It seems everyone knows that the VeggieTales episodes from the 90s were extremely funny with excellent songs and on-point jokes. I suppose most people coming across this article are familiar with the CGI DVD-series VeggieTales, but just in case – it involves animated fresh food telling Bible stories via a slightly edgy comedy filter.
It was referenced on Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons (3 times, I’m told), and more recently, on Rick and Morty. This thing has sold over 70 million DVD/VHS. So yes, it holds a small but definite place in pop culture and it’s still fitting to talk about it 30 years after the first episode released.
Since the well-documented bankruptcy of Big Idea Productions, the popularity of the series declined, and in my opinion (and others’) the quality of the shows decreased. However to me, the thing was: the quality of the series made a clear change from episodes being 90 – 100% high quality – and classic – to being Hit and Miss per episode.
The below lists the good and bad episodes of VeggieTales which were released after the bankruptcy and sale to Classic Media. Several of these were produced while this banner was under Dreamworks.
This article was going to be a series of Tweets (@veggies_podcast) but it became this mammoth list.
I hope you enjoy these nerdy opinions and deep cuts! (I made it a practice to watch the Audio Commentary after watching each new DVD episode. So I know lots.)
There were a couple VT episodes released after Jonah and before the fall of Big Idea Productions, but I have left those out. I’m pretty sure An Easter Carol was approximately the first DVD released after the new company was formed.
GOOD POST-JONAH VEGGIETALES EPISODES
(2004-2015)
An Easter Carol
(Excellent animation and a well-told story. And it’s very good that there is a VT episode about the life of Jesus.)
The Wonderful Wizard of Ha’s
Wonderful vibrant animation – it was a great suggestion from original creator Phil Vischer (consulting on several episodes post-sale) to design the skin of Larry grey like the Tin Man, and make Lunt a real scarecrow, and Pa a golden lion, not green.
A perfect execution of Junior as the prodigal son with a tender Father-son reunion, as you need in that story. I wonder what their depiction of the older son would be like?
A Snoodle’s Tale
Quaint fable in the style of You Are Special, simply told, sincerely.
Princess and the Popstar
Fun, edgy and bold. Fun visual design.
Drawback: It feels very commercialised Hollywood. However it pulled off a Hannah Montana/Parent Trap rip-off very well. It got those character names spot on for not being sued by Disney. “Vanna Banana” works because it is a fruit and vegetable show. (Is Vanna a name?) And it can have “Princess” in the title because her first name is “Princess”! ROFL! I am sure that VeggieTales producers wanted to be able to market DVD packages and toys with the theme of princesses, a la Disney.
Lord of the Beans
With fun references. A long episode. But shorter than the real one. It was never released in Australia due to legal issues with New Line Cinema, so I imported a copy for myself.
Minnesota Cuke 1 & 2
Who can resist a funny Indy spoof about more Bible history! Well written adventures.
Gideon
Excellent animation and a simple visual design – and wonderful meaningful moments from Angel Pa. Kudos on a faithful Bible story adaptation post-Christian owner. And great to see a story from church history (George Müller).
Saint Nicholas
It all comes together nicely for a nostalgic Christmas special to visit each year. Wonderfully lit, warm colours. Nicky Pepper is a great character and I wish we’d seen more of him. Also nice to have some church history depicted.
The Little Drummer Boy
A remake of another Classic Media episode. Seems a bit home-grown to me. And a clever use of IP. As the audio commentary states, the plan was to have it lit in a very good way and it looks great as a result. Junior’s line about Laura “ditching” him sounded like a very 2000s middle school way to speak but it works, coming from Lisa’s excellent voice.
The Penniless Princess
I can’t help but like a faithful adaptation of The Little Princess which is also one of my favourite 1990s family films. One of its (90s film) producers worked on Narnia 1: LWW (2005).
Merry Larry
Reason: The lovely ending.
Drawback: It takes a long time to set up all the characters in the mall and the Duck Dynasty-voiced veggie is so unnecessary and is another cashgrab.
Bonus: seeing the only version of Esther outside her debut episode in 2000. Her character design had lots of rendering issues, so they made the decision to not use her character again. They must have made a new model for this later version. It was probably cheaper to do so with the improvements in technology.
Veggies In Space
Reasons: A fun peppy tone, funny sci-fi movie references and great colourful designs. It has a plot twist too!
Celery Night Fever
Impressive songs (the best since Jonah and they were written by Broadway songwriters, so said Phil Vischer on The Holy Post). And Celery Night Fever has a realistic character-based story. It’s a bit odd – but acceptable – to see Bob as a washed-up rockstar in his 50s.
Beauty and the Beet:
Two enduring leads in Mirabel and the Beet. I think the Beet is the best designed new VeggieTales character in visuals and voice acting, since Petunia. It’s odd that the TBN version totally changed Mirabel’s personality.
