Stories center around the people who live there, particularly ice-cream and discovery emporium owner John Avery Whittaker, who was originally voiced by Hal Smith.

[2] It was created by Steve Harris and Phil Lollar, who set it in a small Midwest town they called Odyssey.

The test episodes engendered a favorable audience response, and led to a continuing radio program in November 1987, called Odyssey USA.

[4] The goal of the Odyssey staff was to create a "values-based" radio show with production values comparable with or surpassing those of most mainstream audio dramas.

[5] Large amounts of work were put into each individual story; for the first few years, each thirty-minute episode typically took over one hundred hours to produce.

[8] The rest of the original "key" characters were voiced by Katie Leigh, Will Ryan, and Walker Edmiston,[9] who, along with Hal Smith, had all previously worked together extensively at Disney.

[10] When Hal Smith died in 1994, Adventures in Odyssey was left without its main character and Focus on the Family considered canceling the radio show.

[11] After a search that lasted over two years, a replacement voice was finally found in Paul Herlinger, who sounded very similar to Hal Smith.

Consequently, Adventures in Odyssey took a long hiatus, with no new episodes planned while the staff searched for a new actor to voice Mr. Whittaker.

In September 2009, Andre Stojka was selected as the third actor to voice Mr. Whittaker; only months later, on February 2, 2010, Paul Herlinger died from his illness.

[20] Adventures in Odyssey now has over 7 different spin-off book series, Passages,[21] Kidsboro,[22] The Imagination Station, Candid Conversations with Connie, The Blackgaard Chronicles, Jones and Parker Case Files, Young Whit, a 12-book series of novels titled simply Adventures in Odyssey, as well as episode guides, Bibles, devotionals, mysteries, and a comic book.

This series was created following the success of Focus on the Family's involvement in Tyndale House's video project, McGee and Me!.

Since 1987, Adventures in Odyssey has released hundreds of products related to the show, including those listed above as well as apparel, toys, games, calendars, pens, and other collectibles.