Live the Adventure
Jonathan Park is an action adventure Religious Edutainment radio drama, primarily focused on theories of creationism, biblical themes and family values. The series follows the Park and Brenan families, particularly the titular character Jonathan, his father Dr. Kindle Park and Jessie Brenan (Jonathan's best friend), as they travel the world studying science, solving mysteries, surviving natural disasters and fighting occasional Criminals
The series begins when Jonathan and Dr. Park have to take shelter in a cave, after being stranded in a New Mexico flood. Eventually, the Brenans, who happen to own the land the cave is on, happen to be evacuating in the same storm stumble upon the cave, but they quickly become friends, especially Dr. Kindle Park and Jim Brenan. After Jonathan brief fight with a Con Man and his Mooks, Dr. Park and Jim decide to build a creation museum around the cave.
Several adventures later, after barely surviving a hurricane with a response team called F.I.R.S.T., the two families end up forming the Creation Response Team (CRT) , who although devoted to scientific expeditions, most often end up solving crimes and finding artifacts on an international level. They ended up on TV, went to space, stopped an Egyptian revolution and mysteriously disbanded.
For the majority of its run, it was produced by a non-profit company called Vision Forum, but ceased production of the series in 2014, after serious allegations arose concerning its founder Doug Phillipsnote . After briefly reverting to creators Pat and Sandy Roy (who created the series while working for Institute for Creation Research); the rights would eventually be picked up by Wise King Media, a larger for-profit company, who allowed the series to have a much larger budget and more cinematic tone than the early albums, though with a lot of deviations from the source material and a more mainstream evangelical viewpoint.
Jonathan Park provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: The fate of the Creation Response Team (CRT), has not yet been mentioned in the newer albums. It is assumed they disbanded, but the reasons why are entirely unknown.
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Jonathan is described as this in the newer albums. Dr. Kindle Park shows shades of this, but is actually a Paleontologist.
- Author Filibuster: Though it's less the religious beliefs and more long drawn out discussions about science, history, mathematics and other parts of creation. Although this usually loops back around to their beliefs in young earth creationism, it will take a little while to get there, making the conversations either really interesting or boring, depending on the audience.
- This was Lampshaded in an episode with Simon Adelman, the Con Man with a history with the two families, who knew exactly how their conversations worked.
- It was Justified in the Journey Never Taken, due to how solving historical and scientific problems was necessary to continue the plot.
- It's very Downplayed in the newer episodes from Wise King Media.
- Arch-Enemy: Myles Morgan, the leader of FI.R.S.T. and trainer of the CRT did not accept the CRT's religious approach, so they decided to let him go, but not before he faced a lawsuit concerning FI.R.S.T and aquired a lot of debt unbeknownst to the CRT. He quickly turned to crime and swore vengeance, in the following albums, and is largely the main antagonist of the series.
- As the Good Book Says...: At least a quarter of the dialogue in the series is basically this. It's much more downplayed in the newer albums. They don't even use 1790 KJV anymore.
- Badass Pacifist: Especially Dr. Park and Jim Brenan. They avoid violence where they can, but are not afraid to put themselves in danger or physically attack an enemy to protect their families. Jonathan also takes on very evident shades of this as the series progresses.
- Composite Character: In the Vision Forum albums, Benjamin Park was often accompanied by the neighborhood club known as the Eagles Nest Gang, who were mostly Played for Laughs, and played a big role in Jonathan's Character Development, but when Wise King Media took over the franchise, they condensed all of the characters into Isaac Brenan (Jessie's cousin), who largely plays the exact same role, especially as the comedic relief.
- Cowboy Episode: Showdown at Twin Bridges
- Cult: UTOPIA is a cult centered around Roswell New Mexico centered around belief in aliens and the phrase "Universal peace to you"
- Edutainment Show: If the long breaks in the plot to talk about science didn't clue you in.
- Also Battle of the World Views. An in universe reality tv documentary series that hosted the CRT’s debates on on location against a secular group called The Explorer’s Society.
- Eco-Terrorist: The team has to save some whalers from them in one episode.
