At My Whit’s End: Portrait of a Family on Fire (Part 3)
(Photo: Image courtesy of AIO Wiki and The Odyssey Scoop.)
“Whit will be the first to tell you that the best stories aren’t found on the shelves of his quaint corner shop, called ‘Whit’s End.’ In fact, the best stories aren’t finished; they are still in the making.” - Early ad for Family Portraits.¹
Thus far Family Portraits, in its attempts to define what Adventures in Odyssey would become, has been all over the place. Kid POV slice of life. Guides for adults on how to interact with kids. Guides for kids on how God wants them to live. A mouthpiece (ad) for Dobson. A small lifeline to save listeners from the Dobson funnel. It’s unusual “pilot season” approach is being utilized to to the fullest.
But that can’t last forever. Eventually one format has to win out. I already have my preferences, the kid POV stories by Susan McBride, but with four episodes left? We could see this show take a big swing and find a format that works even better. Or they’ll stumble wildly and, hopefully, learn what doesn’t work.
In Memory of Herman
When the family frog dies, Amanda and Vic can’t agree if they should teach their son about Jesus.
As a Focus on the Family production, you’d expect Family Portraits to be filled to the brim with Christian preaching and “faith” content. Yet its only been a major element in the resolution of “My Brother’s Keeper,” with Philip unsure if God would listen to his prayers. Light references to Christianity and the Bible have been sprinkled throughout, such as Whit quoting scripture in “A Different Kind of Peer Pressure,” but overall it’s fairly incidental.
“In Memory of Herman” is the show’s first episode fully dedicated to Christianity, or as I wrote in my initial notes, “annnnddd here comes the God stuff.” With that reaction, you’d think I’d consider this the worst episode yet. After all, I haven’t considered myself a Christian or believer in God for over 15 years (figuring out you’re not straight while working at a Christian summer camp tends to lead in that direction.) Yet the story, which follows Amanda’s desperate struggle to get her husband, Vic, to understand the wonders of Jesus, is one that I can appreciate even if I’m not a major fan. I get what its going for. Mostly. Honestly the God stuff didn’t bother me, it was how Amanda and Vic treated each other after they openly argued about “eternity” in front of their son.
Amanda: “Thank you very much, Victor.”
Victor: “Uh oh. She's called me Victor. That means she's mad.”
Amanda: “How perceptive of you.”²
Victor’s got the same energy as a little kid about to be scolded by his mom. Basically-
So much of the (un)appeal of Christian media is how didactic it can be about believing in God, which this episode very much leans into, yet it still works here. Amanda’s fear, that her husband and son will end up in hell if they don’t believe in God, feels genuine. It’s a realistic perspective of a believer desperately trying to “save” her loved ones. To Amanda, it truly isn’t enough to be a “good person,” you have to give your heart and soul to Jesus if you want eternal life. Her husband can’t see that and it’s breaking her heart.
Yet even with Amanda’s strained preaching, the episode allows Vic to get some cutting retorts in.
Victor: “Yeah, and next, you'll be telling me that if I don't believe exactly the way you believe, then you'll divorce me! Oh, no, no, I forgot. Your church doesn't believe in divorce unless I'm having an affair or something. Well, maybe I should just go out and accommodate ya!”
Amanda: “Vic!”
Victor: “I'm- I'm sorry. Amanda. I shouldn't have said that Look, it's- It's getting late. I-I-I'm going to go in to work.”
Amanda: “Vic, I love you.”
Victor: “How can you love me when you don't respect me?”³
Vic isn’t demanding the kind of respect Dobson expects women to dutifully show to men. He just wants her to not push her beliefs onto him so hard. Shockingly, Whit agrees with Vic when Amanda vents about her frustrations. (Oddly Amanda says, “I just wish something would happen that I could use to CONVICT him,” when she was supposed to say “CONVINCE” but it made me do a double take. Dobson-ian slip?) Whit explains she’s doing the “wrong kind of witnessing.” Amanda’s confused. She shouldn’t witness to her husband?
After Whit shares the Dobson-pandering insight, “the Bible says that a wife’s behavior will win her her husband” (NOPE) he thankfully gets into advice I can agree with.
“As much as you love Vic, God loves him even more and desires that everyone come to him.”
Amanda’s still confused. If God wants everyone to come to him, why won’t her husband? Whit replies that’s between Vic and God. As for the burden Amanda feels to convert him?
Whit: “Vic’s salvation does not depend on you. You can't save Vic, Amanda. Only God, through Jesus, can. You told him what to do. I think he knows what to do. And if it's God's will, he'll do it. Your job is to be there when it happens.”⁴
I could get deep into the “if it’s God’s will, he’ll do it” line, the nature of choice when it comes to “sin,” and my eternal confusion of how God could “will” someone to not accept him. It’s one of the fundamental issues I have with some forms of Christianity. Instead I want to focus on Whit stressing to Amanda that she isn’t responsible for her husband’s salvation. That it needs to be his choice, one she can’t force on him. She’s done her part, she’s let him know what she believes and why. Now he can make up his own mind about it. This, by extension, is gently reminding that audience that trying to force Christianity on a non-believer rarely works. Instead it’s better to live the life of a believer and if someone wants to know more? They’ll approach you.
So many Christian/Evangelical groups are obsessed with converting non-believers, often to destructive ends. A lack of belief in God is used to justify hatred, bigotry, racism, and much more. Whit’s reminder to Amanda that it isn’t her responsibility to convert Vic is an excellent reminder to Christian listeners that no matter how “right” they believe they are? It doesn’t justify going to any lengths necessary to secure a conversation.
It’s subtle, a mere skirmish in the war between Dobson and the writers, but one I really respect. It’s not “perfect” to non-believers, but having grown up in a world that preached I should “witness” to my non-believer friends at every chance I could get? To treat them as lesser because they don’t believe? It’s refreshing.
This is still a story for the Focus on the Family audience so we get the ultimate Christian wish fulfillment moment after Vic nearly dies in a work accident and comes to Amanda with, “a few questions that never really occurred to me before.” It’s the easiest layup Christian Youth Group drills into you, the sort of moment where your “Godly ways” will finally pay off, so it’s not surprising the episode ends on it. Would it have been rad if Vic refused to accept Jesus and Amanda was left to grapple with what that means for their relationship? Hell yeah, but at least we don’t get Vic falling to his knees and accepting God as the episode ends. For all we know he doesn’t ever become a believer, or it takes years to work out how faith in God aligns with his values. I’m sure the intention was he’d accept God into his heart not long after but that ambiguity is, again, refreshing.
Ambiguity isn’t a strong feature in Christian media. This episode might be the first place a Christian listener would get any kind of questioning of the strict teachings they’ve been subjected to their whole life. Yes, the story here might seem lacking to anyone outside the faith, but to those in it? It could be a lifeline.
Family Portraits was always going to do an episode full of “God stuff" like this. It’s shocking they waited ten episodes to do it! They couldn’t just do “folksy” advice forever, it’s a show made by and for Christians at the end of the day. If they didn’t talk about God, what would be the point? I have no doubt this alone would turn off many non-believers (aka readers of this blog, I assume) if they somehow stumbled upon this episode in the wild. For some, any mention of God or Jesus or “belief” is an instant “NOPE” and would be reason to stop interacting with this franchise all together.
