veggietales

Issue #44

Last Update March 2, 2006

Review Veggie Tales by Gert Innsry Religion-oriented, socially conservative parents have long wished for videos, movies, books and music that could entertain their small children while conveying lessons in how to live life according to parental standards. Big Idea Productions has achieved this with Veggie Tales, where cartoon vegetables act out cautionary tales and biblical stories (and sing silly songs). The series has been done with such charm and wit that even atheist grown-ups are captivated by it. Like all of the best children's literature, the creators have infused Veggie Tales with a very adult sense of humor, while simultaneously retaining the directness and simplicity that young children require.

Veggie Tales relies on a repertory company of characters that appear in various roles in all of the videos. Larry the Cucumber often plays the hero role, assisted by Bob the Tomato, Junior Asparagus and others. The French Peas are sometimes good (as in The Ballad of Little Joe, a veggie Western of the Biblical story of Joseph, where Larry the Cucumber plays Joseph and the French Peas play his brothers) and often the villains (as in Josh and the Big Wall, where the Peas are the soldiers of Jericho who ridicule the Israelite vegetables as they march around the wall blowing their shofars). Although each tale contains a social message (help those in need, don't lie, don't be greedy) or a religious one (do things God's way, not your way, stand up for your beliefs, with God all things are possible), they are never preachy and do not push any particular denomination's specific beliefs.

The mission statement of Big Idea Productions:

The irresponsible use of popular media (TV, film, music, etc.) has had a profoundly negative impact on America's moral and spiritual health
The same media, used responsibly, can have an equally positive impact
The best way to improve people's lives is to promote biblical values and encourage spiritual growth

also contains as one of the core values “creative excellence and design innovation in all we do”. It is this commitment to creative excellence and design innovation that makes the promotion of biblical values and encouragement of spiritual growth palatable to non-Christian viewers.

Most of the Bible stories are from the Hebrew Bible; New Testament stories such as the parable of the Good Samaritan do not mention Christ and share the same inspired sillyness and love of puns that make the Old Testament tales so amusing. (The parable of the Good Samaritan, presented as The Tale of Flibber-O-Loo, recounts the story of two groups of people separated by custom – one wears a boot on their heads, the other a pot – and what happens when a boot-head in distress is found by a pot-head. (The representation of Samaritans as pot-heads is inadvertant?)

Big Idea Productions now has a complete line of videos, books, games, CDs and even movies and stage shows. In addition to their Veggie Tales, their 3-2-1 Penguins line of videos provides non-vegetable cautionary tales with a space motif (or, as their web site puts it: “From the creators of VeggieTales comes a hilarious new video series filled with faith, fun, and flightless birds!”) Check out their website (http://www.BigIdea.com for the complete picture.