- Expanded Universe: There are a couple of pieces of merchandise that add some lore to the series, that much like Star Wars Legends got shifted around as the copyright was picked up by different people. These include a couple of volumes by The Institute for Creation Research (the original creators of the series), which mostly featured Jonathan and Dr. Park observing and discussing animals at places like zoos and aquariums. However the most prominent is certainly the original ending to the series, The Journey Hope created during the brief acquisition by Creation Works. It was made to function similar to Avengers: Endgame with cameos, revisiting old locations and sending off the series on a high note. Though Wise King Media made this non cannon, it is still available for download under a new title Creation Museum Adventure.
- Expy: The show has a couple of these.
- Alexander Demarcus the Rich Genius is a pretty obvious rif of Jules Vern’s Captain Nemo, even down to his technology. It even gets lampshaded by Jim Brenan in one episode after Alexander quotes him. However the latter half of the plot of The Voyage Beyond also makes him something of a rif on Elon Musk.
- The AI virtual reality system "Z" is very similar to the Imagination Station from Adventures in Odyssey
- Green Aesop: Conservation efforts do tend to be more antagonistic in the series, but the character do emphasize Biblical commandments of stewardship. These Author Filibuster’s can be even longer than usual.
- Gadget Watches: Every member of the CRT has a "Communicator Watch", a Dick Tracy style device powered by a Satellite/Two way radio network. Though initially just long distance wrist walkie talkies, they gradually started being able to do basically anything the plot requires, including taking pictures of criminals, accessing the internet and emails, GPS, virtual reality (using Z) etc. They are prone to water damage.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Jonathan is usually drawn as having blonde hair, and following the first three albums, is generally depicted as entirely principled, selfless and kind. He was even referred to as Captain America by Issac Brenan.
- Hollywood Atheist: This trope is surprisingly very subverted for a series about Creationism. Dr. Park was fired for more business related reasons, Myles Morgan (the Arch-Enemy of the CRT) is agonistic and more out for revenge. Then of course there’s The Explorers Society volume where they directly compete against a group of mostly atheist, and despite being rivals on paper, both teams became good friends and usually spent more time having each other’s back in survival situations than actually debating, and this not even to mention how the latter group had one openly theistic evolutionist among them. The ones who do appear are generally very minor, or have another more complicated agenda.
- Jungle Opera: Some episodes show shades of this, especially some episodes in the Hunt For Beowulf
- The Missionary: When they are not helping them, the CRT basically takes on this role themselves.
- Moon-Landing Hoax: Subverted The CRT's first mission was to expose a fraud promoting the moon landing as a hoax, rather than proving the moon landing itself as a hoax.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: This is one of the more iconic elements of the Vision Forum albums. Due to their non-prophet company and cheap production, most all of the soundtrack comes classical composers.
- The Professor: Jonathan's grandfather, Bannerman Park, is pretty explicitly this. He is an inventor, always providing the team with gadgets, including being the one to create the Communicator Watches.
- Rich Genius: Alexander Demarcus is a Captain Nemo Expy an extremely wealthy ally of the CRT, He even took them to space.
- Rewrite: Kindle's entire backstory was altered in the newer albums. His original character design was far more compelling, abandoning the faith as a young man, becoming a secular PhD in Paleontology who eventually found too many anomalies in his field, was fired for his anomalous discoveries, read the Bible cover to cover for multiple nights in a row, and finally became a Christian with Jonathan following shortly after, but in the newer continuity, its heavily implied that he has always been a man of faith.
- Ruthless Modern Pirates: The main antagonists in the Pirates of Whitby arc.
- Science Hero: The CRT is basically a whole team comprised of this trope. Especially Dr. Park
- Send in the Search Team: Often a plot point in the episodes featuring the Explorer's Society.
- Space Episode: The entire latter half of the Voyage Beyond album is about training and going to space.
- Treasure Hunt Episode: The entirety of the album, The Journey Never Taken, was basically this, as the CRT and some eager competitors, traveled around the world uncovering the history of evolution and biology, with a large treasure at the end.