Line #61 Trivia/AdventuresInOdyssey


1	* ActorAllusion: In one episode of the radio show ("The Day After Christmas"), a toy called Betty Buckskin that spoofs ''Toys/TeddyRuxpin'' that works with an accompanying toy is mentioned. Will Ryan, who played several roles on this show, voiced Grubby from the ''Teddy Ruxpin'' franchise.
2	* AdoredByTheNetwork:
3	** While the AnimatedAdaptation is syndicated to many stations, [=FamilyNet=] seems to keep it on their Saturday morning roster. When there is only one toon on the line-up, odds are it's usually this.
4	** [=FamilyNet=] dropped the show in the 2011-2012 season and replaced it (in the 'sole animated show' placement) with ''Monsters and Pirates''. And yet they still air the ChristmasEpisode the Saturday before Christmas!
5	* TheCastShowoff:
6	** Some recent Odyssey episodes feature Eugene Meltsner playing the ukelele (based on voice actor Will Ryan's skill at playing the instrument).
7	** [[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime Aria Curzon]], voice of Mandy Straussberg showed off her singing talents on a few episodes.
8	** Jules Kendall's voice actor also is quite a talented singer, with an entire three-episode long story arc dedicated to her rising to unexpected fame as a singer to take full advantage of it.
9	* TheCharacterDiedWithHim: While a number of actors have been replaced and some characters quietly have retired since the passing of their voice actors, Tom Riley is one of the few true examples following the death of Walker Edmiston. This might have happened to John Avery Whittaker as well, and the staff even did an entire episode in preparation for the possibility of Hal Smith dying on them, but they ended up liking the episode too much and changed the ending before broadcasting it early, ultimately [[PutOnABus putting Whittaker on a bus when Smith actually died]] [[ActorExistenceLimbo until they could find a suitable replacement]].
10	* ChildrenVoicingChildren: Usually the child characters on ''Adventures in Odyssey'' are voiced by kids (usually with the result being many of the characters getting either several voice actors or dropped altogether), with the most glaring exceptions being Emily Jones and Olivia Parker[[note]]both introduced when the series returned from hiatus in 2010[[/note]]
11	* ContestWinnerCameo:
12	** How Shona Kennedy was cast as Connie's half-sister Jules. As part of Adventures in Odyssey's 25th anniversary in 2012; the series held a "Get in the Show" contest to find a voice for a new character. Kennedy won the contest and would debut as Jules Kendall in the episode "Life Expectancy: Part 2", being received well enough for Jules to become a recurring character.
13	** Earlier in the show's run, "The Invisible Dog" featured a cameo from the winner of a contest related to sister series ''The Last Chance Detectives'', a boy named Ben Williams. He is the kid in Trent's class who asks substitute teacher Eugene if Eugene's talk about the Pythagorean Therom will be relevant to the test they will be taking later.
14	* CreatorBacklash:
15	** Katie Leigh (voice actress for Connie) played a major character from the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' [[WesternAnimation/DungeonsAndDragons1983 animated series]], a fact which got a bit awkward after AIO did an episode condemning the role-playing game, "Castles and Cauldrons". Of course, considering how much fantasy voice-acting there is to do, most of the cast probably view that episode negatively themselves. In any case, when the D&D came out on DVD in 2006, Leigh was the only member of the cast to reprise her role as Sheila for (appropriately enough) the radio play of "Requiem". In earlier interviews she said she'd be quite happy to do the role again.
16	** Even before the animated series ended production, it was pretty clear that the writers were somewhat embarrassed by it and its noticeable difference in tone and writing. "A Day In The Life" was a partly a satirization of the changes in the animated series, wherein a Hollywood studio comes to make a movie about Odyssey and keeps making ridiculously over-the-top changes to make the movie more interesting until [[InNameOnly you can barely tell the movie's about Odyssey at all]]. "[[AprilFoolsDay I Slap Floor]]" even contained a DiscontinuityNod where ([[ItMakesSenseInContext a slightly unhinged]]) Whit draws up plans for the Strata-Flier (Whit's standard mode of transportation in the animated series) and raves about the adventures they can take in it and the people they can save. Everyone else in the room thinks Whit's being ridiculous.
17	---> '''Connie''': "Uh...huh."
18	---> '''Tom Riley''': "Maybe you should lie down, Whit."