I get that and understand it, but if any mention of God or Jesus sent me into an atheist screed, I wouldn’t have started this blog. I knew what I was in for and “God stuff” is expected. But if this is the kind of “God stuff” we get in Adventures in Odyssey? Stories that allow for nuance and not demanding strict adherence to faith? I’m okay with it. I’m not going to recommend it with the same fervor I do for more inclusive and morally complex pieces of media such as Boys in the Band, ReBoot, Alien Nation, Robotech (shameless plug, I’ve done a whole podcast about it), It’s a Sin, Noah’s Arc, Centaurworld, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the nine and a half good episodes of Sliders. But for Christian media that’s directly preaching the word of God? It’s solid. It’s no Susan McBride story, but it’s a successful pilot format test.
But there’s a core issue on display here, one that’s slowly been developing across the season. Mr. Whittaker.
“In Memory of Herman” has him serving the role he was originally created for. As writer Phil Lollar, speaking about co-creator Steve Harris, recalled in 2024, “you wanted (Whit) to be a wise guy who had seen the world and understood the importance of Christian values. You wanted him to be a wise grandfather.”⁵
Whit’s been a central character in about half of these first ten episodes, though he’s usually not the main focus. Instead he serves as sounding board for a rotating cast of one-off characters. Hal Smith’s warm performance makes Whit endearing but as the MAIN character of the series? Whit is… Lacking.
He’s too perfect. He’s flawless. For all that I’ve pointed out the flaws in some of Whit’s values, it’s clear the show (more or less) sees it all as sage wisdom. He’s the moral compass of the show, the wise mentor, but with no flaws? There isn’t much room for the character to grow. Certainly not enough to anchor a whole franchise on him. Phil Lollar had written out an in-depth history for Whit that hinted at deeper potential but little of it has been seen up to this point. The most intriguing aspect of Whit that was available to the audience came in an early print ad for Family Portraits which intriguingly teased, “in case you’re wondering-Odyssey isn’t a real town. And ‘Whit’ is only a fictional character. But, don’t tell him that!”
It’s a beautifully whimsical description yet still paints him as flawless. If he found out he was a fictional character? He’d just carry on with life. (Although in my head after discovering he’s merely a work of fiction he’d rip through the reality barrier with his Wod-fam-choc-sod bankai of biblical proportions.) This is likely because Whit’s often a direct conduit for James Dobson’s values, the Dobson-sona, which means portraying Whit as flawed means speaking ill of Lord Dobson. It also leans into Christian’s media’s inclination to present believer characters in the best light possible, for if being a Christian doesn’t solve all your problems, what’s the point?!
This however means their stories and lead (Christian) characters are often devoid of conflict, a bedrock tenet of writing and especially character development. Without it, Whit and this whole franchise, aren’t sustainable.
For better or worse, that’s about to change.
A Member of the Family Parts 1 and 2
Whit’s delighted that his grandson, Monty, is visiting for the summer but the young boy’s rebellion demands action which doesn’t sit well with Jana, Whit’s daughter.
“Demands action.”
Dobson over here like-
Yep, this is the “child beating” episode I mentioned in Part 1 of my coverage of Family Portraits. It may fill you with dread that the pilot season’s only two-parter focuses on child abuse but, remember, I also said it was the best episode of the season. No, I haven’t spent the time between posts seeking out the wisdom of Dobson, passing his Discipline Selection Trial to unleash the full power of his Jesus Spirit Wave in the Dark Tournament of Abuse. (I actually broke my elbow.) In spite of the abuse, this two-parter serves as the biggest battle in the war between Dobson and the writers. The fate of Family Portraits, and thus the coming franchise of Adventures in Odyssey, hangs in the balance.
Will the writers triumph and win out against Dobson’s lust for violence or will he smite them from the Earth and bar their entry into heaven? With “A Member of the Family” set to take the battle to Dobson’s home soil of abuse and control, the writers will need to launch their most aggressive offensive yet. Who will lead the charge into battle?
Blessedly, it’s Susan McBride. If any of these writers can make a blow against Dobson’s beating of children it’s the one who’s given us the wonderful kid POV stories of the season. It’s why I didn’t roll my eyes when Monty’s set up as a brat because he and his mom, Jana, live in Pasadena, California. The left coast! Monty even wants to become a director in Hollywood, the den of sin!!! The first part of this episode keeps building up his bratty behavior. He doesn’t want to play on the little league team, he backtalks Whit after being instructed to not eat more brownies, and worst of all? He blares… Christian rock music? That kind of slaps?!
(This may sound silly but even the band behind this song, on their gloriously ancient website, point out that they faced backlash from Christians who claimed you couldn’t play rock music AND be a believer.)
Whit has had it with this child acting like a child! He snaps-
Whit: “Monty, I love you very much. But I can't let you go on talking disrespectfully to me like that. I just won't have it! Now, there are rules in this house, and that's rule number one. Your mother and her brothers learned to live by the rules and I expect, being as smart as you are, that you're more than capable of doing the same thing. But if not, there’ll be consequences and you can count on it! We're going to talk about that tomorrow too. Now, have I made myself clear?”
Monty: “Yeah.”
Whit: “Good night then.”
Monty: “Good night. “
-Whit slams the door closed. Monty hurls his shoe at the door-
Whit: “Here's rule number two. Don't you ever throw another shoe or any other object against that door!”
-melancholic music plays-⁶
Monty calls his mom and begs her to come get him, Grandpa is so mean! Well yeah, he is, but when are we going to get some insight into why Monty’s been acting this way? So far he’s just been a textbook straw boy example of Dobson’s “ooo boy you’ll get to beat your child!” warning signs. Surely McBride has something up her sleeve, right? Perhaps Whit will be the one to learn the lesson that he shouldn’t be so quick to anger. Dealing with the kids in your shop for an afternoon is one thing, but a child you have around 24/7 is another. It’s been so long since he had kids in the house maybe he’s forgotten what it’s like and the patience it requires?
When Monty lies to get money from one of Whit’s underpaid employees, it’s deemed he’s gone too far! We fade out from Monty taking the money to the sounds of him crying. Whit enters the boy’s room and-
Whit: “Monty, do you understand why I had to spank you?”
Monty: “You hate me.”
Whit: “Oh, come on. You know better than that. Come here.”
Monty: “Nobody ever spanked me before. Nobody. And they don't tell me what to do either.”
Whit: “Then I must seem like a pretty mean person to you, don't I?”
Monty: “-sniffles-”⁷
Back in episode 1 of Family Portraits we knew Whit didn’t disprove of spanking. Here, though? He dutifully takes on the role of Dobson’s Stand, unleashing a volley of ORA ORA ORAAA punches on his own grandson. How can Whit justify this to his crying grandson? By comparing himself to God and Monty to a puppy.
Whit: “God's the one that sets down the rules about what people do and how we ought to treat each other. And if I love you, if I really love you, not only will I obey those rules myself, I'll do what I can to see that you do, too. I don't get any pleasure out of it. I do it because I love you, and because that's the responsibility God’s given me. At least for these few weeks. Now, if you make me, I'll yank on your leash again as hard and as often as I have to. If that's what it takes. But I'll tell you something. If you can learn to trust me and be honest with me, I guarantee that we can have a real good time this summer. Now, what do you say?”
