Revisiting VeggieTales as an Adult

[Music] children's programming has graceless with countless nostalgic shows over the many years it's been around murderers house animals wholesome education 20 minute toy commercials whatever the hell this is we've seen it all however if you grew up having your bookshelves look like this chances are you were homeschooled which meant you aren't allowed to watch most if not all the shows I just mentioned Sponge Bob gay propaganda Pokemon more like pokey demon here's the next character this is misty she's headstrong and stubborn constantly arguing with ash typical woman and of course how could we forget about our subliminal mouse overlord with the idea that Saturday morning cartoons where are they're gonna turn their kids gay or teach them how to open up a portal to the ninth circle of hell Christian parents in the 90s quickly pulled the plug on secular entertainment and would only ever have it plugged in if the folks over at focus on the family said the coast was clear so what were homeschool kids left to watch then in his darkest hour the words of a single book began to change his life might end at last miles Peterson felt the burning desire to know God inspired by the Word of God and equipped with unyielding faith miles pledged to fight evil in the name of God [Music] now luckily for myself my parents were cool and let me watch beyond the limits of focus on the family's list of approved programs which is why I have a lot of fond memories watching Spongebob Fairly OddParents and Ben 10 among many others I was even allowed to watch the Harry Potter movies which was a very big no-no in the homeschooling community my dad also let me watch the Lord of the Rings Pirates of the Caribbean in Jurassic Park which my mom did not approve it despite my super awesome parents being really cool about the movies and shows I watched we were still a Christian homeschooled family so I grew up alternating between VHS tapes of spider-man and Bible man as you expected a lot of these shows just weren't good with the exception of a few like adventures in Odyssey and Angel Wars which was actually really cool a lot of these shows are imprinted on the deepest darkest corner of my subconscious whether I like that or not some of the shows I hated like hermie dear God I would like a giant raspberry and cabbage leaf swirled ice cream cone but there was one show that defied it all a show that didn't come across like you're 20-something youth pastor who tried way too hard to be your cool friend and spiritual role model dude a show that advertised Sunday morning values with Saturday morning fun and actually delivered a show about talking vegetables [Music] VeggieTales for lack of a better term was the [ __ ] for us homeschoolers the show had two hosts Bob the Tomato the anchor and overall mom of the show and Larry the Cucumber the lovable goofball and often star each episode would begin with Bob and Larry reading a letter sent by a fan of the show sharing a personal struggle of theirs like being bullied and would ask for the hosts advice Bob and Larry will then play a movie that dealt with those same issues which was sometimes retells stories from the Bible parody popular franchise or make up its own unique story after the first act the show would be put on hold for my favorite segment sitting songs with Maddie the part of the show and he comes out and sings a silly song the movie would resume and conclude with the characters learning their lessons and more often than not a celebratory musical number Bob and Larry would return talk about the morals of the story read a Bible verse pertaining to said moral and finally end with the wholesome affirmation God made you special and he loves you very much this formula though repetitive was incredibly successful and was like crack to my five-year-old brain if we went to Family Christian bookstore you better believe I begged my mom to buy me 3 veggietales DVDs a Larry mobile and Bob and Larry sing the 70s I was so obsessed with VeggieTales that my mom somehow once got Tim Hodge the director of multiple VeggieTales episodes on the phone to talk to me while we lived in a third world country fun fact if you ever wondered why they never parodied Star Wars it's probably because I suggested the idea to him which if I remember correctly could somehow implicate the studio into some weird copyright laws so you have 7-year old me to thank for that point says I loved VeggieTales and remember it being just as good as the other shows I watched when I was a little Christian boy but truth be told I'm not a little Christian boy anymore I'm an agnostic adult with Eastern leaning spiritual beliefs and haven't seen an episode of VeggieTales since I was I don't know 12 which probably doesn't even count because it was on in the background at a friend's house I have of course we watched episodes of Spongebob and can't confirm it's as good as I remember my childhood memory hasn't always been the most accurate judge for the quality of TV and movies so I honestly don't know if VeggieTales is as good as I'm remembering so I decided to revisit it it all began in 1993 with where's God when I'm scared and I went back to this one with a fond and fresher memories of the more polished and refined episodes of the early to mid-2000s where the pace was quick the writing was clever and the themes were fitting instead I was met with primitive 3d animation a slow anxiety inducing pace and questionable execution of themes