"oh, what a beautiful sight!"

📍 at the house just down the street and around the corner (from 1981-now)

[thesbarchives]

the introduction

hiya! this is the blog for any superbook related stuff i could find and is (hopefully) currently available. this will range from lost media to concepts and more!

status:

inactive 🌌 (for now)

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if you are viewing the blog on mobile, you'll find that the theme is of classic. the desktop ver has the theme of reimagined

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the tags used to organise the posts are:

☆: "as we all go flying away!"

☆: "his word's forever alive!"

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*the sb archives is not affiliated with the christian broadcasting network (cbn) and tatsunoko productions. this blog is used for educational and (mostly) entertainment purposes*

admin: @aranciadotcom

header (mobile): @/contac

[thesbarchives]

evolution of chris (1981-2021/25):

classic (1981-83):

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• both him and his reboot version are named after st christopher, the saint of travelling. his surname is of dutch origin

• was originally the first protagonist of the series. he's depicted as a mischievous, curious and outspoken boy who typically has troubles with his morals

• to emphasise cbn's idea to make classic realistic and relatable, it was decided to change the kids' names to fit the international dubs. chris' names were sho (jp), luis (es) and cristi (ro)

• his most notable colour is blue. blue is seen as a colour that signifies stability, masculinity, professionalism and dependability

• in s2, his younger brother/cousin uriah was introduced and replaced chris as the main character

reimagined (2006-2021/25):

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• he's based off the original chris from the classic series

• his name means "bearer of christ" and his surname means "how many" in latin. his surname is also a reference to the discrete amount of energy (which is unironically called a quantum) and correlates to the fact that his father and late maternal grandfather are/were scientists. additionally, it could possibly be a reference to quantum mechanics and its relation to time travel

• most of the episodes tend to center around him and his moral conflicts (there are a few times where joy gets the token spotlight due to her being the deuteragonist). probably because of his main character status

• his most notable colour is red (and other warm colours). red signifies passion, love and anger. as a series-wide example, his passion is sports, music, gaming and (sometimes) science, he has a deep love and care for joy, gizmo and his parents. he's also prone to get angry, selfish, rude and egotistical

• between the kids, chris is canonically a year younger than joy (he was 11 before elijah and the widow)

• in heroes of the bible, it's revealed that chris has a middle name that begins with a j. the j in his name is unknown... in the original english version, that is. in the spanish dub, it's allegedly revealed that his middle name is santiago

• in the road to damascus, it's been stated that he's wealthy and/or has been born into wealth

• throughout the series, it's shown an array of his relatives: phoebe and crispin (his parents), his grandparents, his aunt, isobel and his cousins, tom and denise

• both him and joy have scriptures that have been allocated to them since the start of the pilot. chris' scripture is philippians 4:13

[thesbarchives]

thought it would be good to introduce the series into two parts and by that, i'll first start of w/ the basis of the series + classic!

what it is:

superbook is a christian animated show about two kids and a robot travelling back in time to learn about the bible. the protagonists, chris and joy (who are both neighbours and best friends), learn how to deal with moral dilemmas by experiencing them through time travel and demonstrating what they've seen on their journey in the real world

there are three shows in the franchise: superbook classic, superbook reimagined and gizmogo

as a collective, the franchise was and still is a well loved piece of animated christian media along with veggietales, the story keepers, friends and heroes and the greatest adventure

an introduction to classic:

• also known as animated parent and child theatre (s1) and personal computer travel detectives (s2)

• first started in 1981, ended in 1983-84

• the show is set during the 20th century

• classic was used as a project to introduce christianity to japan

• it was the first christian anime and one of the very first to start the isekai genre. (allegedly) its american debut was the first time in forever that a christian animated show went into syndication after davey and goliath in the states and one of the very first pieces of media to introduce anime to americans (and christians)

• originally, classic wasn't supposed to have the name "animated parent and child theatre". instead, the original name was supposed to be "the family adventure: based on old testament bible stories". this, of course, was changed to the current japanese title and in overseas countries, the show was either named "superbook" or "wonder book". sb's name was solely for the fact that it's a reference to the bible

• in 1979, cbn worked with two psychologists, young and rubicon, to determine what would work for spreading the gospel to japan. it turned out that animation/books were the best option and kids were one of the main sources of marketing because they would be open to the bible

• while it was airing in the us, most christian conservatives hated the show bc of its concept of two kids and a robot travelling back in time

• originally, it was supposed to be a japan-exclusive series. the reason? pat robertson (the creator) thought classic wouldn't be marketable outside japan because the show's originally japanese. it took cbn's marketing director, david clark, to convince robertson to have classic translated into english. while cbn was showing it to an expo in france, it was well received and cbn decided to do the english dub shortly after. the us debut was aired and watched in 10 million households

• the concept of children visiting places in the bible was unheard of during that time of (western) christian animation. it was mostly childlike characters and mascots that was telling children what to do, but not why they should do it (this was before sb showed up).

