There Are No More Spankings in Odyssey

God is not up in heaven thinking up bad things to happen to you. He loves you so much and only wants the best for you. But sometimes that means you have to go through a little bit of pain and heartache. But if you trust him and you love him, he will not let you down.

These words of comfort were given by James Dobson to a young girl in an episode of a Christian radio drama created by his organization. Within these few short sentences, you can find the entirety of Dobson’s ideology: God’s love entangled with the necessity of God's punishment.

Late last week, Focus on the Family founder Dobson died at the age of 89. It would not be an exaggeration to say that certain corners of the internet had the mood of Munchkinland right after the house fell on the witch. Dobson’s enormous influence on American politics and Christian family culture is well documented. For the de-churched millennial generation I belong to, Dobson’s legacy feels uniquely personal. He was a child psychologist and broadcaster, a voice whispering into parents’ ears for decades, governing their parenting styles through a mix of pop psychology and ungenerous theology, a Protestant rebuttal to the likes of Dr. Benjamin Spock.

Dobson’s books, like The Strong-Willed Child and Dare to Discipline, gave parents a Christian hall pass to hit their children—and reframed the parent/child relationship as a long war between two enemies determined to break each other. For this work alone, many remember him as the guy who gave advice as if he were in the pocket of Big Spanking lobbyists.

The most enduring entertainment (or “ministry”) to emerge from Dobson’s Focus on the Family is the radio drama Adventures in Odyssey. Aimed at children, the show takes place in a fictional small town—populated mostly by white evangelical Christians—where kids learn Bible lessons and Christian principles. It might be Christian pop culture’s closest approximation to The Simpsons: an impossibly long-running franchise built on world-class voice talent, its reputation cemented by a high-quality run of episodes in the ’90s. (The two shows also share at least one voice actor: Pamela Hayden, who voiced both Milhouse and Eugene’s girlfriend-turned-wife, Katrina Shanks.)

Though Dobson never worked on the show directly, it would not exist without his organization. His godfather status became explicit in a 1991 fourth-wall-breaking episode called “Dobson Comes to Town.” In it, Dobson visits Odyssey to promote a new direct-to-video animated expansion of the AiO universe and inserts himself into a few interpersonal conflicts between strangers. It’s nonprofit brand synergy—no more or less shameless than NBC’s Thursday-night crossover episodes. And to that end, he is received as if he is Brad Pitt showing up on Friends, with the entire universe of the show bending to his raw star-power. A young girl named Melanie recognizes him from his book jacket photo; her father Dale stammers nervously, treating him like a rockstar–level celebrity. And of course, he’s greeted with brotherly familiarity by John Avery Whittaker, known in Odyssey simply as Whit.

If Dobson had a fictional avatar, it would be Whit. An inventor, an author, and an ice cream shop owner, Whit is the moral center of the series, its unofficial head pastor. At first glance, this might seem an imperfect comparison, since Whit appears far gentler than Dobson. He isn’t political; he doesn’t rail against reproductive rights or gay marriage. He isn’t overtly harmful either—more a grandfatherly Sunday school teacher than an authoritarian scold. To my childhood memory, he would never hit a child. Whit seemed patient and caring with his friends, his family, and his many patrons. As I remembered him, he was a soft, sweet old man who just wanted to help.

READ MORE: James Dobson Tried to Destroy Us

I host a comedy podcast called Good Christian Fun. Alongside my co-host Caroline Ely, our project interrogates evangelical pop culture, often from a non-Christian lens. As a launchpad for substantive discussion, AiO is one of the ripest properties we’ve ever encountered. After covering dozens of episodes over the years, I’ve experienced the common phenomenon of dismantling nostalgic affection with the clarity of adulthood. And in doing so alongside the invaluable perspective of an adult woman, I’ve come to see Mr. Whittaker not as a model Christian, but as a subterfuge model of Christian patriarchy. Whit stands not in contrast to Dobson’s harshness, but in alignment with it.

There are many prickly facets to Whit’s character that become clear upon revisiting. Like Dobson, Whit cloaks unempathetic authority in folksy avuncularity. Listening now, it’s impossible to ignore his condescension and snark, especially toward his young female employee. He also shows a total disregard for boundaries, inserting himself into other families’ conflicts to dispense “godly” solutions that conveniently reflect his own understanding of scripture. Whit’s arrogance is baked into the DNA of the show, not as a human flaw to be reckoned with but as a godly virtue to be revered.

And though I remembered him as nonviolent, an early episode of the series—“A Member of the Family”—shows Whit physically disciplining his grandson, Monty. After justifying the spanking with a metaphor of a puppy on a leash being yanked away from traffic (or sin), Whit says:

WHIT: Now if you make me, I’ll yank on your leash again. As hard and as often as I have to. But I’ll tell you something—if you can learn to trust me and be honest with me, I guarantee you we can have a real good time this summer.

For readers of The Strong-Willed Child, this dialogue may remind them of a passage in the book in which Dobson describes beating his dog Siggie as an example of what it means to discipline an unruly creature. In both cases, these sound less like the words of a kindly grandfather and more like those of an unhinged, abusive father. 

That a Christian children’s radio series from nearly forty years ago “doesn’t hold up” is no shock. What’s troubling for those of us who grew up with AiO is the accuracy with which it reflects the organization that created it—and the man behind it. Dobson was the author of a specific breed of abuse only Christian children will know. And for a time, Whit was a steady voice of comfort for those same kids. He was for me. But a closer look reveals these figures were never so separate, just different shades of the same toxic rot masquerading as true Christianity.

At the end of his guest-starring episode, Melanie expresses sadness about her friend moving away, and Dobson delivers a bit of encouragement—the quote that opened this essay. She replies:

MELANIE: Thanks, Dr. Dobson. You know something?

DOBSON: What’s that?

MELANIE: You sound just like Mr. Whittaker.

Melanie was more right than she knew.

After internal ideological conflicts, Focus on the Family itself parted ways with Dobson in 2010, and it may be no coincidence that any trace of Whit’s prickliness has eroded in tandem with the organization’s severing of ties with its founder. James Dobson is gone but Whit lives on, 38 years and three voice actors later. Each successive performer has rounded off whatever sharp edges the character once possessed. The contemporary Mr. Whittaker is a wheezy, mirthful, absent-minded Christian professor type. If Dobson is dead, so too is the original incarnation of Whit, made in Dobson’s image. There are no more spankings in the town of Odyssey.

Like most nostalgia, the reality is more complicated than we remember. It would be comforting to chew the meat and spit out the bones, to keep our warm memories of AiO sealed in amber. For countless kids, the show was formative, their first encounter with serialized storytelling and craft that far surpassed most Christian media. Like its oft-repeated tagline, Odyssey was a place of wonder, excitement, and discovery, even more so for children raised on a strict faith-based media diet. But upon revisiting, it’s difficult for an adult not to hear Dobson in Whit, and to recognize the cruelty of his message laundered through children’s entertainment. If you ever feel the urge to return to Odyssey, be careful. It may not be as safe as you remember.

Whit stands not in contrast to Dobson’s harshness, but in alignment with it.