which when combined with my nostalgia from watching this when I was a toddler creates an existential atmosphere that fits rather nicely with this episode's theme so yeah the animations super weird but it's important to keep in mind that this was made during the dawn of 3d computer animation previous to the episodes debut the only uses of 3d animation that were in the public eye at the time was the music video of money for nothing and two short films made by Pixar a company that had been bought by Steve Jobs from Lucasfilm which was employed by veterans of the entertainment industry meanwhile this was made by three guys fresh out of Bible College in a pre Toy Story world VeggieTales was revolutionary and the fact that the first episodes were only made by a few guys struggling to pay rent is impressive unfortunately it's terrifying what are you gonna do the episodes that followed are also filled with really weird things like Bob and Larry escaping communist Russia a toy massacring a helpless penguin and it religious extremists with control over the workforce who makes his employees all of whom who work on minimum wage mind you worship his God or else they are ostracized and burned at the stake okay I made out the bit about communist Russia and the penguin but that last bit about the capitalist cult leader is 100% her real episode these episodes are weird and darker than I remember but in all honesty that's part of the charm while they lack the signature formula and pace of the later episodes they make up for it with the silly songs you gotta wear as my hairbrush where Larry realizes he's bald the song of the dancing cuca I love my lips where Larry goes to therapy for kissing his aunt who had a beard and oh Santa where Larry commits tax evasion it quickly became apparent to the guys fresh out of Bible College also known as big idea that they had hit gold with the niche market that has homeschooled evangelical families and we're destroying the competition which as we previously covered was not good I demand for VHS tapes of religious vegetables was high which meant more money for Big Idea which in turn meant higher-quality episodes which in another turn assured in Josh on the big wall great success Madame blueberry success every episode from this era was a great success the musical numbers were catchy or the animation improved and the lessons went from forgive those who make fun of you to if you end up a queen because you're the hottest virgin on the block try to persuade the king from committing mass genocide against your people [Applause] [Music] this is the issue of adapting stories from the Bible for children the Bible or at least the Old Testament it's not exactly family friend there she lusted after her lover's whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses behind all the repackaged sunday-school stories we grew up with are very disturbing and even barbaric accounts like for example not too long before the events of Josh in the big wall God commands he has realized to murder all the men women and children of a tribe and for the Israelite soldiers to keep the young virgin girls for themselves as slaves which means the character this adorable cucumber is portraying had underage sex slaves which makes me feel really uncomfortable that's not to say the Bible doesn't have beautiful stories with profound insights that are empowering and relevant because it absolutely does it's just that it's weird to see a showing that five-year-olds retell the story of when King David used his power to force a woman to have sex with him against her consent and then murdered her husband when she got pregnant to hide his sin for which God punished him by killing the baby once it was born granted big idea swaps out the woman with a rubber ducky and sex with taking a bath but still it's a little weird that besides the odd religious choices the show really is at its best here there's a skit about hoarding resources that is extremely relevant today there's also a lot of meta jokes and references that obviously went over my head when I was a little kid of course that every joke lands but it's certainly funnier than her me really storm I like that name know her me it's a real but the comedic highlight is once again the silly songs you have song of the Seibu where Larry puts on a sequential image stereophonic multimedia event about say booze but completely fails that's leaving his audience and producer a hunter Lee disappointed in him and it's because of this failure that in the next episode Larry's producer cancels silly signs forever and replaces it with love songs with mr. Lunt who's saying about a gourd in love with a cheeseburger but has an adulterous affair with a half-price meal of eggs and bacon over at Denny's and no joke from what my mom tells me at the time of its release it was quite controversial among some parents in the homeschooling community after losing his job Larry becomes an alcoholic why not talk about it but when everyone has a little weed it gets paranoid there's only one hero to save the day Larry Boy delivers takeout I'm sorry I've been stuck in quarantine doing nothing but watching fudgy tales of playing Cod for two and I think it's starting to affect my mental health I've been here how long have I suffered this curse I truly do not know as I was saying these Christian vegetables sure hurt funny this time around that has four big idea business was good so good in fact that animators who had worked on Mulan in Lion