Adventures in Odyssey (Un)official Fan Blog

Alex Jefferson. Remember him? Down to earth, slightly awkward, into technology, intelligent but fallible, great sense of humor. Not too unlike the current Matthew Parker, but a little goofier, wittier, and more impulsive.

Regardless, if he was a non-fictional character, we would get along.

A few Alex Favs: Missionary Impossible, Broken Window, Relatively Annoying, Fifteen Minutes

Guy Feldstein: What’s the topic of today’s show?
Bernard Walton: Unity…
Alex Jefferson (b): Mr. Walton is now experiencing bitter irony.
Bernard Walton: Oh, be quiet.

Realistically, this would never happen. But since I’m going to forego realism, this is what I propose:

Some crisis/villainous event occurs in Oswald Heights, Connellsville, and the government must evacuate/raze the city. Many of the citizens of Connellsville move to Odyssey, and Odyssey has to process the sudden ethnic, cultural, religious, etc. diversity and deal biblically with brand new interpersonal issues that soon arise.

Just a thought.

Jimmy Barclay. He is funny, personable, fallible, good-hearted, and I just want to know what’s going on in his life, now. (And his voice is attractive.)

But he wouldn’t fit in with the current tone of things.

I’m having a hard time recalling episodes today. There might be one I’m completely forgetting and in a week from now I might say “OH!!!!!!!!!!”, but for right now, I’m pretty fond of the part in Over The Airwaves that spoofs Bonanza.

(and every single time they imitate Bill Cosby.)

[After learning that his tenants had refused to pay him rent and had murdered one of his messengers]

“I don’t understand their behavior, Wes! We signed a contract! We agreed in good faith! We even sang songs around the campfire together! Toasted marshmallows! We had a relationship!”

- Matt Cartwood, Over the Airwaves

To this day, whenever someone does something minor that I don’t like, I yell, “We had a relationship!”

People never get it.

I’m back after a long absence; there was a death in my family. But things are somewhat settled down now, so let’s continue with this challenge!

My favorite writer is a tie between Marshal Younger and Paul McCusker. I feel horrible choosing between them, as they have both produced excellent, classic episodes. Paul McCusker did a lot of writing in that first transition period from “Old Odyssey” to “New Odyssey.” But overall, I will have to choose Marshal Younger because he is primarily “New Odyssey” (not Andre Stojka new.) I love the chaotic genius that seems to govern his episodes. Examples are “Soaplessly Devoted,” I Slap Floor,” and “Sunday Morning Scramble.” 

Hey guys, I am going to take a brief hiatus from the 30-day challenge. I know that’s kind of pathetic, but I’m a graduate student and I really need to pay more attention to my project during this last week or two of the semester. I will resume as quickly as possible… about a week.

I apologize for being lame. :(

Somebody reminded me that the Shepards were a homeschooling family. I suppose that counts as AIO’s second attempt at the whole homeschooling thing. Point taken. Good job, Odyssey. Good job.

Okay. I love AIO very much, but they did make a couple of funky episodes.

One of them was an episode which, granted, is an unreleased episode that hasn’t properly aired since 1993 (almost 20 years! 90s kids are gettin’ old, y’all) and was made available in a podcast with a huge disclaimer.

You Go To School Where?

It’s an episode about homeschooling. Granted, if I remember correctly, homeschooling hadn’t even really been legal for very long; at least where I live. That may explain their ridiculously cliche portrayal of Esther and their limiting portrayal of Robyn, probably both stemming from the difficulty they had comparing and contrasting homeschooling with public schooling. But most kids attend public school and can discern where the episode got them wrong. Most kids might not know any better about Esther— and that was pretty bad.

“I’m just going to have a nervous breakdown right here because all homeschoolers are innately fanatical about learning but they don’t really have any resources because if they did they’d be jumping and screaming around like I am right now because I’ve never seen so many fantastical musical instruments and books and learning materials in alllll maaahhh life!” (paraphrase) “Homeschoolers are also completely clueless about any other system of schooling but their own, and they carry all their homeschooling expectations (instead of their public school expectations) into the public school classroom! Woot!”

I was homeschooled. My only words: LOL.

They did give a disclaimer. I appreciate that they tried. They should give it another shot, sometime.