Monty: “I'll try, Grandpa.”⁸
I know some of you don’t listen to the audio clips so I need to stress how broken Monty sounds here. No matter how mean he thought his grandpa was, he never expected this. His entire concept of safety and trust has been violated by an adult who’s supposed to protect him no matter what. Whit beating Monty will change him forever and for the worse. It’ll harden his heart and either turn him into an empty husk of a child who acquiesces to everything his grandfather wants out of fear or, most likely, he’ll end up even more aggressive. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises that “corporal punishment” like spanking, does not work. In fact, “within a few minutes (of the spanking,) children are often back to their original behavior. It certainly doesn’t teach children self-regulation.”
Yet the scene treats Whit’s action as good, holy even. His earlier anger isn’t brought under the microscope, it’s celebrated as restraint! He doesn’t WANT to beat Monty, but he does so because he loves him. What’s worse? In the very next scene, set a week later, Monty has become a “right nice young man.” He joined the little league team, doesn’t backtalk to Whit, and when he thinks he’s done something bad? He goes to Whit and dutifully suggests that he should be spanked again.
Whit, our lead character, the moral center of what’s going to become a franchise, is celebrated for being a child beater.
———————————
“Down, everyone down!” Steve Harris screams over the sound of anime energy blasts hurled from the ramparts of the Focus on the Family castle. Fellow writer Phil Lollar ducks for cover and yells back to his superior,
“Did she make it?”
Steve looks through binoculars. The pitch black of night further obscured with the residual energy in the air. Atop the ramparts though the light of a single torch pierces through.
Steve’s eyes go wide. Binoculars fall from his grasp. He slumps to his knees.
Phil rushes over. Gasps. Not at any physical wound Steve sustained, for there were none there, but the look on his face. The look of a man who’s soul just had a hole blown clear through it.
Phil reaches for the binoculars. Whatever sights lay within may destroy him… But he has to know. Hands shake. Barely able to keep the binoculars raised. His eyes dilate.
A Spirit Bomb obliterates the last remnants of the writers’ forces, but Phil’s soul has already been blasted out of existence by what he caught sight of.
Susan McBride, standing atop the Focus on the Family castle, Dobson’s hand on her shoulder.
In this, the most crucial battle of the war between the writers and Dobson? They were betrayed from within.
———————————
How?! How did McBride, the writer responsible for the strongest episodes of Family Portraits, the one who could so beautifully tap into the POV of children, write something so uncritical of child beating? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS, MCBRIDE?!
At the end of the two-parter, Dobson makes it clear Monty was never supposed to be the POV character here. Whit is. Dobson speaks directly to the child listeners and takes it as fact that they will whole heartedly agree that Monty needed to be beat. That because Whit loves Monty so much, he needed to discipline him. Monty was, “almost begging to be disciplined.” This story isn’t about Monty’s pain, it’s about painting Whit’s violence as love. To Dobson, “discipline and love are two sides of the same coin.”⁹
How does he know that? Well, we don’t get him referencing his own book as scripture, instead he goes right to the source! Specifically the book of Hebrews, Chapter 12, starting with the 5th verse. Dobson quotes,
Dobson: “My son, don't be angry when the Lord punishes you. Don't be discouraged when he has to show you that you're wrong, for when he punishes you, it proves that he loves you. When he whips you, it proves you are really his child. Let God train you, for he is doing what any loving father does for his children. Who ever heard of a son who was never corrected? If God doesn't punish you when you need it, as other fathers punish their sons, then it means that you really aren't God's son at all, that you don't really belong in his family.”¹⁰
See, see! The Bible says it’s AWESOME for a parent (or grandparent) to beat their child. It’s just like when God punishes all of us! It’s a savvy move for Dobson to lean on the Bible in the episode with the most controversial lesson yet. It’s perfect justification. You can’t be mad at Whit (and thus Dobson) if the Bible encourages the same thing!
To many Christians? The Bible, every word of it, comes directly from God. If it’s in there? You can’t argue with it. No lowly human can dare question the almighty Lord!
Far be it from me to do such a thing, I am but a lowly human (and a homosexual one at that!) Dobson could never be wrong if he has the Word of God to support him! Just so I don’t forget this holy wisdom, let me dust off the childhood Bible I was gifted back in 1999 and underline those verses. I did the same with many of the verses mentioned in Adventures in Odyssey as a child. I’m sure I’ll be able underline these verses verbatim… Right?
“’My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts.’ Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children.”¹¹
They’re similar enough but there’s a key difference. Did you catch it?
Dobson Bible: “When he whips you, it proves you are really his child.”
My Childhood Bible: “Endure trials for the sake of discipline.”
Even the Adventures in Odyssey Bible (the “worlds most famous kids bible”¹²)offers another variation.
AIO Bible: “(The Lord) punishes everyone he accepts as his child."¹³
So, what, did Dobson just make his version of that verse up? It’s hard to say. There could very well be a copy of the Bible that has the exact phrasing he used because there is no one accepted “definitive” version of the Bible. My copy of the Bible explains, in its introduction, that, “both the Old and New Testaments began as stories circulated by word of mouth.”¹⁴
This isn’t the place to go into the long history of how the Bible was assembled but it wasn’t hurled down from the heavens by God on a Kindle tablet, complete with lock screen ads for steamy romance novels. (If I may pitch one, HIS Milk and Honey. Eh? Eh?) It was written by humans and thus open to all kinds of interpretation because of translation, cultural differences, who compiled it, when it was compiled, and, of course, any bias (like REALLY wanting to beat kids) introduced along the way.
You can’t take the Bible at face value. It’s a starting point for deeper research, a work that says more about the view points of those who put it together than God. At best it’s something to interpret and draw inspiration from, not literal advice to follow beat for beat. As the Dobson-stand himself will say,
Whit: “You can't just pull verses randomly out of the Bible to discern God's will. I have a feeling what you wanted God to say, or not say, was what you decided already.”¹⁵
Contrary to Dobson claiming the verses he cites are, “as clear as it’s possible,”¹⁶ they aren’t. The use of “discipline” doesn’t have to mean “physically beat your kids.” “Discipline” could simple be interpreted as, “hey, put them in time out for awhile.” Even the most extreme verse Dobson used, “when he whips you, it proves you are really his child” is open to interpretation. That verse is in the context of God doing the punishing, not parents, and if God can’t even come down to speak clearly to us? He’s not going to literally come down from heaven and use his divine Rose Whip on you. The main way you’d get “it’s totes cool to beat your kids” from that verse? Well, as future Whit said, you’d have probably already decided that you really wanted it to say just that.
But most people aren’t going to fact check Dobson with other versions of the Bible. They’re going to take him at his word because he’s a supposed expert authority figure. If he says it, it must be true! The Bible’s a dense and complicated read, even in its more “simplified” versions, it’s not exactly something you read for pleasure. So when someone with a lot of power and influence points to some vague verses and claims, “this is what they mean” it’s no wonder so many people would agree with it. Let the seemingly “folksy” man do all the hard work for you. Even better if you were already itching for an excuse to inflict violence on others.