• (cont.) after sb's success, its sister show the flying house aired a year later, the vatican commissioned osamu tezuka to create the fourth anime about the bible and hanna barbera jumped on the bandwagon 4 years later by creating the greatest adventure which was the first christian western animated show that did the same thing sb did

• in japan, both animated parent and child theatre, personal computer travel detectives and the flying house are all part of what is nicknamed "the tatsunoko bible trilogy"

• the main characters' names were different depending on which geographical dub you were watching. for example, they were sho and azusa (jp), chris and aline (fr), luis and anita (es), chris and joy (en), chris and maria/ri (de) and chris* and susie (it) (*apparently his name was also ricky (?) in the italian dub)

• while she has a surname in the original japanese version, joy, in every single dub, doesn't have a specific surname like chris. her surname in the jp ver is yamato

• when it first aired in japan, cbn didn't realise the show was going to be a success at first. due to the airing, it had a plethora of 4-8 million viewers and the bible became one of the best selling books in japan at the time

• in international dubs, uri is written as chris' cousin. but in the original version, he's written as his brother

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

so that's pretty much all you need to know about classic! i got some of the information on the official fanpage for sb (no i'm not joking, cbn created a fanpage for the show while reimagined was still in development) so pretty much some of this is factual information

[sillygooberincarnate]

hi hi!! :3 i wanna add smt for the dubbing part, if u don't mind 𐔌՞ ܸ.ˬ.ܸ՞𐦯

in the romanian dub, Chris and Joy's names were Cristi and Oana (ig... idk i don't remember that well)

[thesbarchives]

helloooo!! i actually forgot to add that when i first posted this, although i have mentioned their romanian names in two separate drafts so dw ^_^

i've also brought up the romanian version of their names in another reblog if you want to check that out too!!

[thesbarchives]

a collection of concepts and deleted scenes from the lost let my people go episode

context:

during the run of season 1, it was planned for joy to have her first moral dilemma. the episode that would showcase this was none other than let my people go. of course, cbn scrapped this early concept and inevitably gave it to the gideon episode in s2. joy's first moral dilemma made its debut in jonah as the first episode of s2

from the family discussion guide of the ep (2011)

(the above picture for the let my people go ending credits is the exact same as this clip from the gideon episode. joy and gizmo, on the other hand, had screenshots of the current lmpg concept for their parts in the credits:)

concept art of the road where the peppers were driving on (2010. might have been produced earlier)

[thesbarchives]

update:

the full episode has been found on vk, which finally makes this not lost media!!

[thesbarchives]

i'm back on this blog for once in my life

[thesbarchives]

a collection of concepts and deleted scenes from the lost let my people go episode

context:

during the run of season 1, it was planned for joy to have her first moral dilemma. the episode that would showcase this was none other than let my people go. of course, cbn scrapped this early concept and inevitably gave it to the gideon episode in s2. joy's first moral dilemma made its debut in jonah as the first episode of s2

from the family discussion guide of the ep (2011)

(the above picture for the let my people go ending credits is the exact same as this clip from the gideon episode. joy and gizmo, on the other hand, had screenshots of the current lmpg concept for their parts in the credits:)

concept art of the road where the peppers were driving on (2010. might have been produced earlier)

[thesbarchives]

early concepts of gizmo (2007)

[aranciadotcom]

i feel like this account is slowly turning into an "sb fact of the day" type of thing

should i do that? it'd be fun, but probably tiring as well since i would have too much stuff on my plate

the franchise has a lot (and i mean a lot) of information that's hidden unless you do your thorough research. most of it is actually cool. even if you dislike the franchise, nevertheless, i suggest you take a look at both classic/reimagined's origins, concepts and classic's sister show "the flying house". it's very interesting

as someone who grew up with the series, i myself never knew most of the stuff behind sb until i went deeper into the fandom. for example: i didn't know reimagined was not only made to relate to modern audiences more but it was also made to celebrate the 25th anniversary of classic back in 2006

still, if someone (or me) would do an "sb fact of the day" account, that would be great!

