FP#9: A Different Kind of Peer Pressure

Happy Labor Day! Be sure to check out the results of the 1st AIO Websters at justanotheraioblog.blogspot.com! I'm hard at work editing my church's Get in the Show music video, but we'll try to get out a post or something soon. In the meantime, enjoy!

THE ODYSSEY TIMES (Facts, notes, and quotes about Odyssey from this ep):
-Earl Boen's first appearance on Odyssey!
-The Hudsons are at the mall, though we can't be sure that it's in Odyssey.
-The not-so-popular girl doesn't want to hang out with the nerd? Uh oh, any moment now, we're gonna get someone singing something from High School Musical.
-Odyssey has Eskimo pies! I actually have no idea what they are, though I've heard of them.
-The crowd decides what the average teen does. Nowadays, the media is trying to determine what the average teen buys, plus hipster culture has been established. While certain schools still struggle with stereotypes and cliques, other schools have different struggles; this school illustrates the first kind of school.
-Jerry Winters, who sounds like a hick, is played by Jack Angel, who would later play Homer Fremont, another hick, in Honor Thy Parents and George Washington/John Adams in The Day Independence Came.
-Discrimination in the workplace continues today in all forms.
-Thank goodness Rich Hudson's drowning his sorrows in coffee and pie instead of another intoxicating beverage.
-Was the term "nerd" invented in the 1980s? 'Cause nowadays, nerds are an integral part of hipster culture. Oh, and there's more categories of nerds now, like this one.
-"Right is right, and wrong is wrong." -Whit, and a subtle mention to absolute truth
-yuppie: "young, urban, professional," a term invented in the mid-1980s
-"Your bill? Oh, right. No charge for the counseling? No, that's on the house." -Richard Hudson and Whit
-Conformists Anonymous would start another chapter in With a Little Help From My Friends (Album 27: The Search for Whit).
-Whit will later make that Romans 12:2 reference again in a later episode. I don't remember the exact one.

REVIEW:

Well, we've come to the last of the Family Portraits to review (the rest are Odyssey episodes and will be reviewed in the near future). This last one is a lot shorter than all the other ones, and that might explain why the reconciliation, or the conclusion, felt so abrupt.

Earl Boen and Hal Smith were terrific as Richard Hudson and John Whittaker, respectively, but I could not say the same about the rest of the cast. Blair's yelling started to border on irritating and I'm not sure if she was supposed to come across as likable at all. I was disappointed that she was only in one scene (even though she was loud in her only scene); I felt that there needed to be a conclusion with her in it. 

It's interesting that this episode has the "customer comes to Whit's End and gets advice from Whit behind the counter" motif, but this is the first one where the adult goes for advice. Later, George Barclay and Ed Washington would also go and get advice. 

I was saddened that this episode could have gone deeper into discussing discrimination with the Richard Hudson incident, but instead stayed only on conformity. With a Little Help From My Friends, a episode loosely inspired by this one, focused on conformity and peer pressure as well, but the stories suited that theme. This "portrait" stayed on the surface, but could have aimed to swim into deeper waters; it didn't reach its full potential as an episode.

AIO Wiki notes that "In the opening wraparound of this episode, Dr. Dobson and Mike  Trout talk about some of the negative mail...about...Family Portraits. One letter did not inclusion of the teen/parent arguments in the program and another thought the programs sounded like they were from the 1950s." Well, it seems like Focus took those criticisms and geared Odyssey toward 8-12 year olds and made the shows seem timeless. But it's "portraits" like Whit's Visitor, The Letter, and even this one that make you wish for something that teens can listen to that specifically is geared toward them. Ben Warren writes in his post about the possibility of a spinoff:

"Way back before Adventures in Odyssey aired, Dr. Dobson, President of Focus on the          Family, was vocal about the importance of counteracting negative programming by providing alternate, biblically-based entertainment. Sadly, 25 years after Adventures in Odyssey began, Focus on the Family still hasn't provided that successful alternative for teenagers. I'm not sure why they haven't. Teenagers are members of a family too--and the most difficult, dumbest ones...the reality teenagers are dealing with choices we are allowing "Glee," "Degrassi," "90210," and "Gossip Girl" have the first and last say. Providing entertainment with good morals is not only a great idea, but one long overdue."

Well said, Mr. Warren, though I wish I could have indented your quote. I know we're just getting out of a recession, but an audience would be there before the show even began, and that's a testament to an already great show that has been produced for 25 years. I'll be posting my spinoff idea eventually and bring another candle to the spinoff discussion.

Back to the "portrait." While having some quality acting and writing, Peer Pressure conforms to many acting and writing cliches that weaken its overall message, with a shortened timespan that reduces the impact of its conclusion. I give this episode an 82/100, or a

B-

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Listen to A Different Kind of Peer Pressure by typing in "again" as Secret Word #6!
AIO Wiki: A Different Kind of Peer Pressure

NOTE:
That concludes our Family Portraits review series! Hopefully, you enjoyed going through the beginnings of Adventures in Odyssey. If you ever find a way to listen to While Dad's Away and/or In Memory of Herman, let us know and we'll review them! Starting after the next SMSS, we'll begin to review the Adventures in Odyssey audio series, beginning with Whit's Flop.

FP 1: Whit's Visitor

Well, howdy everyone. So glad you could join us today for another Adventure in Odyssey!

Oh wait. It's not. WHATTT? That's right; today we're listening to Whit's Visitor, the pilot episode of Family Portraits, pilot series to AIO. It first aired January 5, 1987 on the flagship show Focus on the Family with Dr. James Dobson himself! And now to our adventure...