The Bible is thus used as the ironclad justification to wipe away all doubt that Whit beating his grandson is wrong. Nothing can challenge it. There’s no possible way to redeem this. If Susan McBride isn’t on the side of the writers in the battle against Dobson, there’s no hope, right? Maybe this whole Dobson v. the writers thing was all in my head. I was giving them too much credit. They happily fell in line with Dobson and any subtly I latched onto was unintentional. There was never a war, just a merry team effort to influence the values of listeners for the worse.
Yet I called this vile and cruel episode the best of the season. How?
———————————
Dobson lords over the carnage and chuckles. McBride long gone, sent to the royal treasury for her thirty pieces of silver.
The morning draws near. The sins of his enemies will be bathed in as much light as the blood which freely flows.
Dobson idly plays with the whip in his hand. It’s all over. He’s won.
Was that? Did something move in the corner of his eye? No. Just the first signs of morning. Perhaps an animal enjoying a feast amongst the fallen.
The cry of a horse rings out. Dobson nods. Yes, an animal stumbling upon a free meal. The sun is close now. He stretches his arms out. Closes his eyes to shield them from the rising sun. Smiles. Triumphant.
The pounding gallop of a horse draws closer. Dobson’s eyes snap open.
A lone figure rides upon the horse… A knight? A WOMAN?!
It can’t be! He’d sent those avant-garde feminists to the catacombs. Who would dare?
The knight holds aloft a large object. A weapon? No. It-
In the blink of an eye the knight hurls it toward Dobson. No time to charge up his rasengan. In the moment just before it strikes Dobson between the eyes, the object comes into focus.
A spare tire.
Dobson falls. The knight lifts her helmet’s visor.
“I’m just trying to help,” announces Jennifer.
———————————
Amidst the celebration of Monty’s little league team, that same knight appears in a different guise. Jana. Whit’s daughter and Monty’s mother. Voiced by D.J. Harner, the same actress behind the despondent Jennifer in the first two proto-pilots of the series, Spare Tire and House Guest. The character that, remember, was terrified of her angry and miserable husband, Adam, who feared she’d do something horrific like get a job and sleep with her boss.
Jana rushed to Odyssey after Monty demanded she get him away from the his “mean” grandfather, yet now the boy claims he loves Whit MORE than her? Jana confronts Whit and demands to know, “what have you done to my son?!”
As Part Two begins, Whit explains that Monty took money from his store. Jana can’t believe her son would do that, but when she learns how Whit punished Monty for it, her confusion quickly turns to anger.
Whit: “I wasn't about to let something like that pass unnoticed.”
Jana: “What did you do?”
Whit: “What do you think I did?”
Jana: “You hit Monty?”
Whit: “I didn't hit him. I spanked him. There’s a big difference.”
Jana: “Well, not to me. You know how I feel about that kind of thing.”
Whit: “Well, you and your brothers didn't come out any the worse for wear.”
Jana: “Oh, is that what you think?”¹⁷
It’s significant that the moment Family Portraits commits its biggest sin yet, glorifying its lead character beating a child, a character played by D.J. Harner takes it to task. After all, Jennifer, the earlier character she portrayed, suffered the franchise’s original sin. A sin inspired by the words of James Dobson. Now, as Whit has fully taken on his Dobson-sona, Harner returns in the form of Jana, refusing to let another character suffer at the hands of Dobson’s “wisdom.”
Jana refuses to accept that what Whit did was good or holy. Her reason for that isn’t something easy to brush off, like the influence of living on the “left coast,” it’s far deeper. Jana resents Whit for spanking her as a child. She’s told him so in the past! Yet Whit claims it didn’t impact Jana or her brothers. Jana’s scoffing response is brilliantly played by Harner, conveying deep trauma. One that rises to the surface whenever she interacts with her father.
What was it like for her growing up? I’d guess, just like Whit did with Monty, every time he’d beat her she’d be inundated with all the “loving” reasons why he had to “spank” her. Jana’s had to carry that pain, hurt, and violation her whole life. How many years did it take for her to call what her father did abuse and not just “discipline.” To call it “hitting” instead of the (supposedly) softer “spanking.” To truly believe and accept that she wasn’t “begging to be disciplined”? That she didn’t deserve any of this? That the only lesson any of this taught her was to fear the person who was supposed to love her more than anyone?
The power of Harner’s performance single-handedly brings forth the level of depth I’m able to read in this scene. How, when Whit offers Jana to stay at “her home,” she fires back, “No, dad. This is your home. It’s not mine, not anymore.” Holy hell. A lifetime of hurt conveyed in three short sentences. Jana allows Monty to finish his party but she’ll be back to get him away from her father.
Whit, speaking to a friend later, is totally befuddled by Jana, calling her, “unpredictable in kind of a dangerous sort of way.” Yet even Whit’s good Christian friend, Tom Riley (introduced back in Whit’s Visitor and will go on to play a major part in AIO), doesn’t wholeheartedly accept Whit’s point of view. As Whit describes Jennifer’s unreasonable reaction to their earlier confrontation, Tom wryly asks, “and you were completely innocent, right?” DAMN. Even another MAN sees this avant-garde feminist has a point. That’s how you KNOW this episode isn’t letting Whit off the hook.
Jana returns and dares to backtalk Whit. He attempts to take control, just like he did with Monty, and demands respect. But Jana isn’t a little girl anymore. She fights back.
Whit: “If you have something to say to me, say it. If not, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep a civil tongue in your head.”
Jana: “Oh, what are you going to do, dad? Pull out a belt and spank me, too?”
Whit: “Is that what this is all about? A debate on the merits of corporal punishment?”
Jana: “No… I've just had it with you passing judgment on me. Nothing I do pleases you. You criticize my friends, my work, my hobbies, my marriage. Let's not forget my marriage! You had plenty to say about that. And then you criticize me for getting a divorce. And now it's my son. Did you hear that, dad? My son! Let's try to keep that straight, shall we?”¹⁸
Yeah, that’s right! Call him out, Jana! Let him have it! Destroy him just like he destroyed you!
It is time.
Time for D.J. Harner to go full BEAST (SPIRIT) MODE!
(Jana, now having harnessed the full Beast Spirit power of Jennifer, will unleash her powerful Hurricane Spare Tire attack on all enemies!)
Jana, you now have the power of Jennifer! Do it. DO IT. FINISH HIM!
…
Ahem.
As much as I desperately wish D.J. Harner, furious at Jennifer’s fate in Spare Tire, stormed Focus on the Family as the digivolved Lady Jennifermon X7B Paladin Mode and forced them to atone for their sins? It didn’t happen that way. In 2016 she spoke highly of the experience¹⁹, nary a bloody spare tire in her wake.
But there is something is going on here. Writer Steve Harris, taking over from Susan McBride for Part Two, combined with Harner’s performance, finally confront the core issue of Family Portraits. Whit. After a season being portrayed as a paragon of virtue, sage advice giver, and all around flawless man? The conflict with Jana finally gives Whit a shade of complexity. Depth.
It isn’t just that Whit beat Jana as a child, he’s continually found new ways to hurt her as she’s grown up. Jana’s accusation that Whit can’t stop criticizing her paint him as the kind of parents who always thinks he knows better. Who rationalizes cutting remarks as “helpful advice,” “wisdom,” or “just telling it like it is.” It paints the earlier Whit’s Visitor rant about divorce in a new light. There he was baffled any couple could have problems so big they couldn’t be worked through. He and his (now dead) wife, Jenny, never had problems that big, so clearly no one else could!
