Behind the scenes

  Behind the Scenes: The Buck Starts Here

  "The original title, "The Parable of the Entrepreneur, the Sock Shooter, and the Ditch-Digger," had to be changed because the long name wouldn't fit on the cassette-tape labels."

-The Official Guide p.340

 In my opinion this would be a much cooler title. Now I am off to Nevada city for the weekend!!

Review: Opposite Day

Opposite Day

Summary:

Odyssey Middle School's “Opposite Day” inspires Olivia Parker to become friends with a girl who is nothing like her.

Meanwhile, Barrett Jones becomes obsessed with getting as many online friends as possible.

Review:

  Plot/Writing: This episode did not quite keep my entertainment level. I was surprised about this because it was written by Kathy Buchanan who is one of my favorite writers. But that didn't bother me very much at all.

Humor: I thought that Wooton was disappointingly not very funny. Not much to say about the humor because there wasn't much.

Characters/Acting: The biggest shock and disappointment in the acting was of course Barrett's voice. Just when I was getting over his really bad performance in, "Game for a Mystery."

  The voice's of all the girl characters confused me the first time I listened to the episode. And of course Amber's Laugh got on my nerves the first time I heard it.

  Does anyone know who Georgina Cordova played? In the end Chris said her name in the credits but I couldn't figure out who she was.

Lesson: Club Kid Chat was obviously code for Facebook. And while you shouldn't spend too much time on it especially when you are Barrett's age, your Facebook friends are also your real friends not just random people. I thought that both of the lessons were pretty good.

  Most people have said that they did not like this episode at all! My thoughts are more neutral. It was by far not my favorite episode of the season, but I didn't hate it so I would give it a 2/5.

Fact Friday

Every Friday (as long as I can remember to do it) I will be posting a fact that I think is interesting from "The Official Guide." Here is the first one...
  Sound Bites: "When we were recording 'The Life of the Party,'we accidentally misquoted the bible by having a character say, 'What you reap you shall also sow.' With careful editing, the sound designers fixed the line to it's correct rendering, 'What you sow, you shall also reap.' When you listen to this episode see if you can tell."

-The Official Guide p.71

Interview with Writer Kathy Buchanan

  The official podcast #107 came out today! Writer Kathy Buchanan talkes about the episode that she wrote, "Opposite Day."

  She also answers the ever present question, is Mitch coming back? No, he isn't coming back! But I am happy about that because I think that it would not live up to the listeners expectations. And besides have you ever thought about how weird Connie Mitchell sounds!

Review: Fast as I Can

Fast as I can

Summary:

Wooton Bassett, Eugene Meltsner, Connie Kendall, and Matthew Parker try to apply the discipline of fasting and, through their comedic antics, realize that it’s far more difficult than they imagined.

Review:

  Plot/writing: I was glad to see that this episode was written by  some of our old friends, Paul McCusker and Marshal Younger. I think that it balanced all of the newness with a wonderfully written episode!

Humor: I thought that a few scenes in this episode were especially funny. Like the one where they are telling what there fasts are about. I loved it when Wooton said, "I know you are fasting wearing every color but green." Or Matthew saying,"I e-mailed her that I thought she was wrong but she wouldn't let it go."

Acting/Characters: I was very glad to see that Mrs. Randolph was back. It gave the scenes with Wooton in it a very old feel.

Lesson: I really connected with this lesson because while I haven't ever fasted eating food I have fasted from listening to AIO, going on AIO websites or reading the official guide for a whole week. I didn't even talk about it and discus all of my thoughts and theories with my mom or cousin as they did their best to listen. It was ironically inspired by the episode, "The Meaning of Sacrifice."
 
  This was very hard for me especially because it was in the summer and in the summer AIO is all I do. I draw Odyssey characters, I even take notes on a piece of paper about an album. I research that album and put the piece of paper in the album so then when I open the album I can read facts about is! And every night I fall asleep with AIO playing (I take it everywhere even backpacking). I had trouble going to sleep the whole week! But it did get me to focus on other things beside Odyssey and I had time for other things.

  So I thought that this episode had a lesson that I was able to apply to my life because while I don't want to fast from food I can fast from something else. And Matthews fast probably applies to everyone who has an AIO blog.

Over all I think that "Fast As I Can" deserves 5/5 stars!