Chris's introduction.

This is a piece from a much larger episode review I'm writing, but I thought I might share it for separate discussion anyways.

Chris starts with a very quick, not-as-emotional/enthusiastic "And now, Adventures in Odyssey." While it gets to a show faster, it's never quite as... I'm not sure how to say it. Is there anyone out there who misses the old show beginnings? Chris made you feel right at home. It was almost... Personal, you know? I mean, she talked to you. There were "real life" scenes. It made it a real part of the show! Emotional, enthusiastic, and just really right there. And now, it's as if she's a "get on with the show, run of the mill, recorded robot".

...

Well, maybe I'm exaggerating. But, my point is still the same.

Discuss.

I totally agree Salsa! I was just listening to an older episode today, and just realized how much I missed Chris's personal entrance. Actually, most of the time, they were the funniest part of the show (like when she was at the bank). I really loved the entrance to "Karen." It gave you a serene feeling right before the show (does that make sense??), and gave you something to think about.

Exactly. Exactly! I don't understand why they discarded such a wonderful piece to all of their scripts. Sigh.

I didn't like those beginning. Some of them weren't well written and I just found them plain boring.

*Gasps* Really?

I always loved them. ^_^

Well maybe I come from a different class.

Class?

I liked the little scenes she had with different people

I like episode like Sergeant York etc. You know action.

I liked the older introductions, but I like the newer episodes better. My favorite one is the episode where Chris talks to Abraham Lincoln. =D

The reason they took out the old introductions, ("pre-shows", if you will), was that they were running 5 to even 8 minutes into the normal 25 minute time slot of that day's episode. In either the Official Guide, or one of the album booklets, it states that the Odyssey crew cut out Chris' intros because they were cutting into normal show time. Thus, in the sake of the normal characters and shows, Chris was detained to her normal introduction, and with that a much more minor role.

I don't miss Chris's intro. I used to, but it's nice to hop right into the show. And her ending wrap-ups are still sometimes fun.
And really, it's not like this is such a big change. Sure, in the super early days of the show, Cris would sometimes have her own little story going on. Which would range from boring to, more often, entertaining.
But this didn't last very long. It quickly got quite rare for such things to happen. Even in the early days, long Cris intros were the exception, not the rule.
So, truth be told, Cris's intro is only a little shorter than it has been for the longest time.
The main thing is, we still have Cris. A lot of people vanished, we're lucky she's still here. With a different host, AIO would feel a lot less homey.

Amen to that, my dear miah (: Wisely said

It depends. Some of The little intro Chris would give were rather entertaining. My favorites would have to include the ones were she and Dr. Julius (Snitchelbonker?) conversed back and forth. Anyone remember him? Those were hilarious! 
Sometimes just her rambling on and on would get a bit dull and dry, so in some ways I'm grateful they cut that out of the shows now. But overall, yes, I can relate with both sides of opinions on this topic.

Personally, I liked the oldest ones, when they had a short scene relating to the topic at hand. 

I'm pretty sure they shortened it because, as Nathaniel himself said, "Kids have short attention spans these days." No one (well, I do) wants a long introduction that they're just going to skip over anyway. I do like shorter introductions normally, but with the old ones, they were different every time. You wanted to listen to them to see what the AIO writers had cooked up for this episode.