19	---> '''Whit''': "Well, you'll be sorry the next time someone falls off a clock tower!"[[note]] This was something that actually happened in the animated series to Dylan.[[/note]]
20	** Within the radio show itself, we have the episodes that featured the klutzy police officer David Harley, who was quickly dropped when parents complained that he was giving kids a bad idea about police officers, and the episodes either went [[MissingEpisode missing]] or were either rewritten or rerecorded without Harley in them. In one case the early episode "Lights Out At Whit's End" was pulled, not just because of Harley, but because the episode was just [[BizarroEpisode too weird]], featuring little in the way of aesops (aside from a vague "it's good to spend time with your friends" moral) and ending with a random [[DancePartyEnding free-style rapping session]] that even Tom Riley and Whit take part in! The episode isn't even included in the "[[MissingEpisode Lost Episodes]]" album, and, as seen under SelfDeprecation on the main page, the one time they did call back to it, it wasn't exactly with kindness.[[note]]The producers also talked about it during a Q&A as well, answering a fan who asked why they didn't play this episode anymore; their utter embarrassment about the entire rap scene couldn't be made any clearer. The way they answered the question was by telling him that if he heard the episode, he wouldn't be asking, as they proceeded to play a clip of the rap before ashamedly calling it "painful"[[/note]]
21	** Marshal Younger, one of the series' writers, has expressed regret in relation to the 1994 episode "Fences" (in which Connie, embittered over her divorced father takes her anger out on men in general); feeling in hindsight that it went [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness completely against Connie's personality]].
22
23	* CreatorsFavoriteEpisode: Paul Herlinger (second voice of Whit) cited the 1996 episode "Clara" as his favorite episode.
24	* TheDanza:
25	** Early Odyssey character Ann Jacobs was voiced by Ann Ault.
26	** Another early character, Jessie Morales, was voiced by Erin Morales.
27	** There is also Alan Young as Jack Allen.
28	* DawsonCasting: A number of child characters are voiced by adults (as opposed to child actors aging faster than their characters):
29	** Creator/KatieLeigh as Connie Kendall.
30	** Middle-aged Steve Burns as both teenage bully Rodney Rathbone and Connie's love interest Robert Mitchell.
31	** 30-year-old Nathan Carlson as Jimmy Barclay's cousin Len in "Castles and Cauldrons"
32	** Creator/DickBeals as Nicky Adamsworth in "Eugene's Dilemma" (Beals had a glandular problem that prevented him from ever going through puberty)
33	** Christina Puccelli as Emily Jones
34	** Both Hope Levy and Kelly Stables as Olivia Parker
35	* {{Defictionalization}}: There is a real Whit's End at the Focus on the Family headquarters.
36	* DiedDuringProduction:
37	** Will Ryan, who voiced several characters on this show, including major character Eugene, died while he was still working on it. While Ryan's other characters were quietly retired, Townsend Coleman (regular voice of Jason Whittaker) would voice Eugene for the "The Best Is Yet To Come" four-part episode.
38	** Walker Edmiston also died just before he could record all of his lines for his final few appearances. Archival recordings were used for Tom Riley's final few roles, while Bart Rathbone was given a TheOtherDarrin treatment for his final appearance.
39	* EditedForSyndication:
40	** Album versions of episodes usually differ a little from broadcast versions. The ending monologue in particular will typically get cut down with the reading of the address and information on how to get a copy of the episode removed. In different cases, other edits get made:
41	*** Chris's opening skits are cut from a lot of the early episodes, due to the show runners retroactively feeling they got too elaborate and distracted from the main points.
42	*** In multi-parters and serials, the closing monologue and opening between parts is removed, allowing the listener to seamlessly transition from one episode to the next.
43	*** In rare cases, scenes that were cut for time get reinstated in album versions as well.
44	*** Very early episodes that initially aired under the "Odyssey USA" monicker have, for obvious reasons, been re-recorded to use the show's current name.
45	*** Officer Harley made appearances in early episodes that have since been cut and replaced.
46	** The Daystar airings of the AnimatedAdaptation edit the show down for time to make room for commercials. However, it's a lighter example of this than usual -- all of the important elements stay, the edits are done in a manner that is seamless, and the pacing of the show isn't affected by them.
47	* FandomNod: The various theories about AREM's identity that Alex, Cal, and Sarah come up with in "Grand Opening, Part 1" are all references to the theories fans were tossing around online.
48	* HeAlsoDid: The voice cast for the show's core characters reads like a Who's Who of some of the most in-demand and iconic voice actors of the era. The late Walker Edmiston (Tom Riley) was perhaps best known as the voice of Ernie the Keebler Elf, for example.
49	* InMemoriam: The animated series episode "[[ChristmasEpisode Electric Christmas]]" is dedicated to Hal Smith, the first voice of Whit, who died earlier in the year the episode was released.
50	* LongRunners: 30 years and counting, though if you count the series that eventually became Adventures In Odyssey, ''Family Portraits'', then it has been around for more than that.
51	* MeaningfulReleaseDate: The 1993 episode "Terror from the Skies"; based [[WholePlotReference on]] ''Radio/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' broadcast of 1938, premiered on October 30, 1993; exactly 55 years to the day of the original broadcast.