Whit has a massive ego. He knows best for everyone else, is celebrated for it, so he MUST know best for his daughter, even as she openly bares her pain to him.
Shockingly this isn’t me reading too deeply into it, desperately grasping for a redemptive reading. Lo and behold, it was a deliberate decision to give Whit flaws. As recalled by writer Paul McCusker,
“One of the ongoing discussions that we had about Whit was whether or not he was perfect. And if he wasn’t perfect, then what kinds of flaws would he have… Steve (Harris) decided that if Whit wasn’t perfect, where was his flaw? Well, the flaw would be within his own family. So you have a man who gives great advice in helping other families, but he's got a blind spot with his own family.”²⁰
With that specific flaw, Harris not only solved the core issue of Whit’s lack of depth and room to grow as a character but also, unintentionally or not, took a massive shot at James Dobson. Whit’s served as a mouthpiece for Dobson’s views and beliefs, ones which FOCUSed ON THE FAMILY, so if Jana can openly question the “wisdom” Whit’s inflicted on her? It allows the audience to do the same with Dobson, “folksy” and religious “wisdom” alike. This is massive and much needed, what with Dobson’s message at the end of the episode chock-full of kid beating justifications.
Jana doesn’t concede any ground to Whit. She refuses to let him blame her for allowing her son to visit him. When Monty’s arrested and locked up by the police for breaking a window? Jana’s concerned for her son, unlike Whit who heartily jokes with the cop.
Cop: “Whit, you gonna press charges?”
Whit: “Not the kind you need to be concerned with, Fred.”
Cop: “Had to ask.”²¹
Jana, mustering as much calm as she can, asks Monty why he broke the window. She’s not perfect about it, she snaps at Monty a bit. But she, you know, doesn’t beat him for it. Instead she gives him the space to work through the layers of what’s really going on inside. Monty’s afraid her and Whit fighting means he’ll never get to see his grandpa again. I’d question why Monty wants to hang out with a child beater BUT this is just another layer Jana manages to get past. Monty ultimately admits the fighting reminds him of how her and his dad used to fight before, “you made dad move out.”
Monty’s just a kid, struggling to process what happened between his parents. Jana allows him that while gently reminding him it wasn’t that simple. Monty snaps at her again,
“Maybe if I told you I liked some of your boyfriends you’d make some of them go away too!”
Again, she doesn’t beat her child for this… And neither does Whit. He doesn’t have any kind of retort. Earlier in the episode I wouldn’t have put it past him to scold Jana. “You’ve had how many boyfriends?” he’d yell, before lecturing her about how going out with so many guys made her no better than used gum. But no, in the few minutes he’s been in a different room as Jana talked with Monty, he’s had time to reflect on his actions. Instead of scolding Jana, he backs her up.
“She didn't make your dad move away,” he softly but firmly explains. “They both tried very hard to work things out together, and nobody was sadder than she was when he left.”
After years of Whit’s judgement about her divorce, this about-face must be a shock to Jana. He finally admits it wasn’t her fault! After Monty apologizes to Jana and leaves the room, Whit also begins to take responsibility for all the ways he’s hurt her, admitting, “sometimes it's hard to figure out what the best interests of (another) person really are.”
Jana accepts this but doesn’t let her dad off the hook, replying, “it's not so hard if you take the time to listen.”
Whit agrees, adding the introspective, “or if you know what to listen for.”
Jana’s patience and (frankly undeserved) kindness towards her father is much like how she treated Monty and yields similar results. She allows Whit to work through the layers of what’s really going and he acknowledges he’s been cruel to Jana. For years he struggled with guilt over how he acted when Jana’s older brother, Jerry, died in Vietnam. While Jana got involved in anti-war demonstrations and her mom buried herself in volunteer work? Whit didn’t do anything because, “my whole life seemed over.”
All he could manage was focusing all his time and energy on Jana’s younger brother, Jason, who filled the void Jerry left in his wake. Jason was also two years away from draft age and Whit feared he’d suffer the same fate. Whit admits to Jana he screwed up. He let her get lost in his pain and hurt. Jana ruefully jokes, “I just thought you didn’t like girls.”
YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT. NOW RIP HIS SPINE OU-
I mean, in this moment, Jana has ever right to reject her father. To tell him he’s hurt her so badly that no amount of apologies can repair their relationship. Personally I think she should break off all contact, the only way she got this apology was to handle him the same way she handled a child after all, but that’s my own bias. Maybe she can see something in Whit’s words here that really makes her believe there’s a chance. A chance that she can find some forgiveness for the man who hurt her so much, even if he doesn’t deserve it.
Wonderfully, Whit treats this (undeserved) chance to reconnect to Jana with respect.
Whit: “All I do know is if there's some way for us to spend more time together, maybe... Maybe we could try to get acquainted again.”
Jana: “I'd like that to. Just understand that I'm not that little girl anymore. I have my own life now. Such as it is.”
Whit: “Oh I know, I know, a fresh start. Two people trying to get to be friends or at least get along, who just happen to be related.”
Jana: “Maybe.”²²
That’s right, Jana! Set those spare tire sized boundaries! Acknowledge your dad’s trying but don’t full take him at his word! HELL YEAH!
I love this so much, even more when Whit eagerly suggests Jana get a job in Odyssey but quickly backs off when he notices she’s hesitant about the idea. He admits he was about to overstep a boundary. “You’re right. Things don’t change over night, give it time.” It wraps up with another perfect bit of acting from Harner, who tentatively asks Whit to do something that she doesn’t think will be easy for him.
Jana: “I want you to give me a hug.”
Whit: “A hug? I've given you hugs-”
Jana: “No, not a real hug. Not since before Jerry died.”
Whit: “Oh, honey, I'm so sorry.”
-the two hug, crying-
Whit: “I- I thought I'd lost one child, I almost lost two.”²³
In 20 years Jana hasn’t felt like she got a real hug from her father. On the surface it’s because Whit wasn’t emotionally available but I choose to interpret the hugs haven’t felt “real” since she started to process all the ways he’d been hurting her. Only now, when he admits that he’s been the one at fault all this time, does she allow “real” physical contact again. A consensual physical contact that represents love and understanding, not control and violence.
As I listen to it for the fourth time while working on the blog it’s moving me to tears. Jana, embodied with the talent of D.J. Harner and the spirit of Spare Tire’s Jennifer, gets what so few children receive from their religious parents. Taking full responsibility for the hurt they caused. Not everyone’s been through something like this wants or needs this level of accountability from the people who hurt them but it can help. That’s clearly the case for Jana.
Regrettably the episode deosn’t end with Whit saying anything close to, “I shouldn’t have beat your son” but we do get Jana modeling to Whit (and the audience) ways to discipline Monty WITHOUT hitting him. He’s going to work to pay back the window he broke and will be put on restriction for the foreseeable future. Punishment for a child WITHOUT physical violence?
