Review:

It’s difficult to look at this collection without considering it’s importance. While a few of the episodes stand up the current quality level of AIO, most do not. Aside from Gifts for Madge and Guy, Recollections, and The Tangled Web, all the other stories suffer from one problem or the other. The technical level on all of the episodes is good, but not up to the level they achieved only a few albums later. But we have to look at their value. Whit’s Flop is the first AIO ever. The Life of the Party has the first Will Ryan (Eugene, Harlow) sighting. Connie Comes to Town introduces Connie. Recollections is pivotal in revealing Whit’s history and the history of Odyssey and Whit’s End. Gifts for Madge and Guy was the first time AIO showed it could do great comedy. The Tangled Web showed AIO was not content with contrived endings. Other episodes made the public aware that AIO was different than the "everyday" kid’s show. It was willing to tackle other issues. But we have to go back to the ultimate issue, these episodes, if listened to on their own, don’t carry the power of later episodes.

Rating: 2 stars

Notes:

"The Early Classics" featured three episodes (115: An Act of Mercy, 116: Isaac the Benevolent, 117: The Trouble with Girls) that did not really belong in the time period of this album. (Two featured Eugene, who hadn't come to town yet.) When the album was released as "The Adventure Begins," these episodes were replaced with three that had never been on an album before (17 & 18: A Member of the Family, Parts 1 & 2, 27: A Change of Hart).

The first ten AIO collections all have similarly structured names.

Order:

Order from FOTF
Order from CBD
Order from Tommy Nelson