A typical late-boom baby, I had a TV in my room from a very early age. This gave me a remarkable amount of control over the cultural influences that entered my world. (Of course, this was before cable, so everything was filtered through the network censors first.) Using my command of the dial, the most subversive thing I watched in my atheist home might have been a sweet little show that has been loved now for generations: Davey & Goliath.
Son of a Lutheran minister, Dick Sutcliffe started his career as a journalist, but soon found himself working for the church, as assistant editor for The Lutheran magazine, then with the radio division, then television. Sutcliffe, as director of Lutheran radio and television ministry, was one of the first religious officials to realize the potential of television, starting in the late 1950s. When church leaders told him to put together a new TV show — a typical sermonette type of thing — he had a different idea. How about taking advantage of this new medium to give kids some good entertainment, so the moral and religious messages would go down easily.
[Read the rest of Faithful Departed—Dick Sutcliffe at bustedhalo.com]