Even with Dobson’s gleeful call for violence against children wrapping up the original broadcast, he can’t claim victory over Jana. He can’t make her respect Whit (aka Dobson himself.) She’s won this battle and in doing so secured the future of Adventures in Odyssey. Her confrontation of Whit transformed him from a flawless lead to one with depth that can be explored for years. Whit may be a godly man and a pillar of the Odyssey community, but he has demons. Struggles that could extend outside his family. If he can’t treat his own family right, what happens when he gets close to the people around him? When he isn’t just helping kids or adults of the week? We can now question not just his advice, but the advice of all “authority” figures in the series.
One of my central beliefs about religion and, well, most systems of belief, is they must allow doubt. Being able to ask questions that don’t have easy answers will either strengthen your belief or allow you to discover it may not be for you. If you’re made to fear that asking even one question will cause you to lose faith entirely? That you aren’t allowed to EVER question the system governing your life? That’s a sign you’re being manipulated, or something far worse.
Adventures in Odyssey doesn’t have to be a mouth piece for Dobson. Yes it’ll be preaching Christian values but it doesn’t have to be draconian about them. As writer and later director/producer Paul McCusker laid out in 2006, “Odyssey is always about being a conversation starter between parents and kids. A chance to discuss whatever we dealt with in the show.”²⁴
A Member of the Family Part 2 solidified that mission statement and in doing so finally provided an answer to the question plaguing this blog since it began.
“What is this show?”
A Member of the Family’s answer? Morality plays for children meant not as strict doctrine but a tool to spark conversation between kids and their parents.
How Adventures in Odyssey handles that going forward will needlessly (and delightfully) complicate it, but it’s a good starting point. This is why I spent so much time on this two-parter. To lay out how Family Portraits took a story that, on paper, should have been horrifically offensive, and turned it into a triumph. Not an unambiguous triumph, sadly. Again, the episode does not come down hard enough on Whit beating his own grandson. Remember, this is a pilot season, I’m not expecting perfection here. But for a program made in the ‘80s by Focus on the Family of all organizations, where a WOMAN gets to call out a MAN about child beating and unambiguously win? That’s a monumental achievement.
In a retrospective interview about these early days of the franchise, Paul McCusker described how these Family Portraits episodes were a “learning curve for writers and directors and sound designers... We had the luxury of making it up as we went along, but we also had the disadvantage of airing all of our learning curves. Things we were learning along the way our audience was also picking up to.”
While he doesn’t call out specific episodes, he does admit, “I think if you ask any of the writers, any of the directors or sound designers? They would say, ‘well, if we could do it over again we would certainly have done things differently.’”²⁵
I’ve been asking over and over if I’ve been giving the writers too much credit. Maybe I was, but they barely give themselves any! Writer Phil Lollar, in the 2012 retrospective on Family Portraits, admits, “I’m certainly not the same person I was back then so I would not necessarily write those ideas in the same way… We were doing the best we could.”
Steve Harris, writer of A Member of the Family Part 2, continues, “we were cutting our teeth and learning to fly and we hadn't been let out of the cage yet to really spread our wings. There were a lot of constraints and limitations put on and they were there for a reason.”²⁶
Harris was more blunt in another interview, calling Family Portraits “a mixed bag.”²⁷ The treatment of the series since its original airing’s reflected that. Some episodes were pulled from the radio schedule, only to be released as “Lost Episodes” to hardcore fans. A Member of the Family was re-aired in 1988 but didn’t see the light of day again until 2002. Only in 2013 did it finally reenter a more regular rotation of airing once every three years or so. For reference, A Member of the Family has only aired seven times in over 30 years, while the first official episode of Adventures in Odyssey, Whit’s Flop, has aired 22 times in that same period with 12 of those airings taking place between 1988 and 2002. (See footnote for context on how these dates were obtained.)²⁸
While A Member of the Family has since been released in various collections and through the official AIO app, its sporadic airing on radio does at least point to some hesitation around it by the creative team. It’s more than can be said for other franchises. The infamously racist episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Code of Honor wasn’t pulled out of syndication, which means Adventures in Odyssey has more restraint and judgment than Star Trek. I can’t believe I just wrote that.
But wait, why would they even bother to re-air Family Portraits episodes? This is a pilot season! It’s not even canon to AIO… Wait, is it?
Yeah, this is the kind of franchise where we need to talk about canon. Basically, do the events of Family Portraits “count” when it comes to AIO? Did they happen in the same world/timeline? Is Whit a child beater in AIO proper?
These seem like easy questions to answer. Family Portraits has Whit and Whit is major part of AIO. True, but just because he’s there doesn’t mean the episode is canon. For example, while normally TV pilots air as they were originally intended, other times they’re reshot after being picked up to series, thus rendering that “original” version non-canon. To again use Star Trek as an example, its original pilot, The Cage, was repurposed and re-cut into The Menagerie two-parter, but the original version of the pilot? Not canon.
Future AIO writer Marshal Younger definitively stated that Family Portraits isn’t canon and is considered, “a different show completely”²⁹ despite Whit appearing in it. However, some of the episodes were re-aired as part of Adventures in Odyssey, which included A Member of the Family, so they are canon to AIO. But how important are they? If A Member of the Family didn’t re-air for nearly 15 years, is it just a quietly forgotten part of the show? One that that isn’t openly contradicted by later episode but also isn’t a bedrock for series storylines?
Well, allow me to inform you that A Member of the Family isn’t just an important part of AIO’s canon. It is THE event. It’s “canon event,” to borrow a term from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Whit’s family problems continue into the main series, with Jana and Monty making return appearances. The death of Jerry lingered over AIO for years, returning to prominence in various ways whenever death would strike the series, both in-universe and out. Jana’s brother Jason becomes a major character. Scenes from A Member of the Family would be used in flashbacks as part of episodes 211-212, The Mortal Coil two-parter, in 1992, where they-
Actually, let me play you the “previously on” segment from The Mortal Coil Part 2 completely out of context. A little taste of what’s to come.
Whit: “Could I put together a program for the Imagination Station that will help us understand what death is? As Christians, you know, it's nothing for us to be afraid of.”
-Whit cries out in pain-
Connie: “What was that?”
Eugene: “Stop the program.”
Tom: “What happened in there?”
Whit: “Nothing. It needs some work, that's all.”
Jenny: “John?”
Whit: “Wha- Is that… Jenny!”
Tom: “Whit! Oh, no. An ambulance! I need an ambulance!”
Eugene: “How's Mr. Whittaker? “
Tom: “Well, the doctor’s still doing tests on him, and he hasn't regained consciousness.”
Connie: “Oh, no.”
Tom: Let me out! Let me out!
Tom: “So, Whit, I figured the Imagination Station gave you a glimpse of something you shouldn't have seen yet. So I'm asking you to come back. Please, Whit. Come back.”
-flatline sounds-
Tom: “Whit? Whit?! Oh, no. Oh no! Doctor! Somebody! Somebody help!”
-dramatic eerie music plays-³⁰
Whit, near death, flashes back to an edited version of the argument with Jana from A Member of the Family Part 2, the one where she laid out all the ways he criticized her over the years. Cut from it is Whit telling Jana to “keep a civil tongue in your head,” Jana firing back about Whit spanking her, and Jana’s “and then you criticize me for getting a divorce.” (Why yes, I did line up the Family Portraits airing, the AIO version of the episode, AND the flashback from The Mortal Coil to check.)
