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 classic clay-animated TV show for kids. It first aired in 1961 and ran until 1973. The main characters were created by Art Clokey, Ruth Clokey, and Dick Sutcliffe. The show was made by the United Lutheran Church in America and later the Lutheran Church in America.

Each 15-minute episode follows the adventures of a boy named Davey Hansen and his best friend, a talking dog named Goliath. Only Davey and the viewers can hear Goliath speak! Together, they learn important life lessons about being kind, sharing, and treating everyone fairly. The show also explored bigger topics like being fair to everyone, dealing with sadness, understanding different beliefs, and respecting property.

Davey's parents, John and Elaine, and his sister Sally are often in the episodes. Davey also has friends like Jimmy, Teddy, Nathaniel, Jonathan, Nicky, and Cisco. The characters often face challenges that they overcome by using their faith and good values. While the show teaches about faith, it doesn't focus on one specific church. This made it easy for many TV stations to show it. The theme song was an instrumental version of an old hymn called "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God". A special symbol, the Luther rose, was also shown in the opening and closing credits.

After Art Clokey made the popular Gumby show, he created Davey and Goliath. It first aired on Saturdays, starting February 25, 1961. It quickly became very popular. By May 1961, lots of kids across the United States and Canada were watching and talking about Davey and Goliath.

Davey had friends named Nathaniel and Jonathan who were Black. They were some of the first Black characters to be main friends on a TV show. This was a big step for television at the time! After the regular series ended, special 30-minute holiday episodes were made in the late 1960s. The show then returned with new characters from 1971 to 1973. A final summer episode was made in 1975. In 2004, Joe Clokey, Art's son, produced a new special called "Davey and Goliath's Snowboard Christmas".

Where to Watch Davey and Goliath

Davey and Goliath was a very popular show on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It aired on many TV stations, both religious and regular, throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, regular TV stations started showing it less often. But religious TV stations continued to air it as part of their kids' programming. By 1990, only a few regular stations still showed the series.

The show continued to air on the CatholicTV Network until 2009 and on Tri-State Christian Television until 2010. It still airs on some local Christian TV stations today.

In 2004 and 2005, the Hallmark Channel aired a Christmas special and the "Happy Easter" episode from 1967. They showed these with commercials. Before this, Hallmark (when it was called Odyssey Network) had aired the whole series without commercials until 2001. Since then, Hallmark has only shown a few holiday specials and the 2004 "Snowboard Christmas" special. In 2008, iTunes started offering episodes for free download. By December of that year, over 20 episodes were available. Today, they cost 99 cents each.

Until October 2018, the series was shown on Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) on Saturday afternoons. During the week, it was seen on the TBN-owned Smile of a Child network. This network is available on digital channels of TBN stations.

Episodes of Davey and Goliath

The Davey and Goliath series has many episodes, including special holiday shows. Here is a quick look at the different seasons and specials:

Season 1 (1961)

Season 2 (1962–63)

Season 3 (1963–64)

Season 4 (1971–72)

Season 5 (1972–73)

Specials (1965–1975, 2004)