(but if you decide on doing the account, i need my royalties, please /j)

[thesbarchives]

oh look at how the tables have turned

[aranciadotcom]

i couldn't add this onto the prior post i did but here is the animatic i was talking about!

[thesbarchives]

an animatic for the first christmas (year unknown)

[thesbarchives]

gizmo's expressions sheet (possibly from 2006-07. source unknown)

[thesbarchives]

prototypes of chris' 3d model (possibly from 2006-07. source unknown)

[thesbarchives]

joy's expressions sheet (2013)

[thesbarchives]

prologue:

in 2006-07, pat robertson stepped down as the ceo of cbn and appointed his son, gordon, to take his place. one of the first things gordon did for the network was to plan a reboot for one of their shows. this turned into the little, soon to be big, project called superbook reimagined

with the reboot, the whole premise of the plot was the same as the original. oppositely, the names for the kids (minus gizmo) were different. they were no longer called chris peeper and joy but they were known as "two typical 22nd century friends" who go by the names of chris quantum and joy pepper

reimagined, of course, did bring a divide within the classic fandom since the majority hated the reboot (due to its multiple changes) while a handful of people appreciated the futuristic aspect of the series

an introduction to reimagined:

• developed in 2006-07, pilot aired around 2008-09, released in 2011 and ended in 2021

• the show is set around the 22nd century

• the series was nominated for a daytime emmy award for its main title, graphic design and opening/promotions back in 2014*

• in 2006, the working title for the series was going to be superbook 2.0, but it later changed into the official title of superbook reimagined instead

• while many can remember a giant adventure to be the 6th episode of s1, it was actually used as the first ever pilot of the series. let my people go came shortly after and the rest of season 1 was officially released in 2011

• according to one of the art directors and designers for sb, reimagined was originally planned to be in 2d, but cbn scrapped the idea and wanted it to be in 3d instead. the reason was that in order to air reimagined to one of their main geographic targets (china), they therefore changed the animation style. however, *it was confirmed by the senior producer that there was a test pilot before the final product of a giant adventure

• reimagined has two official taglines: "his word's forever alive!" and "the bible is alive!"

• in 2016, cbn released a video titled superbook's gospel presentation and there were three versions of the same presentation that featured chris, joy and gizmo respectively. there were many changes to the presentation depending on which version you were viewing. for example, one part of the chris version has him saying "God made you, uniquely you, and has a very cool plan for your life" whereas joy and giz's versions cut out the "very cool" part. another thing that's different is after peter's apology, chris and joy's versions say "so, what do you think? it's not that complicated, is it?". gizmo's version completely cuts out this part and says something else. on the official sb youtube channel, you can only find chris and joy's versions but you can find giz's version on dailymotion.

(fun fact: the presentation that is normally used within official media is joy's version!)

• there are multiple references to classic in reimagined. for example, there is concept art of classic gizmo in the professor's lab, a picture of the classic trio in chris' bedroom, a toy of classic giz in the downstairs hallway of the quantums' house and reimagined joy's surname (pepper is an allusion to peeper)

• (cont.) the kids' names in some international dubs are changed to the classic versions. compared to the classic japanese ver, the japanese ver of reimagined doesn't keep the original names of chris and joy, however, they still keep the western names (supposedly, this might be due to copyright entanglements with tatsunoko productions)

• in 2018, reimagined made its japanese debut since 1981 and was well received

• during the development of reimagined, cbn released an official fan website for sb. it included videos of classic's history, games, a forum feature and etc.

• in 2023, cbn started a project to translate reimagined in sign language. this has only happened in bsl (british sign language) and the first christmas was the first episode that has been fully translated

• in 2015, cbn introduced a "curriculum" based on the series so that it could be used in schools, churches or in the home

• although you can't find this on the official english website or any other sb website, the indonesian website actually explains why the main trio is relevant to the series. for example, chris and joy were made to mirror what children (or people in general) go through in their lives (like grief, bullying, peer pressure, cheating or disobedience) and gizmo, albeit the fact that he's there to be comic relief, was also made to add historical, chronological and geographical information about the place that they've travelled to. plus, the scripts also have a rule that the kids and giz can't tamper with the history, culture or the biblical scenarios that take place

• back in 2006, cbn held an experiment with both children and fans of classic sb.* the experiment was based off past designs of chris, joy and gizmo. the results showed that most of the participants hated the concept designs of the trio (especially giz's) and cbn decided to change to the ones that we now know of (which was accepted by both participants). the experiment wasn't the only reason why they had design changes. while the pilot was in process and due to the scrapped 2d concepts, it was hard for the producers to look for suitable 3d studios that would take on the idea of animating the series and when they did find one, they had to change the concept designs (according to one of the production studios that cbn worked closely with)

