Gotta be, VeggieTales

A star was born at the checkout and it was the beginning of something great.

Image credit: Big Idea Entertainment

We all know correlation doesn’t imply causation, but the affiliation between catholic queers and theatrical vegetables is uncanny and discussion is well overdue. This is to say that nobody ever addresses the everlasting impact of VeggieTales, and I’m here to change this. The things I would do to be a fly on the wall, or rather, a fruit fly on a kitchen tile, during the pitch meeting for VeggieTales are frankly un-beet-lievable. 

Some thirty years ago, Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki, co-founders of Christian animation production company Big Idea Entertainment, created VeggieTales; a program where two sentient vegetal characters were to answer fan questions on their video blog through performances of biblical parables. This was originally conceived as the amicable adventures of pastoral candy bars conveying religious life lessons. However, Vischer’s wife is said to have feared it would promote the wrong message — not to mention, unhealthy eating habits — to their impressionable audience. So, the creators shifted the focus from the confectionery aisle to the produce section, retaining the shopping trolley full of Catholic chaos. The protagonists, Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber, could have never predicted their fortune, but I sure could. A star was born at the checkout and it was the beginning of something great. Something more than half the ingredients of a Greek salad.

Its debut in 1993 was simply ungodly. Some call it Season One, but I prefer to call it the New(-est) Testament. 

There’s something so magnificently anarchic about vegetables issuing advice through musical scripture sequences. Something much less magnificent, but much more anarchical, would be how much I wish I were them. But God could never grant me that miracle, so the only thing left to do was to watch the production of produce unfold on VHS at my Grandma's house in Campbelltown. Devon sandwich in one hand and whatever colour Zooper Dooper was left in the other, I knelt in front of that TV for hours and felt myself be reborn.

As I grew, so did the vegetables. There was no pesticide powerful enough to contain the VeggieTales multimedia universe. Bob and Larry spawned several feature films, an abundance of God-honouring appropriate merchandise and, not one but, two greatest hits soundtracks. The duo quickly expanded and recruited backup from the root vegetables and berry collective alike. Not a day goes by where Archibald Asparagus and Madame Blueberry fail to cross my mind. I give them up for lent every year.

Forever snubbed for the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Awards, the actual content of Vischer and Nawrocki’s produce productions blended together scripture and timeless films, a cocktail for Catholics. Titles of note include ‘Minnesota Cuke and the search for Noah’s umbrella,’ ‘Lord of the beans,’ ‘Gideon: Tuba Warrior’ and my personal favourite, ‘Moe and the Big Exit.’ Who spiked the holy wine for director Brian K. Roberts to reimagine the story of Moses into the tale of Moe, a cowboy cucumber, who leads enslaved peas to freedom. It’s so entirely unfathomable that the only way to avoid spiralling is to do slow breathing to the melody of the original soundtrack’s lead single, ‘A Mess Down in Egypt.’: “Chillin’ Kickin’ wearing silk jammies, learning hieroglyphics from his grandad Ramses.”

Speaking of soundtracks, could we please normalise listening to VeggieTunes? With tracks such as ‘We are The Grapes of Wrath,’ ‘The Dance of the Cucumber’ and ‘The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo,’ surely it’s time to move bedroom pop into the kitchen. An honourable mention to ‘Pizza Angel,’ a sonic prodigy with absolutely unorthodox lyrics: “Tomato sauce and cheese so gooey, Pizza Angel I’m on my knees.” Not only does this imply cannibalism — and a failure to abstain from it — but perhaps most disturbingly, that cucumbers have limbs. Titles aside, more chaos unfolds across the VeggieTales discography and the dichotomy between albums ‘Boyz in the Sink,’ ‘Beauty and the Beet,’ ‘Celery Night Fever’ and ‘VeggieTales: 25 Favourite Sunday School Songs’. It’s a mess, but it’s my kitchen mess, and I’d scrub those tiles to the dulcet tones of tomatoes and turnips for forty days in the desert if they needed.

In the streaming age, VeggieTales has rebranded, turning tomatoes rotten, both figuratively and literally. It’s disheartening and irreverent of its forebears. I blame realism, others blame Lucifer. Yet the legacy lives on, its flame burning like a paschal candle as children continue to sing ‘Silly Songs with Larry’. I may no longer be a Catholic in Campbelltown, in fact, I’m an atheist in the Inner West. But one thing will always remain — or three really. The unholy trinity: Bob the tomato, Larry the Cucumber and my devout love for VeggieTales. In the name of Bob, Larry, and the VeggieTales ensemble cast: Amen.