(NOTE: Notes on episodes are split into two parts: The Odyssey Times and Episode Review. For more on how reviews work, see this post.) 

THE ODYSSEY TIMES (Notes on the episode):

-Haha, I'm enjoying this groovy synthesized 80s sound for the Focus on the Family theme. -The opening theme for Family Portraits is obviously different than Odyssey since it wasn't composed yet, and the announcer was Mike Trout from FOTF, but I really enjoyed the opening.

-And the narrator welcomes us to the town of Odyssey, Ohio. WHATTTT? So what that they never mention it again...Odyssey could be in Ohio! How do I know this? Well, Mike Trout says that Odyssey's a "small midwestern town in Ohio" and the Odyssey Scoop clearly states that Odyssey could be in Ohio. Ethan Daniels, I didn't have to make a cross-country road trip to discover Odyssey (although you did have to for your McAlister Park, and we thank you).

-The narrator calls Family Portraits  a place where people "face the same experiences that you and I do, and through their reactions, maybe we can learn to cope a little bit better." Odyssey slice-of-life in a nutshell.

-Jimmy, you sly dog. According to AIO Wiki, he returns in a later Family Portraits called Bob and then returns in A Member of the Family as Jimmy. We can call him the Chad Ochocinco of 1987.

-Whit doesn't pay Jimmy that much? My goodness, I believed Whit was a little generous, but he doesn't seem to be the powerful, wealthy, but still lovable and Godly Whit we know today.  So maybe this isn't Odyssey canon.

-Whit moved to Odyssey in 1971.

-Doc McAlister owned a drug store even though he wasn't a doctor, and it was he who came up with the town name (see it dramatized in A Class Reenactment, Album 50)

-Jenny made great coffee and apple pie.

-When Whit mentions that he came to Odyssey and didn't know what to do, so he created a bookshop/coffee shop/conversation place...called Whit's End, this makes me realize that this is not Odyssey canon. AIO Wiki says it best: "These episodes were an experiment so no clear long term mythos was planned out. While many facts of Odyssey that started in Family Portraits remain true, there were some points that were re-written or dropped."

-Tom has a cat named Rosie...and she's had triplets three times.

-Elements of the Robert Louis Stevenson chat between Whit and Tom were incorporated in the first part of Promises, Promises (The Adventure Begins, Album 1)

-Davey Morrison - first kid we meet in Odyssey

-Whit's doggy door - Sherman, you sly dog. You disappeared and hid out until 1991 when a lucky boy named Dylan Taylor found him in The Knight Travelers. (Video Series #1, 1991)

-Whit mentions that he's watching the kids at the playground at the school. There's definitely not a school across the street, unless it was torn down.

-Whit was married 33 years with Jenny.

REVIEW:

The first thing I notice about the intro to Odyssey is that it already feels like a place we know. In fact, this episode has a Welcome to Whit's End kind of feel. In that episode, Chris hosted, and in this one, Whit hosts. The episode begins with a monologue from Whit as he introduces himself and the town. It's a combination of conversation (a la Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street) and monologue (a la Aaron Sorkin). Most of the times, it would not work and be a snoozefest, but Hal Smith manages to pull it off, captivating us and pulling us into a small town called Odyssey. I love it when he introduces himself by saying, "I'm John. John Avery Whittaker. But most of my friends call me Whit." So that's where they get it from! Although I've owned Album 9 for a while (the album this episode is on, as a bonus feature), this is the first time I've ever listened to it, and it feels like a treat.

The episode, however, is not meant to feel like one. It tackles a difficult topic for its first show-divorce. The brave thing about this is that no other children's show on TV was tackling issues like this, and it took a Christian radio show to do the groundbreaking. While the episode is mostly Davey Morrison (a kid who lives across from Whit whose parents may get a divorce) talking to Whit, Steve Harris's writing makes the characters feel genuine and real. The acting was also top-notch. I loved what Whit ended with as he sent Davey home:

"I wish I could tell you that there's gonna be sunshine and birds singing and everything was just going to be the way it should be, but I can tell you two things. First. whatever happens, your dad's always gonna be your dad. Even if he does goes away, you'll still be his sonAnd he'll still love you. And your mom's always gonna be your mom. And they'll be there for you no matter what. And the second thing's even more important. God's gonna be there for you. We don't always get everything we ask for from God. Sometimes people we care about go away even if we ask God to make them stay. But God's real good at taking the situations that look just terrible to us and turning them into good. I don't know how he does it, but he does. What you gotta do is trust him no matter what."

This is the first time we see Whit share wisdom with the children of Odyssey, and it's a real nice moment. In fact, there are many "real nice" moments throughout the show, and the first appearance of Tom Riley is one of them. It's interesting that Tom is played off a little less intelligent in this episode, but maybe that was to express a different view about divorce. Surprisingly, the episode ends with Whit commenting on how sad he is about the state of marriage, with "half of these school kids coming from broken families."  Today, this is still a real issue, and half of all marriages end in divorce. This episode was groundbreaking 25 years ago, and it remains that way today. The ending is powerful, especially since I'm sure much of the audience was not expecting a melancholic ending to the pilot episode of a kids show. But the ending helps the episode make its point; it's the "period of the sentence."

While I loved this episode, some people might be put off by the slow pace of the episode, so it will receive a 90/100, and a

A-

NOTE: Dental Dilemma is FP#2, but since it's also an Odyssey episode, we'll come back to it. The next review will be FP#3: The New Kid in Town. Please comment and let us know how our first review went and what can be improved! Thanks!

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Focus on the Family

McAlister Park

Get a copy of this episode as a bonus feature when you buy Album 9: Just in Time