52	* MissingEpisode:
53	** A few early shows starring a bumbling police officer (named Officer Harley) were pulled and re-recorded when parents complained that he gave children the wrong impression of authority figures. Officer Harley's only appearance now is at the end of the episode where the Barclays get robbed and the {{Flashback}} about how Whit acquired Whit's End.
54	** There are a few episodes from Spring 2000 (the latter half of the infamous split era) that were last aired in 2003 for various reasons: "The Telltale Cat" was seen as too violent, "B-TV: Grace" had a skit that was deemed offensive to the Amish, "Sticks and Stones" might have given kids too many ideas for insults, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking "Career Moves" was just a really weak episode]][[note]]though a number of fansites such as [[http://odysseyscoop.com/reviews/BethanysFlood.htm The Odyssey Scoop]] often cite the episode that replaced "Career Moves"; "Bethany's Flood", as one of the worst episodes in the show's history[[/note]].
55	** Pretty much any of the episodes included on the "Lost Episodes" album count as this. Several of them were simply re-airings of ''Family Portraits'' episodes repackaged as ''Odyssey'' ones, but there were also a few other episodes that got pulled from the rotation for one reason or another. Probably the most known one is "Pamela has a Problem", in which Pamela has an unwanted pregnancy and has to decide over whether to have an abortion. It was reportedly pulled for being too dark for a children's show, and in fact the episode disclaimer recommends it most for a teenage audience.
56	** "You Go To School Where?", an episode wherein Robyn Jacobs befriends a [[HomeschooledKids homeschooled kid]] named Esther and they switch schools for a day, was last aired in 1993 and then never aired again after actual homeschooled families wrote in complaints that the episode was an inaccurate portrayal of homeschooling families.
57	* TheOtherDarrin: Whit's voice actor was replaced after his original one died. And then ''again'' after he died too.
58	** When Katrina's [[PutOnABus bus came in]], her actress had changed as well. She's even quieter now.
59	** Walker Edmiston passed away before he could finish recording Bart's lines in the episode "Suspicious Finds" (wherein Bart was a major character). Bart's lines were rerecorded with another actor.
60	** Marvin Washington went through three different voices during his run on the show.
61	** All three of the Parker children have had their voices replaced once. Special notice goes to Matthew Parker; who has been voiced by three actors[[note]]original voice actor [[WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse Zach Callison]] gave way to Gunnar Sizemore before the 2014 season; with Sizemore voicing Matthew Parker for just over a year before giving way to current (as of 2016) Justin Felbinger[[/note]] in a space of roughly 2 years.
62	** Averted narrowly with Eugene; the writers initially thought about having Steve Bridges stand in for Will Ryan to record the message on Whit's answering machine at the end of "Exit", but decided against it and simply spliced together clips from old episodes (in similar fashion to the messages Whit left on the Whit's End answering machine during the Blackgaard arc or an earlier Novacom episode for which neither Will Ryan nor Pamela Hayden could record Eugene or Katrina).
63	*** Will Ryan passed away from cancer in November 2021. After a brief gap in appearances, Eugene would reappear for the four-part episode "The Best Is Yet To Come" being voiced by Townsend Coleman.
64	** Vance King's voice in his debut was provided by [[Series/HannahMontana Jason]] [[Series/KickinIt Earles]], where all other appearances have sporadically voiced by either Earles or Creator/JasonMarsden.
65	** In the AnimatedAdaptation, the main character Dylan Taylor went through no fewer than ''six voices'' over the course of the episodes. It's perhaps most notable in the final episode where he sounds a little bit older, though it's due to a different actor rather than because of aging.
66	* PlayingTheirOwnTwin: Regis and Edwin Blackgaard are both voiced by Earl Boen.
67	* PromotedFanboy: Nathan Hoobler had been a longtime fan of ''Adventures in Odyssey''; even starting his own fansite as a teenager called [[http://www.aiohq.com/aiohq.htm Adventures in Odyssey Headquarters]][[note]]the site was active from 1999-2006; and is still up but only as an archive site[[/note]]. Eventually, Focus on the Family hired Hoobler to work on Odyssey as a semi-frequent writer and director for the series
68	* RealitySubtext: Around the time of the 2003 "Something Blue" two-part episode where Connie and Mitch plan (and ultimately call off) their wedding; Kathy Wierenga, the writer and director of the episode, was getting married herself; leading to her being credited under her maiden name for the writing credit and using her married name of Kathy Buchanan for her directing credit.
69	* RecycledScript: After the episodes starring the bumbling police officer Harley were pulled (parents objected because they gave children the wrong impression of authority figures), the episodes were rewritten to feature a bumbling private investigator instead.
70	* RealLifeRelative:
71	** The sisters Robyn and Melanie Jacobs (during the early years of the show) were played by real-life sisters Sage and Erin Bolte (incidentally, the daughters of AIO's original executive producer, Chuck Bolte).
