Slowly, but surely this will be moving to yet another blogspot, because I want to start using this for my Christian artist Promotion company in progress...as it were.  For anyone who is coming here via my website on aio radio sorry.  However this is also an opportunity to tell you what I'm up to.  I have been given the green light by my former supervisor at Creative Promotions to go out on my own. Which I will admit is a little scary, but he's confident that I can do it.  Until I can set up a formal webpage this will be where I'm going to be working.  I also want to do this the right way.  I am not going to let a whole semester of Marketing Management go to waste (including a 60+ page marketing report). Anyway when I have the new link for my blog I will re link my musings.  In the meantime if you know of any singer who is wanting someone to represent their music to the non-reporting Christian radio stations I'm avalible.  Thnaks for understanding.

I have debated on what to do with this, but I finally decided to put it in my musings section as I didn't feel I had enough for an entire article on it and didn't want to detract from the review of the episode in my review section. 

 

Dale Jacobs gave us all something to think about when he was trying to stop the citizens of Odyssey from taking on Bart Rathbone in a way that wouldn't be very productive.

 

What are we teaching our kids?  We rip tapes out of their hands and make them throw them away and…and…and what does it teach them?  Does it teach them why they're so offensive?  Does it make them think about why they listen to or watch [or read]?  No, of course it doesn't.  So let's calm down and go on home and get face to face with our kids and teach them by example that there are reasons to what we believe.  Let's teach them to discern for themselves…to think. (episode 171 "You Gotta be Wise")

 

When I heard this episode I immediately thought of Harry Potter.  Particularly in the Christian sub-culture this has become a touchy subject.  It also doesn't help when you have people trying to get the books banned.  I also found it interesting that the verse accompanying it is Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it."  All this to say that I'm sick and tired of hearing news stories or reading reports in the broadcast journal about parents wanting the government, or the school board, or some other governing body to do their job.  Censorship is a touchy issue with a lot of schools because it begins to tread on those rights we hold so dear. 

 

Also parents who try hard to get something banned might have the exact opposite effect they intended.  For a lot of kids, "Because I said so" doesn't cut it.  In this episode Dale is concerned about the Bones of Wrath putting out a rather racy tape.  He's listened to the tape but he didn't talk with his daughter, Robin, who apparently likes the band.  As a result they get into a fight. Whit hasn't listened to the tape and won't pass judgment until he heard it, but he also knows Dale wouldn't have done what he did without a good reason.  For those of you who know the series, you'll know that even with Novacom he never called for an outright ban on the broadcast network, but he tried working with the company to provide family friendly programing.
 

When it comes to stuff like book censorship I think people tread on thin ice when they start requesting certain kinds of books to be banned.  Particularly in a library.  If parents don't want their kids to read Harry Potter that's fine and good.  They can tell their kids they don't want them checking those books out of the library and why they don't want them reading those books.  Also by going to school boards to get the books banned I wonder what they're teaching their kids in the area of personal responsibility.  You can choose to not read the books just like you can choose to read them. 
 

 On the flip side Christian literature really doesn't have that much to offer kids in the area of fantasy to challenge their imaginations.  And there really aren't any of that nature for teens.  Even with the success of books like, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia.  There haven't been that many fantasy type specifically Christian books that have come out.  The only one that I know of is Shadowmancer, which was also written by a British author, in response to Harry Potter.  I don't want to beat this into the ground, but to quote the show's title, sort of; you just gotta be wise when it comes to the types of books you expose yourself to.  Trust me we all can make mistakes in that area.  However by learning to discern between what are good stories and what aren't we can avoid all kinds of nasty problems. 

 

For those of you who like the Harry Potter books and think those that challenge the books are nutcases or idiots.  They honestly and truely believe that this is the right course.  Sometimes anything that points toward creativity is frowned upon or they don't understand it and because they don't understand they feel threatened.   I also think that because a lot of fairy tales have been Disney-fied we forget that there are fairy tales that are quite dark, but that's neither here nor there. 

    I know that the voice actor's have done various voices for various cartoons.  Some of them distinguishable some you're just like ok, and other's "ok I can hear it...sort of."  One of my favourite cartoons is Ducktales and I was watching one where they were at Camp Woodchuck.  I'm also noodling on my computer at the same time, when I hear a voice that I recognize as an AIO voice.  It takes me a while to place it because it was only in the early days of AIO that we heard it in the character of Nicholas Adamsworth.  It's sometimes fun to play spot that AIO voice when watching cartoons.  Another example would be that I found out Jess Harnell (sp?) played Wacko Warner on the cartoon Anamaniacs.  Now this isn't that surprising considering the character of Wooten.  However what I find a tad bit mind bending is that he also is Bennett Charles. 
However I've also had the reverse happen.  So far it's only happened once.  When I was reintroduced to AIO a couple of years ago I started out with the darkness before Dawn Series.  I hear the the voice of Jack Allen and I'm like "I know that voice"  and I'm just about hitting my head on the wall to try to place the voice.  I forget how I remembered, but I suddenly realised I'd heard him on Ducktales as noneother than Scrooge McDuck.  So just for kicks my friend and I looked to see how many other voice actors we could place and most of it we did by cheating.  However we discovered that there was a considerable connection to Disney they all have.  Which we aptly named the Disney connection.  Yeah I know they have to work on stuff other than AIO, but it's sometimes fun just to hear how many voices you can recognize.

One thing that has intrigued me since the writers implied Wooten had a lot of money was how he's reacts to it.  Money in itself is not inheritly evil, but it's how you spend or give attention to it that can create problems.  The primary reason Wooten doesn't let people know is that he doesn't want his family to know.  His grandfather knew of course that he drew the comic books for Powerboy, but he didn't want the rest of them to know.  I have a feeling that Wellington would still look down on Wooten even if he knew because it's a comic book not a serious business like he has. 

We know that Whit makes a substansial amount of money, yet it doesn't seem to bother him when people know about it.  In fact in Odyssey it's common knowledge they know about the Universal Press Foundation.  People don't seem to treat him any differently in light of that fact. 

My feelingt that Wooten's family is the primary reason he hasn't told any of his friends in Odyssey as to his primary job.  Which is why I think Wooten has major trust issues when it comes to this.  Wooten's been in Odyssey long enough that he should know his friends (Connie, Eugene, Whit, and Tom) will keep his secret.  I'm sure Wooten's half waiting for Grady to blurt the secret out anyway.  The only person that might give him pause to say anything is Bart Rathbone and for good reason.  

I think sooner or later Wooten will have to come to grips with his secert.  His friends, however, will be encouraging and supportive when the secret gets blurted out and we will have a Whit and Wooten moment.  Whit will give him sound advice and Wooten won't feel so crummy that it's been blurted out.  My question is if Wooten doesn't want anyone knowing it's him drawing the comic, then whose name is on they by line?