220. How Did the ‘Left Behind’ Kids Audio Drama Speed-Run the Tribulation? | with Darby Kern
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Some Christians think that in an end-times Rapture event, young children automatically go to Heaven.1 But what about older kids? Such as teen rebels who disobey parents, won’t go to church, and reject Jesus? Left Behind: The Kids explored the exploits of the Young Tribulation Force, and was adapted for its own fantastic dramatic audio series by today’s guest: Darby Kern.
Episode sponsors
- Enclave Publishing: The Nightmare Virus by Nadine Brandes
- The Katrosi Revolution series by Jamie Foley
- Lorehaven Open World at Realm Makers
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Introducing guest Darby Kern
Darby Kern, the creator of The Jake Muller Adventures, has been a restaurant manager, a medical writer, an occupational health coordinator, a pharmacist, and a soda-jerk. Now he is an award-winning filmmaker and the writer of hundreds of radio dramas including Left Behind: The Kids, Left Behind: The Rising, Kid’s Corner (Back To God), Lamplighter Theatre, and Heirloom Audio’s The Extraordinary Adventures of G. A. Henty. He is the writer of several stories and dramas for the Abide App.
He lives in Titletown, USA where he works as a freelance writer.
1. What led you to faith, imagination, and LB?
- Origin story: from church to comics, from eschatology to aliens
- First steps into the worlds of audio drama, then writing for drama
- How to connect with a fledgling studio and play in the sandbox
2. Turning forty books into 72 audio episodes
- The auditions of casting for older kids and teens left behind
- The challenges of adaptation for dialogue, subplots, conversions, action
- The trials of speed-running the Tribulation (especially books 13–40)
Darby Kern adapted the 48-volume YA books for the 72-episode Left Behind: The Kids audio drama series from GapDigital studios.
3. Post: From Glorious Appearing to alien intrusions
- Everything sad comes untrue when Jesus returns to renew all things.
- How did you, Todd, and the crew adapt this version of blessed hope?
- From there, how did it go with the spooktacular, underrated The Rising?
- Where then has your work taken you, most lately with Jake Muller?
- Since we spoke, what’s new with Jake and his paranormal investigations?
- Which creatures will Jake next encounter in sterling cinematic audio?
Com station
- How do you prepare for a wicked world, tribulation or otherwise?
Next on Fantastical Truth
Twenty years ago, two authors, one publisher, twelve action thriller novels, and forty teen spinoff books came to a grand finale with the fictionalized return of Jesus Christ to Earth. One of those top authors, marriage and prophecy teacher Tim LaHaye, has since passed to his eternal rest. The other author who’s written hundreds of novels, Jerry B. Jenkins, is still working! And next week, Jenkins joins our studio to explore the Left Behind legacy.
- Background photo by David Moum on Unsplash. ↩
I have listened to the Left Behind dramatic audio: both adult and kids version. It’s actually really interesting and would be idea for a road trip.
The kids anudio dramas are good, though they were notable changes from the books. For some examples:
1. I guess they cut out Jim Hickman, Walter Moon, and Ramon Santiago and had Suhail Akbar as Carpathia’s security and intelligence director earlier. He even sent word to Terrall Blancka, the head of the Morale Monitor program, that Darrion Stahley was not to be harmed and Conrad Graham asks, “What could Akbar want with her?” I didn’t think he had a crush on her or anything.. he would have been too old for her. Then after the young Trib force help Darrion and Mr. Stein escape, Akbar confronts Commander Blancka and kills him. The book doesn’t say who killed him, though I would think it could have been Moon or it could have been Carpathia himself.
They add a romance between Mark Eisman and Darrion Stahley. I kind of get that people are into “shipping” or pairing two characters, even more so than about twenty to thirty years ago. But romance isn’t really a big part of the Left Behind series (other than Buck and Chloe, David and Annie, Ree and Ming, Chang and Naomi, Judd and Vicki and Conrad and Shelly). The series are not about falling in love, but it’s about surviving in the last days. Yet in the audio drama, they’ve paired Mark and Darrion. I don’t understand why, though.
So the audio drama are good even with notable changes from the books.
Hey, thanks for listening. LBK was such an important part of my “career” as a writer, but I’m always humbled that folks like you remember deets I don’t. I will say this, regarding many of the changes we had to make: the second half of the series had to wrap up so many stories and we had to cover 28 books in 36 episodes. Lots got dropped just because of time, and some got dropped because of actor availability. Other things were dropped because it didn’t fit in with the overall arc of the story. We could have dwelt on Darion’s reasons for not wanting to stay at the lake house, but that wouldn’t have served her arc well because we didn’t have time to give it the focus it would deserve. Does that make sense?
There are dozens of other things that I honestly can’t remember from twenty years ago. I like to remember how much I enjoyed writing for an amazing and young ensemble of actors. If I relished I’m always in awe of how good they are.
Good point. I wonder how that would have been to have Commander Blancka killed by Walter Moon or even by Carpathia. But I guess you had to do what you had to do.
Timing is understandable. I guess you could also have included where Chang is talking with Akbar as Akbar is on the rampage to find a mole at the GC police. Though I reckon there wasn’t time for that. You could also had where Mr. Stein and Sam met with Joel and Aron at Tel Aviv, and they see the miracle worker. Though that would have taken up much time as well.
Nothing against changes, of course. You kind of had to expect it and make it work, especially for an audio drama.
If Left Behind: The Kids ever became a streaming TV series, there would certainly so much to explore on.