Bernard, Tom, and Other Forgotten Characters

I think I've explained this before but I stopped listening to Odyssey for about two years. Wait...*counts in my head* Actually, it'd be more like 3. Why I stopped listening isn't the point of this post. What's important is that I stopped listening during the hiatus. When I came back to the Odyssey world, I found that there was a bunch of new characters. This was a bit off putting to someone coming back to the fandom but I endured though all the changes and even began to like some new characters. It took me a while to realize that they had cut out some of the old characters. 

It's not the first time AIO has ditched characters. The Barclay's were exiled to Pokenberry Falls, Lucy and Sam Johnson were left behind after the hiatus in '97, Nick Mulligan vanished, the writers left fan favorite Richard Maxwell in a hospital bed, Alex Jefferson (one of my favorite Novacom kid characters) randomly disappeared, and I know there are several more examples. 

Before the hiatus, Walker Edmiston passed away and Tom had to be left behind. *cries* Then, the hiatus hit and the writers did a reboot kind of thing and dropped a number of characters. Let's try and list all of them. (If I miss any, tell me in the comments) 

*The Washingtons and Kelly

*Grady and his family

*Jack and Joanne

*Bernard  

*Mandy

*Trent

*The Rathbones

Now, I'm not saying that I'm mad at the writers for cutting out a lot of characters. I'm sure there were good reasons. Mandy had been around since '98, Trent and Marvin's voices were both changing, the Rathbones have been around since the classic days and Walker Edmiston's death was probably the reason they were pulled, the actors for Jack and Joanne are in their late 80s and early 90s, the list goes on. 

I don't like change

Most of the character disappearances are justified and the writer's method for these disappearances is pretty good. The characters are simply phased out. It's life. Actors and characters grow up. It's a common thing as we can see if we look at the history of Odyssey. Although, in my opinion, phasing out doesn't work with EVERY character. When you have characters like Tom and Bernard, characters who are ridiculously important to the show, you have to give them a decent goodbye. Tom has been around since episode 1 and Bernard has been around since 1990. They're core characters. I don't need to give you people examples of how important Tom and Bernard are to the show. It's obvious. What I have trouble wrapping my mind around is why they were phased out. 

Please explain this to me. Explain it.

I don't know the reason for why Bernard was dropped. I know Dave Madden is semi-retired/retired in Florida so maybe he decided that it was too much work to keep doing the show.Or maybe the writers just decided to write him out. REGARDLESS, there should have been some kind of closure. For example, Bernard walks into Whit's End and tells the crew that he and Maude are packing up and retiring to Arizona or some other warm place. See? Closure. 

Handling Tom's departure would have been more difficult. You can't just say that he's moving to Arizona too and is gonna be neighbors with Bernard and Maude. I think that the best sendoff for Tom would have been a funeral. It would have been a heartbreaking and emotional episode but I think it would have been the way to go. Of course, that kind of episode would have been difficult for Stojka being that he was a newcomer and all. (Some could argue that only Hal Smith could do an episode like that) 

Now, it's too late to give Tom and Bernard a proper goodbye. On one hand, phasing them out was good because it didn't cause any drama. On the other hand, I think the characters deserved more.