There are two equally valid ways to read this. One, the creative team wanted to ignore these details so Whit would appear more sympathetic as he lay dying. If that was the case I hate it because even though it’s acknowledging the events of A Member of the Family, it’s obscuring them to newer listeners. The other is they had to hit a runtime and couldn’t include the full argument. They used only what was needed to get across the animosity between Jana and Whit. I’m going to give the writers the benefit of the doubt and say it’s the latter because Jana’s divorce, and her tension with Whit, were a central part of Episode 97, Monty’s Christmas.
Adventures in Odyssey treats A Member of the Family with same level of importance I’ve bestowed upon it here. Yet another reason why I spent so much time on it. It’s an episode that hangs over the franchise, especially as it establishes that Whit is a CHILD BEATER. Even though he learned he was wrong, he still did it. I won’t forget that and will continually hold him accountable.
But I think this is a great place to finally leave Family Portraits as we move into Adventures In-
Wait.
There’s still one more episode to talk about? ARE YOU KIDD-
A Simple Addition
There’s a new baby on the way for The Rogers and everyone’s excited except four-year-old Nicky, who can’t understand why his parents aren’t paying attention to him anymore.
Huh. Well, this is awkward. Not exactly fair to follow a franchise defining story, is it?
There isn’t much to talk about here, though Nicky is the most realistically written four-year-old ever written. After his mom gives birth, Nicky hands her a drawing of the family. A drawing that could only come from the chaotic mind of a child.
Mom: “Oh, this is beautiful, Nicky. Is this our house?”
Nicky: “Uh huh. That's you and me and daddy.”
Mom: “Aww. Ooo, and I love the orange curtains.”
Dad: “Well, those are flames, honey. See the fire truck under the tree?”
Mom: “Oh! Oh, of course. Oh, so that's why we're standing on top of the house.”
Nicky: “The fireman’s saving us!”
Mom: “Oh. Well, he's a very brave man, isn't he? Ooo and look at those flames in the yard, too.”
Dad: “No, those are tulips, honey.”
Mom: “Oh! Oh, yes.”³¹
We’ve also got the funniest joke in the whole season. Nicky’s dad attempts to comfort him by comparing the way they’ve been treating the new baby to a mother cat and her kittens. Nicky misses the intended point and asks-
Nicky: “Where's the daddy cat?”
Dad: “Ummm. Well, I think he had gone to work. Yeah.”³²
A Simple Addition’s a fun little episode that well utilizes the kid POV. Written by… Susan McBride. The Betrayer.
Okay, okay, as much as she did stab me in the back (and I whispered, “Et tu, Susan?”) it’s not fair to put all the blame of A Member of the Family Part 1 on her. I highly doubt she rolled in there and went, “I’m gonna write a positive depiction of child beating!” and Steve Harris hastily wrote Part 2 to justify it. In any production with a team of writers, it’s often difficult to determine who wrote what.
For example, there’s a scene at the beginning of In Memory of Herman, where Amanda and Vic argue in front of their son about the existence of heaven. While the “written by” credit is given to Phil Lollar, the scene is very similar to one from the 1983 TV special, Don’t Ask Me, Ask God. A special that lists Susan McBride as one of its writers.³³
Did Lollar steal this scene from McBride? I wouldn’t put it past a guy to take credit for a woman’s work, but I’ll be charitable and assume McBride freely offered up some ideas for the scene based on her previous work. It’s the nature of a collaborative medium, sometimes your ideas ends up in work that largely gets credited to one person.
So instead of treating McBride as The Betrayer, let’s look at A New Addition as a redemption for Susan McBride. Yeah, she worked on my least favorite episode of the season, but she also did a lot of good in setting the ground work for AIO. Her kid POV stories set the stage for the audience AIO would primarily be targeted to and that deserves a lot of credit.
Which makes it odd that she’s been minimized in the official history of AIO. The other creative contributors to Family Portraits, Phil Lollar, Steve Harris, and Paul McCusker, all went on to be heavily involved in Adventures in Odyssey. Thanks to that, their contributions to Family Portraits have been well documented… But Susan McBride barely gets more than a footnote. She’s credited for her work, sure, but she’s never been interviewed and the brief times she does get mentioned in the official history are dismissive.
There’s Lollar’s 1997 description of McBride as “a fine writer and poet” and that her, Lollar, and Harris “wrote frantically.”³⁴
Harris, in response to a later interview question, “how did you brainstorm ideas for this new series,” stated, “the emphasis (especially the beginning) was on the “storm” and not so much on the “brain.” Susan was generally agreeable but Phil and I had some of the most wonderful creative arguments you could ever imagine.”³⁵
“Generally agreeable,” hmm? Was she not seen as valuable because she wouldn’t get into those creative arguments? It’s hard to tell, but we do know she was part of the initial series brainstorming before any episodes were written. She was even there for the famous all-day attempt to name Whit!³⁶ She was a key part of the series’ earliest days but left soon after Family Portraits concluded. The 2012 AIO Official Guide briefly mentions this but the 1994 version doesn’t. That guide occasionally omits her from the behind-the-scenes story entirely, such as Lollar’s overview of 1987 (the year Family Portraits debuted.)
“After writing several episodes (of Family Portraits,) the pressure was on—especially on the writing side. Steve Harris and I were the only writers, and we needed help.”³⁷
The only writers, huh? You sure about that, Lollar? YOU REALLY SURE?!
All of McBride’s single-part episodes were consigned “The Lost Episodes” and not aired between 2000-2009, with A Simple Addition not airing between 1992 and 2010. Combine that with the already spotty releases of A Member of the Family Part 1, it’s almost as if the people behind AIO want to remove McBride from the history of the show as much as possible.³⁸
McBride’s involvement with the franchise is shrouded in mystery. Why were most of her episodes kid POV stories? How much did she contribute during those early formative stages? Did she really not fit in with the team as Harris implies? Were her writing talents not up to par? Were the episodes of hers I loved actually the product of heavy rewrites by others? Why didn’t she return when AIO was put into production?
The official history wasn’t giving me answers but I had to find out.
I had to find Susan McBride.
Have you ever been possessed by a hyper focus so intense it not only atomizes the world around you but slaughters every other single thought in your brain?
And that’s how I lost a whole day of productivity.
Susan, Susan, SUSAN. Why couldn’t have you have a more unique name? The biggest thing that comes up when you search “Susan McBride Adventures in Odyssey” is the AIO Wiki but they had scant information (and I as a rule I do everything I can to avoid using Wikis as sources.) I spent hours researching every Susan McBride I could find, no doubt perplexing multiple Susan McBride’s as they checked their LinkedIn notifications. The only tiny lead I got my hands on was the AIO fansite The Odyssey Scoop. In their profile of McBride they wrote,
“Susan McBride was very influential in pre-Odyssey days with the very first episodes in a series called Family Portraits. She is the author of Little Black Dress and The Cougar Club. Additionally, Susan has also written several other books.”
Excuse me? EXCUSE ME?! Susan McBride, Family Portraits writer, possibly wrote a book called THE COUGAR CLUB?!?!?!?!?!
