A half-hour cartoon where lions get more screen time than logic deserves.
Babylonian forces invade Jerusalem and carry away many of the city’s finest young people, including Daniel and his three young friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. In captivity, the youths are in the king’s service and outperform all their rivals— pleasing the king and frustrating their enemies. When Darius, the new king, makes Daniel his first president, Daniel’s enemies plan a trap to have him killed. When Daniel survives being thrown in the lions’ den, he proves that God still rules over the affairs of men.
Visual Effects
1993 CGI lions that aged like milk in the Babylonian sun.
Editing
Compresses decades of exile into 30 minutes of whiplash.
Director
Richard Rich
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director Richard Rich also made The Swan Princess and animated Mormon temple films—this sits weirdly in the middle of that Venn diagram.
This was part of a direct-to-video boom where churches bought animated Bible stories in bulk, making Daniel a VHS prophet for millennial Sunday schoolers.
US
