Brock Eastman, the Product Marketing Manager at Focus on the Family, is once again giving the fans more updates about what's going on behind the scenes at AIO. Kathy Buchanan, Marshal Younger, and Nathan Hoobler are just some of the Adventures in Odyssey writers who are currently planning out Album 58. Brock was able to snap a few photos of the latest writers meeting and posted them on the AIO Facebook page. Hopefully Brock will continue to release more pictures as time goes on. Album 58 is set to be released in spring 2014, a year from now. Album 57, which still has three episodes that need to be recorded, will be available for download in August. As you can see from the photo below, one of the ideas being discussed for the future is "Jason runs into the side of garage." This looks like it may be an exciting album.
Even though there are no new AIO episodes being aired until the fall, there are still exciting releases to look forward to for this spring. The next special Adventures in Odyssey album from Focus on the Family is called "Our Favorites" and includes 24 of the voice actors' all-time favorite episodes to record. The CD set will be for sale in stores in late spring and now the front cover has finally been released online. It features six photos of several well-known AIO actors, including Katie Leigh (Connie), Jess Harnell (Wooton), Zach Callison (Matthew), Andre Stojka (Whit), Christina Puccelli (Emily), and Will Ryan (Eugene). The collection has a total of 8 CDs and also contains a DVD with the full video of the Dallas Live Show on it, which includes an appearance from Chuck Bolte. You can find all the details about this brand-new release here. You can also preorder this special album for $22.99 from CBD. Thanks to The Odyssey Scoop for this news. A brand-new Social Shout Out from Brock Eastman and Evan Reedall has been released for today, February 22nd. In the video they go over this week's five winners for the Love it, Wear it contest, remind us about the upcoming re-release of the Adventures in Odyssey videos, celebrate reaching past 20,000 likes on the AIO Facebook page, and reveal that the artwork by Gary Locke for Album 57: A Call to Something More will be out soon. The album will be available for download in August. Watch the video below. The third omni-book compilation of the Adventures in Odyssey novels, Point of No Return, was the first book in the series to be repackaged and given the new AIO logo. Now that all the Odyssey albums have been repackaged and the animated videos are being re-released with new covers, it makes sense to finish off Paul McCusker's novels about Mark Prescott and the world of Odyssey before the time of the radio drama. Strange Journey Back is the first compilation book of the AIO novels and includes the stories about Mark being a newcomer to Whit’s End, solving a mystery about a slashed bike tire, the discovery of a secret cave and a gang called the Israelites, and finding a secret in Mr. Whittaker’s attic. The second compilation book, Danger Lies Ahead, will be the last one in the trilogy to be given a brand-new look. Each compilation book contains four of the original Adventures in Odyssey novels. Thanks to The Odyssey Scoop for the news. We here at the AIO Update have noticed that when the Adventures in Odyssey producers sit down to answer questions on the Official Podcast, sometimes they don't have enough time to talk about new subjects because many of the same questions are asked again and again, year after year. Everything from Connie's slowed aging to the absence of old characters to the addition of Andre Stojka, it seems that fans are always in search of a few common questions about the show. That's why we have gone through these podcasts to find the answers many people are looking for and have put them together in a number of videos on YouTube which we believe will be more accessible than the old hard-to-find podcasts buried on the official site. You can find the answers from the Adventures in Odyssey producers themselves to common questions asked by AIO listeners on a daily basis in the multiple videos on our YouTube channel. In this Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast, Bob and Jesse talk with Odyssey Coordinator Evan Reedall. You may have seen Evan before on the Social Shout Out videos with Product Marketing Manager Brock Eastman. Evan's job involves social media, administration, travel plans, marketing, contracts, payments, invoices, casting, dealing with agents, and more. He talks about how he got an interview at Focus on the Family, where Paul McCusker and Dave Arnold do most of their work, his favorite kinds of episodes, supplying the recording sessions with the scripts, and coordinating all the actors and their schedules. He also explains his nickname "the Angel of Death," gives a behind-the-scenes story about The Labyrinth recordings, and tells us about which character he has played on AIO, getting inside the Mr. Whittaker costume, his spiritual journey and how God has taught him over the last few years, and what he will be doing next after Adventures in Odyssey. Listen here. Book 12 in the Imagination Station series is getting closer to its release. It was previously titled "Danger in the King's Palace" but has now been changed to "Danger on a Silent Night." The book’s authors are Marianne Hering and Nancy I. Sanders. This story is another adventure with Beth and Patrick, but this time it takes place in first century Roman-occupied Israel where they must stop King Herod and his soldiers from capturing the young Jesus. This would have been at the time that the Magi were also visiting Jesus, which many scholars agree was about two years after his birth in Bethlehem. The cover even depicts the star that the Wise Men are following. This new book marks the second time the Imagination Station series has told a Bible story. The other one was Book 5: Showdown with the Shepherd, which was about the story of the shepherd David slaying the giant Goliath. Book 12: Danger on a Silent Night will be released in stores this coming fall. According to The Odyssey Scoop, the Adventures in Odyssey video series will no longer be divided up into two distinct groups, the Original Series and the New Series. Instead, all the AIO videos are going to be re-released this spring with the same cover design and it looks like they will still retain their previous cover artwork. They could have chosen to depict different scenes on the covers to give the video series a completely new feel, but continuity prevailed. This new cover design is much more similar to the Odyssey albums and will even be branded with the new AIO logo, despite having been originally released long before the relaunch. We've seen other products such as the Kidsboro books, the Original Novels, and Passages: Darien's Rise all been given the latest AIO logo after the fact. This, however, has not been the practice with the regular Odyssey albums. Albums 1-50 all still have the previous AIO logo, while the albums beyond that have the new logo and cover design. The price for each DVD will be $9.99. It is unknown at this point whether you will be able to purchase all 17 videos together in one set at a reduced price. Thanks to The Odyssey Scoop for this news. The official Adventures in Odyssey Facebook page today passed the 20,000 likes mark less than three years after the page originally went online in April 2010. At that time Album 51: Take it From the Top was still premiering on the radio and many fans were hearing from the Parker and the Jones families for the first time. It was a time of change in Odyssey, changes which a great many fans have begun to adjust to and appreciate over years. If you aren't already a fan of AIO on Facebook, don't forget to check it out here. You'll have fast access to behind-the-scenes videos, photos from recording sessions with your favorite voice-over actors in California, and details about upcoming events. It's a great place to learn more about Odyssey. And for instant news updates you can also follow us on Twitter: @AIOUpdate Last summer the streaming service known as Adventures in Odyssey Web Radio, which played AIO online 24/7, was shut down by Focus on the Family due to financial constraints. Before that time the player would stream Odyssey episodes up to and including Album 38: Battle Lines because they were recorded and produced without the involvement of a union. But episodes after 500 could not be streamed on the online radio at the time because union technicalities had not been worked through yet. But none of that seemed to matter when the player was shut down completely. Just five months after AIO Web Radio was released it was unexpectedly taken offline. At the time many fans sent in suggestions about how it might be brought back as perhaps a paid service but there's nothing to indicate this particular route would be taken. But now, the AIO Facebook page has said that “something better” than AIO Web Radio will be released this coming fall. Could this perhaps be an online player that plays all 726 episodes unlike the previous player? We'll just have to wait and see what happens in the coming months. |