If they gave an award to the best Lutheran, Claymation TV show from the ’60s about a kid and his talking dog, Davey and Goliath would surely win.
This show is quite a find. It airs Mondays and Wednesdays at four p.m., Friday at 12 a.m. and Saturday at 9:30 a.m. on Boston Catholic TV (33 on BC Cable). It features little Davey, a boy being raised in a moralistic, Lutheran family. Goliath is the aforementioned talking dog who only Davey understands. He is a dog who gives Davey tips on life, friends and family. Only a few times does Goliath succumb to temptations and as a result, he becomes the brunt of the morals. Usually, though, he merely states “Heyyy Davey,” followed by a moral lesson.
That is what this show is about: morals, morals and morals. And that is what makes it so funny and watchable, even for college students. Davey’s parents are really nice, but if Davey screws up, you can bet he’s going to get a lesson and a moral. The show is a half-hour of non-stop hilarity, as Davey encounters the evil temptations and tough tribulations of everyday life, such as intimidation by a criminal, interaction with a blind man and pollution.
The funniest episode concerns a friend of one of Davey’s friends. To make the show politically correct, one of Davey’s friends, Jonathan, is black. But, the po-litical correctness comes to a screeching halt when Davey makes the state- ment that Jonathan’s friend is “the black kid who hates white kids!” This line comes out of nowhere and it is difficult to imagine a line like that said on a contemporary TV show.
And the episode takes off from there: Jonathan’s friend is blindfolded so he can’t tell that Davey is white. When he takes off the blindfold near the end of the groundbreaking episode, he can only mutter, “You’re white!” It’s just powerful moments like that that make Davey and Goliath such a treasure. For those wondering, by the end, the two resolve their differences and eventually form a friendship that will seemingly last forever.
Davey and Goliath is wall-to-wall cheesy lines. When Jonathan has a near death experience, Davey yells to him: “Jonathan, we better pray.” Jonathan, with eyes closed, responds, “What do you think I’m doing?” They make a good point, but in the cheesiest possible way.
Even the title sequence is hilarious, as the letters of Davey and Goliath crumble to the ground to form the Lutheran heart. And let’s not forget the stunning score to the title sequence as well as the show in general: Those ’60s Lutherans really know rock ’n’ roll.
It’s hard to tell what the world would be like without Davey and Goliath. Perhaps the kids who watched it growing up would not believe in talking dogs to this day. Perhaps there would be no morals in this society. One thing is for certain: 90 St. Thomas More, Room 201 would not have been as energetic and joyous every Tuesday and Thursday night of last year. For anyone who wants a laugh and a blast from the past, Davey and Goliath is worth watching.
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