It could actually have been from the 70s, but I saw it when I was a kid in the 80s.
All I remember is that some kid has a dead bird in a shoe box, and then they get transported back to David and Goliath times and fight the Philistines, and Goliath looks like a giant pig IIRC, and then they go back to NYC present-day and the bird comes back to life.
It’s also possible that it wasn’t a movie but an episode of a tv show or miniseries. I was pretty young when I saw it.
That sounds a little like an episode of Superbook, but that was entirely animated. And terrible. Whatever it is, I kind of want to see it.
That’s not it, but thank you. The bookends were definitely live-action, and at least one of the characters was Jewish. Since it was an OT story, maybe they all were? I remember one of them wearing a yarmulke.
I’m leaning towards it might have been an episode of a short-lived tv show or miniseries, rather than a standalone movie.
I also remember something about the stars going all wacky and moving around in the sky before they were transported to the animated segment. And there was a part where one of the kids put on a warrior’s helmet in biblical times and said it felt like putting on one of the New York Giants’ helmets, and the biblical character said, “you have giants in your land, too?” And the kid said nevermind.
Sounds like Kingdom Chums. I think they made more than one but that’s the only episode of it I ever recall seeing.
Haha, yep, that’s it! And my story is basically the same as the author of that webpage: my parents taped it for some unknown reason and I watched it over and over and over. Thank you!