The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible

The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible is a direct-to-video series produced by Hanna-Barbera that tells of three young adventurers—Derek, Margo, and 'their nomad friend' Moki—who travel back in time to watch biblical events take place in the past. The series ran from 1985 to 1993 for 13 episodes.

Overview

Foreign exchange students Derek and Margo are college friends who are gaining field experience in their archaeology major by joining an excavation team. While they are with the team, a young Bedouin named Moki befriends them. Moki, known for his hijinks and huge appetite combined with his high metabolism, is fascinated by these two (apparently) American visitors and gets heavily into pop culture through them. He wears in addition to his beaten, battered clothes a blue hat (which he was probably given by them) that has a generic white letter "D" on it. (This is possibly a Detroit Tigers cap, but the style on the letter is kept generic, possibly to avoid trademark infringement.) The team find themselves on an excavation site, wherein which they stumble upon a trap door hidden in the sand. They fall into the trap, and end up inside of a large cavern. The opening of each video explains it this way:

"While surveying the site of some ancient ruins, two young archaeologists, Derek and Margo, and their nomad friend Moki find themselves trapped and sinking in a whirling pool of sand. And when the dust settles, they stare up in awe at a vast chamber, filled with giant relics and artifacts from another civilization... And there, at the far end of the cavern, a door with a strange inscription - 'All who enter these portals pass through time!' "^[1]

They feel for some unexplained reason that they need to keep the Doorway of Time a secret from the places they visit. In fact, "Joseph and His Brothers" with "The Miracles of Jesus" are the only episodes in which they either openly discuss or allude to the Doorway of Time in the actual episode.^[2][3] The three apparently time travel between some of the episodes, as evidenced by the span of historical periods they visit, but it is never explained how this is achieved.

By traveling to the past, the three are able to watch biblical history unfold, or, less often, hear it told by someone from the past. Although they sometimes meet famous biblical figures, they themselves neither ultimately have a significant role in nor dramatically alter the scriptural part of the tale in any way. The side-stories are sometimes humorous, but the biblical story is always gracefully and solemnly portrayed. Some episodes rush the long-stretched events into very short time frames, however, in keeping with the show's time constraints. Some light violence including blood sometimes occurs, notably in "David and Goliath", but this is usually done to avoid marginalizing or rewriting scripture.

Production and distribution

The series was first produced in 1985, with the final episodes being released in 1993. Joseph Barbera tried to get support for the project for 17 years and William Hanna did not even support it during that time. Finally, Hanna-Barbera's owner, Taft Broadcasting supported the project. Turner Home Entertainment assisted with production when they bought Hanna-Barbera in 1991. Sparrow-Star Song assisted with distribution. Kay Wright, a classic Disney animator, was among the many who contributed to the animation production team. After Hanna-Barbera was bought out by Time Warner in 1996, distribution of the series on DVD fell to the discretion of the Warner Bros. studios. The series was originally released directly to VHS under the Sparrow-Star Song era.^{[4][5][6][7][8]}

Episodes

Principal cast (in alphabetical order)

• Darleen Carr - Margo
• Darryl Hickman - Derek (1989–1993)
• Terry McGovern - Derek (1985–1989)
• Rob Paulsen - Moki
• Michael Rye - Main Title Narrator

Special guest cast (in alphabetical order)

Additional voices (in alphabetical order)

Crew

• Gordon Hunt - Recording Director
• Kris Zimmerman - Animation Casting Director

Home Media releases

The entire series was originally released on VHS, with each episode on its own tape. Later, Warner Home Video released five episodes of the series ("The Miracles of Jesus", "David and Goliath", "Noah's Ark", "The Easter Story", and "Moses") on DVD on March 7, 2006. The remaining eight have yet to be released from Warner Archive.

References

External links

• The Creation at the Internet Movie Database
• Noah's Ark at the Internet Movie Database
• Joseph and His Brothers at the Internet Movie Database
• Moses at the Internet Movie Database
• Joshua and the Battle of Jericho at the Internet Movie Database
• Samson and Delilah at the Internet Movie Database
• David and Goliath at the Internet Movie Database
• Daniel and the Lion's Den at the Internet Movie Database
• Queen Esther at the Internet Movie Database
• The Nativity at the Internet Movie Database
• The Miracles of Jesus at the Internet Movie Database
• The Easter Story at the Internet Movie Database
• DVDVerdict Review of David and Goliath
• The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible at CEGAnMo.com
• DVDVerdict Review of Moses
• Clips from the series