The way that shifted my hyper focus into ULTRA SUPER MEGA HYPER FOCUS, nearly sent my brain careening out of my skull. But I couldn’t get ahead of myself. I wasn’t sure this was THE Susan McBride. I combed over her website biography, her memoir, archived tweets, anything I could find. She would have been about the right age to have worked on Family Portraits! A review of her book Very Bad Things contained the sentence, “Really hated Steve and his entitlement.”
DID SHE WRITE A THINLY VEILED VERSION OF STEVE HARRIS INTO A BOOK?! AHHHHHHHHHH.
After stopping myself from ascending to another plane of existence, I reached out to confirm if she was THE Susan McBride. I explained who I was, the blog, and if she’d like to chat about her time on the series and, “how your career has gone in some incredible directions since then.” That was my professional way of saying “if you’re THE Susan McBride, you went from writing Dobson propaganda to publishing a book called THE COUGAR CLUB.”
Less than a day later she got back to me. On bated breath I opened the email.
Her response: “That's a different Susan McBride. Sorry.”
…
ONE THING. I DON’T WHY.
IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY.
I tried so hard and got so far. But in the end? It didn’t even matter. Thanks, AIO fansites, for sending me on a wild goose chase. I beseech you, please edit your Susan McBride pages so that day of my life can be worth SOMETHING. THE Susan McBride remains out of reach but if that’s you and you’re reading this? Head over to my “Contact Me” page. Clearly I’d love to talk.
(Now you all know why, as I teased the upcoming parts of this Family Portraits coverage, I wrote, “I make contact with a Susan McBride. My Readers be like: “I PUT MY TRUST IN YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!”)
And with that, we have FINALLY, for real, reached the end of Family Portraits. The “pilot season format” was either a triumphant success or a mostly triumphant success, depending who you hear the story from. The 1997 guide claims, “we received over 4000 responses from listeners—every one of them positive and enthusiastic.”³⁹
Oh, Lollar. You fool. You thought I wouldn’t have access to those original airings. You thought I’d forget that Dobson and his crony specifically talked about TWO listener complaints during their intro to A Different Kind of Peer Pressure, didn’t you? WELL I HAVEN’T. To liar jail with you!
More recently Harris recalled, “we received 4965 letters about Family Portraits and 4771 of them were positive.”⁴⁰ Thank you, Harris. Whatever the amount of positive feedback was, the team behind Family Portraits was given the green light to go to series. That’s where we’ll join them next time as we finally get to talk about-
Well, hold on a second. I want to make clear yet again how monstrous Whit beating his grandson was. Regardless of the resolution, it’d be more than understandable to write this entire franchise off based solely on that episode. I wouldn’t blame anyone for doing just that. But even if I read that episode in the worst possible light, with no redemption to be found, I’d still think there’s value in covering this show.
During the writing of this entry the results of the 2024 election came out and they made me reevaluate the purpose of this blog. In a world that’s set to get even worse, in part because of people like James Dobson, is writing about AIO the way I do worthwhile?
I came to the conclusion that it is. Why? Well, for some, Adventures in Odyssey is where so much of what’s happened (and happening) to our country started. In deconstructing the series we can begin to understand some of the people who want to hurt us today. Why they do it and how they justify it to themselves. Not because we need to forgive them, as Jana seemingly did with Whit, but so we can know what we’re up against and fight back accordingly. If we can understand how it all began, we’ll know how we got here. Or as Everlast put it in his song, What It’s Like.
“You know where it ends, yo, it usually depends on where you start.”
This project could be filled with anger, dunking, or endless despondence. But I think, amongst the research and analysis, we could all use some humor as well. Hopefully the laughing will make learning the tough stuff a little easier.
We’ll also examine how a piece of art that’s supposed to indoctrinate kids into becoming little Dobson-stan’s can have the exact opposite effect. That’s what happened to me. How? How can that happen? Is there a way to find redemption for Odyssey? Whether there is or not, like I’ll be doing for Mr. Whittaker, I’ll be holding Adventures in Odyssey accountable.
With all that said? Next time, we finally get to talk about Adventures In-
It’s not Adventures in Odyssey yet, my dude.
...You’re kidding me.
‘Fraid not.
Please tell me they didn’t do a SECOND pilot season?
No, they just… You’ll see.
...Why do they have to make this franchise so confusing to explain? UGH.
Anyway. In the next post we’ll be talking about... Odyssey USA!
Sources:
Focus on the Family Magazine, year unknown (likely 1986 or 1987) as archived by AIOWiki.
(1)
In Memory of Herman: Written and Directed by Phil Lollar, Production Engineer Bob Luttrell, Focus on the Family, 1987.
(2)
(3)
(4)
“Rewind from 1000 to 0001 with Steve Harris and Phil Lollar,” The Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast, Focus on the Family, 2024.
(5)
A Member of the Family Part 1: Written by Susan McBride, Directed by Steve Harris, Production Engineer Bob Luttrell, Focus on the Family, 1987.
(6)
(7)
(8)
A Member of the Family: Cassette Release, Archived by OdysseyFan.com
(9)
(10)
(16)
“The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version” Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990.
(11) New Testament: Page 227
(14) Helps: Page 1
“The Adventures in Odyssey Bible” Word Publishing, 1994.
(12) The Cover
(13) Page 1501
Where There’s a Will…: Written by Paul McCusker, Directed by Phil Lollar, Production Engineer Dave Arnold, Focus on the Family 1991.
(15)
A Member of the Family Part 2: Written and Directed by Steve Harris, Production Engineer Bob Luttrell, Focus on the Family, 1987.
(17)
(18)
(21)
(22)
(23)
“The actress behind Whit’s daughter Jana talks about the early days of recording the show” The Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast, Focus on the Family, 2016.
(19)
“BONUS! Paul McCusker talks about Whits family”: Adventures in Odyssey #1: The Adventure Begins - The Early Classics, Focus on the Family, 2003.
(20)
“The Lost Episodes”: The Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast, Focus on the Family, 2006.
(24)
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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.
(26)
“Adventures in Odyssey: The Official Guide 25th Birthday Edition” by Nathan Hoobler, Tyndale House Publishers Inc., 2012.
(27) Page 12
(35) Page 10
(36) Page 9
(40) Pages 12-13
Air Date Sourcing: The main source for these air dates are AIOWiki. As a rule I try not to use Wiki’s as a primary source, but several of the dates are corroborated by the AIO HQ fansite, which was run by future series writer and producer Nathan Hoobler. He states those dates were provided to him by “the very helpful people at Focus on the Family” so I’ve chosen to use them.)
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“What is canon? How does it affect Odyssey?” The Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast, Focus on the Family, 2023.
(29)
The Mortal Coil Part 2: Written and Directed by Paul McCusker, Production Engineer Dave Arnold, Focus on the Family 1992.
(30)
A Simple Addition: Written by Susan McBride, Directed by Steve Harris and Phil Lollar, Production Engineer Bob Luttrell, Focus on the Family, 1987.
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Don’t Ask Me, Ask God: The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc. 1983. (Note: It’s not 100% clear if McBride wrote that specific segment, but the similarity to the Family Portraits scene was way too close to not mention.)
(33)
"The Complete Guide to Adventures in Odyssey” by Phil Lollar, Focus on the Family Publishing, 1997.
(34) Page 14
(37) Page 34
(39) Page 34