Adventures in Odyssey - History

History

In 1983, Focus on the Family began creating several short dramas for inclusion in the ministry's daily half-hour radio show; these radio dramas were commissioned by Focus on the Family founder and then-president Dr. James Dobson as an alternative to Saturday-morning cartoons. This effort culminated with a 13-week test series titled Family Portraits which aired in early 1987. It was created by Steve Harris and Phil Lollar, who set it in a small Midwest town they called Odyssey. The test episodes engendered a favorable audience response, and led to a continuing radio program in November 1987, called Odyssey USA. The title was later changed to Adventures in Odyssey in order to "increase international appeal."

The goal of the Odyssey staff was to create a "values based" radio show with production values comparable with or surpassing those of most mainstream audio dramas. While the show aimed to promote Christian values, according to Odyssey's co-creator Phil Lollar, the goal was not to be "a preaching program" but to be an "entertaining program." Large amounts of work were put into each individual story; for the first few years, each thirty-minute episode typically took over one hundred hours to produce.

Several well-known voice actors were brought in to provide the lead roles. Hal Smith voiced the lead character John Avery Whittaker in one of his favorite roles. The rest of the original "key" characters were voiced by Katie Leigh, Will Ryan, and Walker Edmiston, who, along with Hal Smith, had all previously worked together extensively at Disney. When Hal Smith died in 1994, Adventures in Odyssey was left without its main character and Focus on the Family considered canceling the radio show. After a search that lasted over two years, a replacement voice was finally found in Paul Herlinger that sounded close enough to Hal Smith; Paul Herlinger voiced the main character from 1996 through 2008. Because of health issues, a mutual decision was made by Herlinger and the crew to replace Herlinger with another voice actor.

Consequently, Adventures in Odyssey took a long "hiatus," with no new episodes planned while the staff searched for a new actor to voice Mr. Whittaker. In September 2009, Andre Stojka was selected as the third actor to voice Mr. Whittaker and only months later, on 2 February 2010, Paul Herlinger would die from his illness. In March 2010, new episodes started as Album 51, Take it from the Top, premiered. The show is being adapted into Spanish audio and Hindi live-action videos, with plans to create Mandarin Chinese audio as well.