Davey and Goliath facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Davey and Goliath
Title card
Genre	Animation Children's Christian Educational
Created by	Art Clokey Ruth Clokey Dick Sutcliffe
Starring	Dick Beals Norma MacMillan Hal Smith Paul Frees Nancy Wible Ginny Tyler
Theme music composer	Martin Luther
Opening theme	"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"
Composer(s)	John Seely William Loose Spencer Moore
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	73 (including specials)
Production
Running time	15 minutes
Production company(s)	Clokey Productions United Lutheran Church in America Lutheran Church in America
Release
Original network	First-run syndication
Original release	February 25, 1961 (1961-02-25) – December 19, 2004 (2004-12-19)

Davey and Goliath is a 1961-1973 American clay-animated children's television series, whose central characters were created by Art Clokey, Ruth Clokey, and Dick Sutcliffe, and which was produced first by the United Lutheran Church in America and later by the Lutheran Church in America. The show was aimed at a youth audience, and generally dealt with issues such as respect for authority, sharing and prejudice. Eventually these themes included serious issues such as racism, death, religious intolerance and vandalism. Each 15-minute episode features the adventures of Davey Hansen and his "talking" dog Goliath (although only Davey and the viewer can hear him speak) as they learn the love of God through everyday occurrences. Many of the episodes also feature Davey's parents John and Elaine, his sister Sally, as well as Davey's friends: Jimmy, Teddy, and Nathaniel in earlier episodes, and Jonathan, Jimmy, Nicky, and Cisco in later ones.

In general, the characters find themselves in situations that have to be overcome by placing their faith in God. While the show is explicitly faith-based, there is no content specifically about the Lutheran Church, which made broadcasters more comfortable with the idea of an overtly religious mainstream children's show. The only reference to Lutherans in the show was the theme song, an instrumental version of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God", and the Luther rose displayed in the opening theme and end credits.

Following Clokey's success with the Gumby series, Davey and Goliath premiered in syndication on February 25, 1961 as a Saturday feature, and lasted until 1965. By May 1961, it was reported that "Millions of children in cities and towns across the United States and Canada are talking about two new television stars, 'Davey and Goliath'."

Davey's friends Nathaniel (in the 1960s episodes) and Jonathan (in the 1970s episodes) were black, and were some of the first black characters to appear as friends of a television show's lead character.

After its initial run, several 30-minute holiday special episodes were created in the late 1960s. The series then resumed with some new characters in 1971 and continued until 1973. In 1975, a final 30-minute summer episode was created. In 2004, Joe Clokey produced a new special, "Davey and Goliath's Snowboard Christmas".

Television airings

The program had become a fixture on Saturday and/or Sunday mornings on TV stations (both religious and secular) all around the country during the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, commercial stations began gradually dropping the series. Religious stations picked it up in many markets and ran it in their blocks of Christian children's programs. By 1990, only a handful of commercial stations still aired the series.

The show continued to air on CatholicTV Network until late in 2009, on Tri-State Christian Television also until 2010 and still airs on a few local Christian television stations.

In 2004 and 2005, when Hallmark Channel aired a Christmas special and the 1967 "Happy Easter" episode, they aired the program with several commercial breaks. Hallmark (in its past incarnation as Odyssey Network) had previously aired the entire series commercial-free until 2001. Since then, Hallmark only aired a few of the holiday specials, as well as the Snowboard Christmas special made in 2004. In 2008, iTunes began offering episodes as free downloads. By December of that year, more than 20 episodes had been made available. Today, they cost 99 cents each.

Until the beginning of October 2018, the series was shown on Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) Saturday afternoons, and during the week it was seen on the TBN-owned Smile of a Child network, which is carried on digital subchannels of TBN affiliates.

List of episodes

Season 1 (1961)

Season 2 (1962–63)

Season 3 (1963–64)

Season 4 (1971–72)

Season 5 (1972–73)

Specials (1965–1975, 2004)