• in other countries, the translated title for the series is "the book of books", which is a direct reference to the bible literally being a book of books

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*the nominations are on pages 76 and 89

*he talks about it at around 5:27

edit (10.11.25): (the link is currently not working)

*you'll find the comment where one of the producers explain the experiment

[thesbarchives]

artwork of some of the side characters in reimagined (date unknown)

[thesbarchives]

some of the official scripts of classic (1981)

(taken from the official fanpage from cbn)

[thesbarchives]

thought it would be good to introduce the series into two parts and by that, i'll first start of w/ the basis of the series + classic!

what it is:

superbook is a christian animated show about two kids and a robot travelling back in time to learn about the bible. the protagonists, chris and joy (who are both neighbours and best friends), learn how to deal with moral dilemmas by experiencing them through time travel and demonstrating what they've seen on their journey in the real world

there are three shows in the franchise: superbook classic, superbook reimagined and gizmogo

as a collective, the franchise was and still is a well loved piece of animated christian media along with veggietales, the story keepers, friends and heroes and the greatest adventure

an introduction to classic:

• also known as animated parent and child theatre (s1) and personal computer travel detectives (s2)

• first started in 1981, ended in 1983-84

• the show is set during the 20th century

• classic was used as a project to introduce christianity to japan

• it was the first christian anime and one of the very first to start the isekai genre. (allegedly) its american debut was the first time in forever that a christian animated show went into syndication after davey and goliath in the states and one of the very first pieces of media to introduce anime to americans (and christians)

• originally, classic wasn't supposed to have the name "animated parent and child theatre". instead, the original name was supposed to be "the family adventure: based on old testament bible stories". this, of course, was changed to the current japanese title and in overseas countries, the show was either named "superbook" or "wonder book". sb's name was solely for the fact that it's a reference to the bible

• in 1979, cbn worked with two psychologists, young and rubicon, to determine what would work for spreading the gospel to japan. it turned out that animation/books were the best option and kids were one of the main sources of marketing because they would be open to the bible

• while it was airing in the us, most christian conservatives hated the show bc of its concept of two kids and a robot travelling back in time

• originally, it was supposed to be a japan-exclusive series. the reason? pat robertson (the creator) thought classic wouldn't be marketable outside japan because the show's originally japanese. it took cbn's marketing director, david clark, to convince robertson to have classic translated into english. while cbn was showing it to an expo in france, it was well received and cbn decided to do the english dub shortly after. the us debut was aired and watched in 10 million households

• the concept of children visiting places in the bible was unheard of during that time of (western) christian animation. it was mostly childlike characters and mascots that was telling children what to do, but not why they should do it (this was before sb showed up).

• (cont.) after sb's success, its sister show the flying house aired a year later, the vatican commissioned osamu tezuka to create the fourth anime about the bible and hanna barbera jumped on the bandwagon 4 years later by creating the greatest adventure which was the first christian western animated show that did the same thing sb did

• in japan, both animated parent and child theatre, personal computer travel detectives and the flying house are all part of what is nicknamed "the tatsunoko bible trilogy"

• the main characters' names were different depending on which geographical dub you were watching. for example, they were sho and azusa (jp), chris and aline (fr), luis and anita (es), chris and joy (en), chris and maria/ri (de) and chris* and susie (it) (*apparently his name was also ricky (?) in the italian dub)

• while she has a surname in the original japanese version, joy, in every single dub, doesn't have a specific surname like chris. her surname in the jp ver is yamato

• when it first aired in japan, cbn didn't realise the show was going to be a success at first. due to the airing, it had a plethora of 4-8 million viewers and the bible became one of the best selling books in japan at the time

• in international dubs, uri is written as chris' cousin. but in the original version, he's written as his brother

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

so that's pretty much all you need to know about classic! i got some of the information on the official fanpage for sb (no i'm not joking, cbn created a fanpage for the show while reimagined was still in development) so pretty much some of this is factual information

[miskrasandar]

id also like to add something for reimagined: while the original wasn't dubbed in croatian, afaik, the reimagined version gave them different names as well: luka and ela

[thesbarchives]

ah, thank you for reminding me of that!!! while a few dubs decided to change the usual names completely (like the croatian dub), some of the reimagined dubs also decided to keep the name changes from classic (like how the romanian ver kept the names cristi and oana for chris and joy) as a reference to classic and its tendency of changing the japanese names for international/english ones. but once again, thank you for reminding me abt this bc i totally would've forgotten about it!