King we're leaving Disney to work at big idea critics were raving kids were laughing parents were buying veggie tales was unstoppable and with their first feature-length film around the corner as well as two new shows and even talk for a theme park big idea was on track to become Christian Disney then they filed for bankruptcy in 2003 sometime around 1997 co-writer and voice of Larry the Cucumber Mike Nawrocki wrote a full-length feature film out of what was originally supposed to be just a 45-minute VeggieTales episode CEO Phil Vischer read it said as his fellow higher-ups if it was financially possible they said yep and so the film was greenlit with a 7 million dollar budget that's when the last head of the animation studio left big idea and went directly into therapy according to Phil Vischer book on the matter they were not the first executive to do so you see not everyone who worked at big idea shared the same beliefs but there were those who believed everyone should so they would evangelize the debate during work hours which led to a lot of professionals leaving the company during production and into several months of therapy Jonah went far into production without anyone managing it until finally big idea hired a couple of industry veterans to produce and run the studio but because of the time spent without anyone overseeing the project department leaders just hired extra animators to help with the film which meant that 7 million dollar budget jumped to 10 million also as it turns out sales weren't going as well as his fellow higher-ups had previously said and they really didn't have the money for the movie which was now twenty million dollars over budget to raise money Big Ideas sold their distribution rights which got them to 20 million dollars they needed what the film made went straight to the distributors which left big idea with nothing well that and an 11 million dollar lawsuit for selling their distribution rights which lyrick studios kind of had so big idea lost the lawsuit filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and was bought by classic media Phil Vischer would remain that big idea with no creative control only to write one VeggieTales episode script a year and voices characters now surprisingly the quality of the show didn't immediately drop off in fact the first batch of episodes following Jonah were actually some of the best in the series wonderful world of auto tainment predicted modern internet humor to a tee in the future entertainment will be randomly generated randomly generated randomly generated jokes randomly generated emotions this is a big mess I'm sorry Bob I was sure this was gonna be the great new way to entertain kids and Pete's a nice lesson Oh like how to tell nonsense jokes and be emotionally unstable well The Ballad of Little Joe had a spot-on parody of early 2000s boy band music videos which is probably the funniest thing big idea ever did however as the show went on its quality would decline the episodes began to feel less like parodies of popular IPs and more like cheap watered-down retellings the silly science became less memorable the show just felt lifeless and I think it's because it lost its heart and I don't just mean Phil Vizier's creative control I mean all the staff would either left or were fired because of the catastrophe that was Jonah's production the show would continue to decline until they finally reached rock bottom with VeggieTales I may no longer be the targeted demographic but this just isn't it they made Baba mischievious schemer cancelled silly songs for good this time and now everyone looks like VeggieTales anime fan er it's surreal to see a show start off so humbly hit critical and commercial success grow a team of seasoned animators from Disney file for bankruptcy at its peak and steadily decline into this you [Music] now even though my beliefs have changed since I last watched this show and that I'm no longer its target audience I'm extremely grateful that I grew up with it is it as great as I remember the silly song certainly are but as for the episodes themselves not quite but regardless revisiting the series was fun and it reminded me of a lot of special childhood memories like singing silly songs and long car rides dancing to the Mushu and quoting memorable lines with my friends and family hell that's something I still do to this day and I never would have enjoyed that experience had it not been for the hard work Big Idea put it to the making of the show so if anyone who worked at Big Ideas watching this thank you well we're out of time for today so remember kids God made you special and he loves you very much [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 503,529

Rating: 4.9312501 out of 5

Keywords: video essay, comedy, funny, memes, commentary, react, Veggietales, larry the cucumber, veggietales memes, christian, christian memes, nostalgia, 90s cartoons, animation, cringe, bibleman, christian movies, film, josh keefe, shrek video essay, bible, relatable, spongebob, pokemon, transformers, spongebob video essay, dankmemes, homeschool, childhood, important videos, ranked, vines, god of war 2, gaming, adult, revisiting, revisiting veggietales as an adult, rango, masterpiece, prince of egypt, tv show essay

Id: jQMjI52oDZo

Length: 15min 43sec (943 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/YepYepYepYepYepDIY]

Already watched and left a comment this morning!

[u/SWAMPYSHREK]

Which reboot the one on a tv channel or Netflix?