BAD POST-JONAH VEGGIETALES EPISODES
(2004-2015)
Sumo of the Opera
Reason: bad animation. The Gilbert and Sullivan Mikado spoof doesn’t work.
Silver lining: Silly Song (School House Polka). Puns from Larry! Yay!
Duke and the Great Pie War
Reason: silly Monty Python-inspired men doing ladies voices. Story not memorable.
(caveat: I’ve only seen this once or twice).
Silver Lining: Introduction of Petunia. And a creative pitch to do a King George and the Ducky prequel.
Sheerluck Holmes
Reason: too much odd facial hair, and I find M. Blueberry’s accent hard to understand in this one.
Silver Lining: The message of The Golden Rule (a great attempt at a Biblical lesson).
LarryBoy and the Bad Apple
Reason: An odd combination of Willy Wonka that misses the mark, entertainment-wise, and an odd thing that the apple becomes a spider.
Silver Lining: Some interesting animation and excellent voice casting/performance of The Bad Apple.
Moe and the Big Exit
Reason: Snow on the hot desert is a poor substitute for the Parting of the Red Sea.
And a disappointing song for Boyz in the Sink. They deserved a better follow up to the award-winning song Belly Button.
Silver Lining: The poignant sad depiction of the death of the Hebrew babies: baskets going “up the river” – very memorable, visually and emotionally, years after I watched it.
Tomato Sawyer
Reason: Some poor, bland animation and also the Americana style didn’t connect with me. Same as how the cowboy themes of Joe and Moe never connected with me.
Abe and the Amazing Promise
Reason: boring and cringy ‘waiting’ for Isaac to come.
Silver Lining, the second story “Blunders in Boo-Boo-Ville” which is actually delightful. And the most hidden and non-promoted VeggieTales story ever. (Although there are two clips from it in the later version of the theme song montage. It also has references to the best Disney movie ever: Beauty and the Beast.
Pistachio
Reason: It’s too dark to be a lovely VeggieTales adaptation of Pinocchio. I don’t want VT to seem scary to young kids. The Italian guys in the whale are weird too.
Silver Lining: the re-use of a great character design of Jonah’s whale (or, big fish?). The visual redesign of Junior is pretty good.
Sweetpea Beauty
Two specific reasons for the bad rating: poor animation. And the vocal singing of the French Peas sounds awful (because their voices are tinny and not suited for a choir). Thus the comedy in the song is lost.
Also, the ugliness of Madame Blueberry is too gross.
Silver Lining: I think this got a lot of girls watching VeggieTales, (anecdotally, friends bought this DVD for their girls). Kicked off the “Girls episodes” which gave us some great ones (Penniless Princess + Princess and the Popstar, see above).
Twas the Night Before Easter
Reason: a bit contrived in tone and plot. Silly action-based climax. They said it’s patterned after the plot of Star of Christmas which makes sense if you think about it, and is odd in the VeggieTales universe. A VT story shouldn’t be a recycled plot.
Silver Lining: Cassie Cassava was a lovely fresh original character, I thought. Pity we only got one episode with her.
Robin Good
Reason: poorly developed plot and weird mediaeval costume design of Nezzer.
They should have made it a David, Jonathan and the Mighty Men story as originally planned).
Silver Lining: Great action-movement clip for the theme song.
The Little House That Stood
Reason: the poem-based story of Veggies surrounding Humpty is uninteresting for me. The plot is twee. The character designs don’t look appealing. I get that this episode is especially aimed at preschoolers. But the rest of VeggieTales canon isn’t, so why now?
Silver Lining: The parable of the wise and foolish builders is fun. Even though the pigs are weird.
Noah’s Ark
Words cannot describe the monstrous poor quality of VeggieTales’ Noah’s Ark which has non-entertaining extra content not in the Bible and horrible character designs. The worst VeggieTales DVD episode ever. Jaci Velasquez cannot rescue this one.
The Jury’s Out On These Episodes:
It’s a Meaningful Life
(I’ve only seen it once, many years ago.) Initial thoughts: Too much cornily (no pun intended) sentimental.
MacLarry
I’ve only seen it once, so I can’t speak much on it. But I remember the villains were kinda cool.
The League of Incredible Vegetables. Reason: I can’t decide whether this is an engaging Avengers-style superhero teamup, or a cash grab from Dreamworks’ Big Idea Inc. to sell merchandise including a very cool Larry-copter and fun phone game.
Conclusion:
I hope you have enjoyed some VERY nerdy VeggieTales opinions and I hope you are able to watch some of the good ones on Minno or Yippee .
Heck, why not watch some of the bad ones (but not Noah’s Ark!) to get some fandom experience 😉
Jonathan Paper 