veggie tales - sat am...

boyohboyohboy wrote: I am not sure what station its going to start on, either abc, nbc, cbs, or E/I
(as if thats not all of them)
but one of them is going to play it each sat. morning! I am so glad, they really have good shows for kids!

Has anyone else ever heard of Larry Boy also by veggie tales?

mom2my2cuties replied: Yup! Larry Boy is a spin-off of the Veggie Tales - I LOVE Larry Boy.

And the Veggie Tales

ETA - What is your favorite Veggie Tales song??? Mine is God Is Bigger than The Boogie Man! And the Theme Song.

boyohboyohboy replied: I aint got no belly button!
My son sings this to DRIVE ME NUTS!
its on little joe!

boyohboyohboy replied: we got caleb the pirate ship from the 'pirates who dont do anything"
and a larry boy car with alfred!

mom2my2cuties replied: Andrea hasn't discovered Veggie Tales yet - my son hit them at about 3 and was done by 5...But I don't think Andy has even ever seen any of them.

We might have to watch them on Saturday

luvmykids replied: I love Veggie Tales, they have some adult level humor that make it fun for me to watch with the kids.

PrairieMom replied: I aint got no belly button is deffinately one of my favorites, I also like the one about the sports utility vehical. it cracks me up every time. then i think , "oh yeah, I drive a SUV..."

MoonMama replied: I love veggie tales. We have the silly songs DVD and CD...Don't ask.

3_call_me_mama replied: That's great to hear! My kids LOVE veggie tales. Cameron wanted me to make him a Larry Boy costume for halloween, but i just don't have teh time withteh baby being due soon, SO he said "next tyear then OK?!" I'll have to check out and see if we get it locally!

Our Lil' Family replied: I believe it's NBC that is starting to air them.

Boo&BugsMom replied: Veggie Tales is a fav in this house. We took Tanner to see Veggie Tales Live at a local church this past winter. That was a blast! I'm so excited they will be on tv now! So true what it says...Sunday morning values with Saturday morning fun!

Boo&BugsMom replied:
Yep! We've seen the Rumor Weed and The Fib From Outer Space. Tanner loves the Larry Boy theme song!

holley79 replied: I like the Veggie Tales. Annika loves them. I can't wait.

mom2my2cuties replied:
I saw something interesting in I believe it was our local Saturday morning paper - where while NBC is going to Air them - they are going to remove all references to religion out of them.

Which I kind of think defeats the purpose of Veggie Tales

Boo&BugsMom replied:
WHAT?!?! For crying out loud! That's the main purpose of VT, to teach the word of God to children. It's always something...

Brias3 replied: Mason LOVES Larry Boy. We have tons of Veggie Tales DVD's here

mom2my2cuties replied:
Here is the Article from our the Tennessean -

NBC edits VeggieTales for religion
Series' co-creator says fans unhappy

By ANITA WADHWANI
Staff Writer


A creator of the animated Christian-themed VeggieTales series says NBC ordered some references to God and the Bible be chopped from the popular cartoon just before it made its Saturday morning network debut earlier this month.

Phil Vischer, co-creator and the voice of character Bob the Tomato, says he was taken by surprise just weeks before the show was to air by requests from network executives to cut dialogue mentioning God. The network replaced the show's signature sign off, "God made you special and he loves you very much," with "Thanks for coming over to my house, kids. See you next week."

And Vischer wrote on his Web site that NBC was making false statements by saying publicly that the cuts were made for length and not for religious content.

"The show wasn't too long," said Vischer, who was hired to pare the longer, original DVD episodes down to 23 minutes for the network. "It was too religious."

NBC said in a statement that it was "committed to the positive messages and universal values of VeggieTales. Our goal is to reach as broad an audience as possible with these positive messages while being careful not to advocate any one religious point of view."

A spokesman for Franklin-based Big Idea Productions Inc., which now owns the rights to the show and negotiated with NBC to air the edited versions, said the edited show still delivered the same message.

"While specific references were taken out, we still think the message remains true to the show's core values," said Terry Pefanis, chief operating officer. "It was not our intent to sell out, but to bring Veggie-Tales to a broader audience."

VeggieTales has been a hit with the under-age-8 crowd and their parents, selling 50 million DVDs since it was created in 1993. Its shows inject humor into Christian messages, sometimes re-enacting a biblical parable in modern times, and at other times offering plots imitating shows like "Gilligan's Island," but with vegetable characters talking about God. Its slogan is: "Sunday Morning Values, Saturday Morning Fun."

The DVDs have spawned a host of spin-off products such as CDs, T-shirts, Bible covers, puzzles and computer games. Its signature characters — Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber — sometimes appear as mascots at ballgames.

Vischer, who now works as a consultant for Big Idea Productions Inc., was hired to edit the fuller-length DVD shows into the 23-minute segments that could accommodate commercials that are required by network television.

The network was clear in the beginning that biblical verses routinely recited at the end of the episodes would have to be eliminated, Vischer said.

But two weeks before the Sept. 9 airing of its first episode, "Asparagus of LaMancha," he said, he learned that NBC was asking for more cuts in religious content.

Bob the Tomato's signature sign-off was the first to go, he said. Then he learned that NBC executives wanted other lines in the dialogue out as well.

Eliminated lines from one episode included "Calm down. The Bible says we should love our enemies."

In another episode, Vischer said, NBC allowed the line "the Bible says Samson got his strength from God." But the next line — "And God can give us strength, too" — was out.

The changes included cuts in dialogue where characters utter the word "God" and were so last-minute and awkward, Vischer said, that in some cases "it makes the stories not work very well."

For the sign-off, where the original words were simply voiced-over, "the lips don't match, so it kind of looks like a Japanese cartoon with lips moving" out of synch with the words, he said.

"It seems like its OK to talk about the Bible or God as a historical story, but not to give it any application to daily life," Vischer said. "As long as major media is programmed out of New York and L.A., where church attendance is lower than elsewhere, I guess you're not going to see a whole lot of healthy depictions of religion on TV."

Vischer's Internet blog about the edits inspired a host of responses, he said, adding: "Fans are angry."

One television watchdog organization said slicing Christian references out of the Christian-based cartoon was like "Gunsmoke without the guns" or "Monday Night Football without the football."

The Los Angeles-based Parents Television Council wrote a letter to NBC asking the network to explain the edits, but a council spokeswoman yesterday said the group had not gotten any response.

Pefanis said the decision to rework the show for network television "weighed heavily on us."

The company is being paid only for the production costs of editing the show, he said.

"It wasn't done for financial reward," he said. "It was done to reach a broader audience." The company hopes the Saturday NBC version will inspire more sales of the DVDs with their full Christian content, he said. •

Boo&BugsMom replied:

mom2my2cuties replied: After reading this - I no longer think I am going to be watching it. I will just buy the DVD's and support them that way.

luvbug00 replied: I was gonna ask if they were religous or not because that is the whole purpose we haven't ever watched them. Nothing against anyones religon ,it's great they make cartoons for religons ,but we arn't religous people and Mya will choose her own religon someday and so I don't normaly let her watch religon based shows. but if they put it without it then she can watch it. I see very much how that would dissapoint you but If parents really like it wouldn't it make them go get more veggie tails and then maybe they will find that the religon tought suits them and there is the spreding of Gods word.