[miskrasandar]

and another thing for imagined: there are foreign fanclubs for the show! one of them is like 2 kilometers away from where im from, and the official channel for the croatian sb channel had some events with superbook characters. i also heard about the ukrainian fanclub on tumblr, but i think there may be plenty of other fanclubs as well

[thesbarchives]

oh my gosh, thank you for the information! i didn't know there were fanclubs for the series... i'll definitely be on the lookout for more information about this. are there any links for some of them? i'd really love to check them out!

[thesbarchives]

thought it would be good to introduce the series into two parts and by that, i'll first start of w/ the basis of the series + classic!

what it is:

superbook is a christian animated show about two kids and a robot travelling back in time to learn about the bible. the protagonists, chris and joy (who are both neighbours and best friends), learn how to deal with moral dilemmas by experiencing them through time travel and demonstrating what they've seen on their journey in the real world

there are three shows in the franchise: superbook classic, superbook reimagined and gizmogo

as a collective, the franchise was and still is a well loved piece of animated christian media along with veggietales, the story keepers, friends and heroes and the greatest adventure

an introduction to classic:

• also known as animated parent and child theatre (s1) and personal computer travel detectives (s2)

• first started in 1981, ended in 1983-84

• the show is set during the 20th century

• classic was used as a project to introduce christianity to japan

• it was the first christian anime and one of the very first to start the isekai genre. (allegedly) its american debut was the first time in forever that a christian animated show went into syndication after davey and goliath in the states and one of the very first pieces of media to introduce anime to americans (and christians)

• originally, classic wasn't supposed to have the name "animated parent and child theatre". instead, the original name was supposed to be "the family adventure: based on old testament bible stories". this, of course, was changed to the current japanese title and in overseas countries, the show was either named "superbook" or "wonder book". sb's name was solely for the fact that it's a reference to the bible

• in 1979, cbn worked with two psychologists, young and rubicon, to determine what would work for spreading the gospel to japan. it turned out that animation/books were the best option and kids were one of the main sources of marketing because they would be open to the bible

• while it was airing in the us, most christian conservatives hated the show bc of its concept of two kids and a robot travelling back in time

• originally, it was supposed to be a japan-exclusive series. the reason? pat robertson (the creator) thought classic wouldn't be marketable outside japan because the show's originally japanese. it took cbn's marketing director, david clark, to convince robertson to have classic translated into english. while cbn was showing it to an expo in france, it was well received and cbn decided to do the english dub shortly after. the us debut was aired and watched in 10 million households

• the concept of children visiting places in the bible was unheard of during that time of (western) christian animation. it was mostly childlike characters and mascots that was telling children what to do, but not why they should do it (this was before sb showed up).

• (cont.) after sb's success, its sister show the flying house aired a year later, the vatican commissioned osamu tezuka to create the fourth anime about the bible and hanna barbera jumped on the bandwagon 4 years later by creating the greatest adventure which was the first christian western animated show that did the same thing sb did

• in japan, both animated parent and child theatre, personal computer travel detectives and the flying house are all part of what is nicknamed "the tatsunoko bible trilogy"

• the main characters' names were different depending on which geographical dub you were watching. for example, they were sho and azusa (jp), chris and aline (fr), luis and anita (es), chris and joy (en), chris and maria/ri (de) and chris* and susie (it) (*apparently his name was also ricky (?) in the italian dub)

• while she has a surname in the original japanese version, joy, in every single dub, doesn't have a specific surname like chris. her surname in the jp ver is yamato

• when it first aired in japan, cbn didn't realise the show was going to be a success at first. due to the airing, it had a plethora of 4-8 million viewers and the bible became one of the best selling books in japan at the time

• in international dubs, uri is written as chris' cousin. but in the original version, he's written as his brother

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

so that's pretty much all you need to know about classic! i got some of the information on the official fanpage for sb (no i'm not joking, cbn created a fanpage for the show while reimagined was still in development) so pretty much some of this is factual information

[miskrasandar]

id also like to add something for reimagined: while the original wasn't dubbed in croatian, afaik, the reimagined version gave them different names as well: luka and ela

[thesbarchives]

ah, thank you for reminding me of that!!! while a few dubs decided to change the usual names completely (like the croatian dub), some of the reimagined dubs also decided to keep the name changes from classic (like how the romanian ver kept the names cristi and oana for chris and joy) as a reference to classic and its tendency of changing the japanese names for international/english ones. but once again, thank you for reminding me abt this bc i totally would've forgotten about it!