56: By Faith, Noah
January 7, 1989
Whit tells Jack Davis and Lucy Cunningham-Schultz a humorous version of the story of Noah.
Review ★★★☆☆
By David
For this episode Whit takes yet another story about God’s judgment and turns it into somewhat of a comedy. With the kinds of jokes that are told in this episode, you would expect a laugh track to be playing in the background. The characters of Noah and his wife in particular sound like they were taken directly from a sitcom. Noah casually mentions talking to God and then asks what’s for dinner. Then, he reveals God’s plan to destroy the world, but is quickly distracted by the newspaper. His wife wonders if she should cancel her hair appointment. If you’ve heard the story of Noah many times before, this retelling is an interesting and original twist. But if you haven’t heard the story before, this episode will only distort the biblical characters for you.
This would have been the perfect opportunity to create a black comedy, but Odyssey decides to keep everything lighthearted. Whit tells us that almost everyone was wicked and their minds were constantly thinking evil thoughts. And yet, the most evil thing this episode can show the audience is the evils of government bureaucracy, which turns out to be quite humorous. It becomes a ridiculous scene full of animals and angry neighbors. There could have been much better and more realistic depictions of the wickedness of mankind while still remaining appropriate for kids in the listening audience, but of course then it would no longer be just an ordinary comedy. Noah’s neighbors don’t appear to be that bad. They’re just a bit cranky and understandably so. At no point do they demonstrate their capacity for evil.
The highlight of the show is when Whit describes the flood as it rushes out from the fountains of the deep to envelope the earth. He does a great job by accurately representing the biblical story. The sound effects accompanying Whit’s narration, however, are not as dramatic as they could have been. The waters sound more like a peacefully flowing creek than a torrent of rising floodwaters threatening to destroy everything in its path. It didn’t match with what was actually supposed to be happening in the story. The production quality clearly could have used improvement.
Thankfully, for this episode Whit chooses not to artificially add Jack and Lucy into the story. And the message about putting faith in God is a good one to remember. At the end when Whit talks about God’s promise never again to flood the whole earth, he doesn’t turn this part into a comedy. Instead, he leaves out his depiction of the character of Noah altogether and simply reads from the Bible. His explanation of what it means to have faith in God, and his description of how this relates to trusting in Jesus’ promises, partially redeems some of the flaws of this episode. But it still is not the best episode. It gets 3 out of 5 stars.
By David
For this episode Whit takes yet another story about God’s judgment and turns it into somewhat of a comedy. With the kinds of jokes that are told in this episode, you would expect a laugh track to be playing in the background. The characters of Noah and his wife in particular sound like they were taken directly from a sitcom. Noah casually mentions talking to God and then asks what’s for dinner. Then, he reveals God’s plan to destroy the world, but is quickly distracted by the newspaper. His wife wonders if she should cancel her hair appointment. If you’ve heard the story of Noah many times before, this retelling is an interesting and original twist. But if you haven’t heard the story before, this episode will only distort the biblical characters for you.
This would have been the perfect opportunity to create a black comedy, but Odyssey decides to keep everything lighthearted. Whit tells us that almost everyone was wicked and their minds were constantly thinking evil thoughts. And yet, the most evil thing this episode can show the audience is the evils of government bureaucracy, which turns out to be quite humorous. It becomes a ridiculous scene full of animals and angry neighbors. There could have been much better and more realistic depictions of the wickedness of mankind while still remaining appropriate for kids in the listening audience, but of course then it would no longer be just an ordinary comedy. Noah’s neighbors don’t appear to be that bad. They’re just a bit cranky and understandably so. At no point do they demonstrate their capacity for evil.
The highlight of the show is when Whit describes the flood as it rushes out from the fountains of the deep to envelope the earth. He does a great job by accurately representing the biblical story. The sound effects accompanying Whit’s narration, however, are not as dramatic as they could have been. The waters sound more like a peacefully flowing creek than a torrent of rising floodwaters threatening to destroy everything in its path. It didn’t match with what was actually supposed to be happening in the story. The production quality clearly could have used improvement.
Thankfully, for this episode Whit chooses not to artificially add Jack and Lucy into the story. And the message about putting faith in God is a good one to remember. At the end when Whit talks about God’s promise never again to flood the whole earth, he doesn’t turn this part into a comedy. Instead, he leaves out his depiction of the character of Noah altogether and simply reads from the Bible. His explanation of what it means to have faith in God, and his description of how this relates to trusting in Jesus’ promises, partially redeems some of the flaws of this episode. But it still is not the best episode. It gets 3 out of 5 stars.
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