72	** Cal Jordan's voice actor, Adam Pavlakovich, is the son of Connie Kendall's voice, Creator/KatieLeigh.
73	** The episodes focusing on the Mulligan family were written by Bill Myers, best known for creating the ''Series/McGeeAndMe'' series[[note]]also co-produced by Focus on the Family[[/note]]; and in addition to writing those episodes also [[DescendedCreator played the voice of Mike Mulligan]], with Mike's daughter Lisa played by Myers' real-life daughter Nicole.
74	* RoleReprise: Whit's grandson Monty was a recurring character in early episodes, and was originally voiced by child actor Chad Reisser before suffering ChuckCunninghamSyndrome for almost two decades. When he makes a surprise return in "The Green Ring Conspiracy" and is all grown up, Chad Reisser returns to reprise his role.
75	* RomanceOnTheSet: During the early years, the character of Lucy Cunningham-Schultz was voiced by Genni Mullen, while the role of Jack Davis was played by Donald Long. Around the time their characters were phased out, Mullen and Long ended up marrying, and when their characters appeared again in a 2008 episode shortly before the most recent {{ReTool}}, Lucy and Jack got engaged.
76	* ScrewedByTheNetwork: When the AnimatedAdaptation first hit syndication in the late 90's, some stations aired the show in early-morning timeslots when nobody would be watching, with the most common timeslot being 5:30AM.
77	* SerendipityWritesThePlot: In "A License to Drive"; the pregnant woman Connie and Eugene pick up while Connie is teaching Eugene how to drive is voiced by Chris Anthony[[note]]normally the host, this is one of the few episodes where Chris plays a character with a significant amount of airtime[[/note]]. In real life, Chris Anthony found out not long after recording the episode that she was herself pregnant.
78	* SeriesHiatus: The series took a year-long hiatus in 2009 prior to the 2010 retool. There was also a slightly shorter hiatus taken from 1996 to 1997, which incidentally also bridged the child cast era from the first to the second.
79	* TechnologyMarchesOn:
80	** Hoo yeah. The show has utilized technology in every era, from dazzling arcade machines to pagers and beepers to top-of-the-line "laptop computers" and "cellular phones" to a brand-new computer having "one of those high-speed lines" to people sending "text messages" to [[BlandNameProduct [=AppleBerry=]]] smartphones. Nothing makes you feel old like having a fan question why Connie didn't just call or text Eugene or Bernard about Whit leaving on the cell phones they wouldn't have had yet in the early 1990s.
81	** It makes Blackgaard's characterization in the otherwise excellent "The Battle, Parts 1 & 2" a little more difficult to take seriously, because in the beginning of the episode as Regis Blackgaard and Richard Maxwell break into Applesauce and run a systems check that makes Whit's End go haywire, they run into the second level, which requires a password. It makes sense that they panic because they have to get out of there before someone recognizes their presence in the program, but the average 21st-century listener would probably be a bit baffled as to Blackgaard's anger after the fact that Whit "put in a safeguard". Everyday civilians have passwords and codes on their phones, their e-mails, their bank accounts, highly personal files, and just about anything else under the sun, and the school-age children at whom the show is aimed probably have personalized logins for their public school computers, library computers, and even home computers, so it doesn't make any sense to the modern listener why either Blackgaard or Maxwell ''wouldn't'' anticipate a password on a highly restricted, valuable, and confidential computer program created by a master of computer and Internet technology.
82	** "It Ended With a Handshake" is a ''very'' confusing listen if you aren't familiar with 90s computing. The episode's events are set in motion because Eugene accidentally leaves a floppy disk in his laptop that he loans out -- however, since the characters refer to it by what it was more commonly referred to in that era (as simply a "disk" and nothing more), a contemporary viewer might be confused as to why the computer wouldn't boot with it inserted [[note]]If you left a floppy in a disk drive, the computer ''always'' treated it as bootable as it wasn't possible to know whether or not that was the case[[/note]], why they're using a "disk" instead of a flash drive, and why Eugene asks numerous rather basic questions to ensure the person he loans the laptop to knows what he's doing, as this was back when it wasn't yet common knowledge.
83	** "Bassett Hounds", in addition to a reference to Wooton's cousin Wilma losing her share of the Bassett family fortune in a dot-com that went bust, also had Wooton's grandfather recording the will[[note]]Wooton's grandparents weren't dying, as Bernard assumed early on, but were leaving to relocate permanently to Africa to serve as missionaries[[/note]] on videotape, which was in the early stages of that format's being overshadowed by DVD's (and in later years, streaming); with blank video tapes all but disappearing from retail shelves by the late 2000s.
84	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/AdventuresInOdyssey Has its own page.]]

Context Trivia / AdventuresInOdyssey