mornings as viable alternative to kids’ television cartoons.”³⁴ Instead of watching Fraggle Rock: The Animated Series, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, or Hello Kitty: Furry Tale Theater, thousands of kids across America were first exposed to the godly stories of child beater Mr. Whittaker and friends.

Next Time: Odyssey USA succinctly demonstrates why Republicans feel justified in taking away all your rights!

Note: Originally I didn’t want to have comments enabled on these posts but recently I decided that they could prove useful to readers. Whether it be to give feedback, ask questions, share information, make corrections, or just seeking community with fellow readers. I’ve turned on comments for the earlier posts as well. Enjoy and please share your thoughts.

Sources:

Lights Out at Whit’s End: Written and Directed by Steve Harris and Phil Lollar, Production Engineer Bob Luttrell, Focus on the Family, 1987.

(1)

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(24)

The Prodigal: Again?!?, Written by Dave Griffin, 2022.

(2)

(3)

“Rewind from 1000 to 0001 with Steve Harris and Phil Lollar,” The Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast, Focus on the Family, 2024.

(4)

(17)

(30)

“Adventures in Odyssey: The Official Guide 25th Birthday Edition” by Nathan Hoobler, Tyndale House Publishers Inc., 2012.

(5) Page 13

(23) Page 19

(28) Page 85

(31) Page 13

"The Complete Guide to Adventures in Odyssey” by Phil Lollar, Focus on the Family Publishing, 1997.

(6) Page 34

(10) Page 3

(25) Page 34

(26) Page 34

(32) Page 34

(33) Page 34

“Focus on the Family: Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of God’s Faithfulness, Tehabi Books, 2002.

(8) Page 210

The Prodigal: Paranoid Humanoids, Written by Dave Griffin, 2022.

(9)

“Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America” by Talia Lavin, Legacy Lit, 2024)

(11) Page 26, citing Satan In America: The Devil We Know by W. Scott Poole, Page 120.

(12) Page 199

(13) Page 202

“Celebrate Adventures in Odyssey’s 30th Birthday” from the Adventures in Odyssey Official YouTube channel, 2017.

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Kids Praise! 5: Psalty’s Camping Adventure… Count It All Joy! Marantha! Music, 1986.

(15)

Doing Unto Others: Written by Phil Lollar, Directed by Phil Lollar and Steve Harris, Production Engineer Bob Luttrell, Focus on the Family, 1988.

(16)

“Happy 30th Birthday, Adventures in Odyssey! Hop in the Imagination Station and travel 30 years back to the recording of the first episode: Whit’s Flop,” The Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast, Focus on the Family, 2017.

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“BONUS! The creation of "Family Portraits": A Discussion with Steve Harris, Phil Lollar, and Chuck Bolte,” Focus on the Family, 2012.

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Recollections: Written by Phil Lollar, Directed by Steve Harris, Production Engineer Bob Luttrell, Focus on the Family, 1988.

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“BONUS! Actress Katie Leigh on the creation of Connie”: Adventures in Odyssey #1: The Adventure Begins - The Early Classics, Focus on the Family, 2003.

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500: Assembled by Nathan Hoobler, Sound Designer Jonathan Crowe, 2002

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Focus on the Family Magazine, 1987, as archived by AIOHQ.

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