Adventures from the Book of Virtues
Animated moral lessons from classic stories and diverse cultures.
Adventures from the Book of Virtues is an American animated children's television series based on the books by William Bennett, who served as Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan. It was the first primetime animated series on PBS, airing as part of the network's children's programming block from 1996 to 2000.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Adventure
- Fantasy
- Educational
- Anthology
- Creator
- Bruce D. Johnson
- Director
- Walt Kubiak
- Based on
- Selections from The Book of Virtues, William Bennett
- Runtime
- 30 minutes
- Composer
- J. A. C. Redford; Stu Goldberg (performance and recording), Carl Johnson (arrangements and additional music)
- Theme music
- Music and lyrics:; J. A. C. Redford and Marcus Hummon
- Opening theme
- "The Adventure Has Begun"; Performed by Oren Waters
- Julia Waters
- Maxine Waters
- and Bobbi Page
Facts from the source article.
Premise
The series follows two best friends: 10-year-old Annie Redfeather, who is Native American, and 11-year-old Zach Nichols, who is white. In each episode, one of them acts against a chosen virtue—such as loyalty, compassion, courage, moderation, or honesty—and suffers a consequence. They seek advice from four anthropomorphic animal friends living in the mountains: Plato the scholarly bison, Aurora the gentle red-tailed hawk, Socrates the rambunctious bobcat, and Aristotle the prairie dog, who carries a bag of books. These beings, whose existence is largely unknown to the humans of Spring Valley, use classical works, fables, and myths to teach the children about virtue, after which the children apply the lesson.
Cast
Frank Welker provided the voices for Aegeus, Minotaur, Dharma, Mongal Dog, The Man, Frog Father, Billy Chipmunk, and The Dog. Jim Cummings voiced Pythias, Camel, Ox, Genghis Khan, Mordecai, King Alfred, Arnot, King Richard III, Sir Jacques, Arthur Keller, Gardener, Miser, The Emperor (Humility), Mamuken, Nathaniel, Tommy Chickadee, Rollonde, and Cyclops. Kath Soucie performed as Aunt Polly, George Washington, Queen Vashti, Joshua, Lars, Emma, Tiberius, Caius, Helen Keller, Dick, and Snake-Child. For the first two seasons, a dub was produced in 2006 at Studio Bizarro in Singapore. Brian Zimmerman, Joseph Murray, and Chuck Powers handled voice direction and also acted in it, joined by Denise Tan, Chio-Su Ping, and Brad Boyer. Chuck Powers explained that PorchLight could not cover residual royalties for celebrity voice actors in that area. This dub appears on recent DVD releases and on Qubo and the former BYUtv. The series' 39 episodes featured a large cast of well-known voice actors and celebrities, including Lewis Arquette, Edward Asner, Rene Auberjonois, Adrienne Barbeau, Kathy Bates, Scott Bakula, Irene Bedard, Ed Begley Jr., Shari Belafonte, Jeff Bennett, Mary Kay Bergman, Dean Cain, Cam Clarke, Jane Carr, Catherine Cavadini, Christine Cavanaugh, Lacey Chabert, Tim Curry, Olivia d'Abo, E. G. Daily, Daniel Davis, Pam Dawber, Michael Des Barres, Michael Dorn, Shelley Duvall, John Forsythe, Robert Foxworth, Peter Gallagher, Henry Gibson, Joanna Gleason, Gilbert Gottfried, Michael Gough, Khrystyne Haje, Jennifer Hale, Mark Hamill, Mark Harmon, Tippi Hedren, Charlton Heston, Michael Horse, Miko Hughes, Robert Ito, Tony Jay, Arte Johnson, Dean Jones, Ashley Judd, Carol Kane, Josh Keaton, and Andrew Lawrence.
Production
In June 1994, television producer Bruce D. Johnson, then an executive vice-president at Hanna-Barbera, found Bennett's 1993 book The Book of Virtues in a Washington, D.C. bookstore. He called Bennett, who said 19 other companies, including Disney, had already approached him. Johnson faxed his resume, and they later met, bonding over children's television and moral philosophy, agreeing to produce the series. Johnson shopped the project to networks for a prime time slot; PBS picked it up, airing it in prime time in September 1996 and then in a regular weekend slot in February 1997. Conservative figures approved of PBS's pickup, but PBS President Ervin S. Duggan denied the series was political, stating, 'We are not buying Bill Bennett's opinions... The series is not political at all. Adventures from the Book of Virtues became the first animated series to air on PBS in primetime.
Broadcast and home media releases
The series originally aired on PBS from September 2, 1996 to December 2000, with an epilogue released on home video in June 2001. Reruns aired on PBS stations until September 4, 2005, and on Qubo from November 3, 2008 to September 24, 2017. Turner Home Entertainment released videotapes in 1996–1997, later re-released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. PorchLight Entertainment released DVDs in 2008 and 2010. The series became available on Yippee in December 2019.
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