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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3518 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 8, 2026

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What's the deal with Veggie Tales? Scott posted a link roundup which included a article about the relationship of its characters with Jesus.

I took a look and the cartoon looked like ass. Why would anything like it be something people know/care about? Was it the only cartoon children in fundy families were allowed to watch? Surely there are other options, I remember watching Superbook as a kid and it was not this offensive to my senses.

Turns out there's the new 3D Superbook, and it looks like an ad for a mobile game, that's the most flattering thing I can say about it. Are there no Christian animators left?

Veggie Tales is radical entertainment as far as Christian approved programming goes. Each episode has an abundance of musical numbers and relatable (to children) storytelling. That's pizazz... so long as we compare it to Davey and Goliath and not to the latest Incredibles feature.

There’s a great bit in the last Harry Potter book where Ron is absolutely dumbfounded that his muggle-raised friends don’t have an deep attachment to The Tales of Beetle the Bard.

It’s VeggieTales man! Everybody loves VeggieTales.

Besides what others have pointed out about how the earliest cartoons are very old (so the animation reflects that), I personally appreciated its clear influences including Mr. Rogers, Monty Python and the Muppets, so I just "got" the humor. For some reason it was big in our college Bible study group (say 1995-96). But there's definitely a big nostalgia factor to it. If you're not Christian and didn't run in those circles, yeah, it's probably just not for you. Phil Vischer by the way now runs The Holy Post, which is interesting for sitting at the intersection of being very strongly tied to the hosts' Evangelical roots but also bending heavily toward social justice and calling out hypocrisy and Christianity's unhealthy entanglement in American politics. I recommend it if you're heterodox and open minded, otherwise you're likely to hear something that enrages you. It's mostly just weekly commentary on current events.

A good part of Veggie Tales specific look is due to the time it started: the first videos came out in 1993 using CGI animation common to the time, where their competition was stuff like Reboot. At the time, they weren't amazing, but the gap between VeggieTales and more mainstream media works were a lot smaller. While they've done some improvements as graphics have advanced, they've always been fairly cautious -- even reverting Bob and Larry's more Pixar-looking appearances after the Netflix series got mixed responses in 2015.

Most of the show's selling point is the surreal humor and decentish songs, rather than art direction or its non-confrontational nature. There's absolutely a lot of Christian- or ex-Christian people who will recall the Song of the Cebu, the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, or the Hairbrush Song. I think there's a post-Netflix revival, but I'm pretty far removed from that culture now and from what I understand it's more aimed at teens and tweens.

SuperBook has similar problems: the CGI series started in 2011, and it was competing against shows that basically were game and toy ads. Here, the gap was bigger from day one given how much was getting poured into the best on the field, but even they struggled a lot.

There have been more recent Christian media, including from animators with more 'mainstream' support (eg, the Animal Farm CGI movie came from a company normally doing religious flicks, and I'll give the necessary pun about missing the underlying material here), but there's far less crossover from the Christian world to the rest of it, especially in the last five years. I only know about the Pilgrim's Progress movie because of some parents for a STEM outreach program were talking about it; they think it's good, but it's not really something that would even show up in my world.

There's absolutely a lot of Christian- or ex-Christian people who will recall the Song of the Cebu, the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, or the Hairbrush Song.

I think listing iconic VeggieTales songs without reference to the Cheeseburger song is a crime.

  • First mover, or close enough to it.
  • No humans, less risk of uncanny valley
  • Songs which get stuck in small children’s heads
  • Genuine heart??

I think it just claimed the spot of default Christian entertainment. My family was pretty secular and we’d still check out the tapes from our library.

Veggie tales is a kids cartoon that has been very popular for generations because 1) it’s a kids cartoon, it has to be good enough for that 2) it’s generally parent approved and 3) it’s widely available. If you didn’t grow up with it you probably won’t get it, but at least in the early aughts, everyone showed kids veggie tales. I think a lot of it is just childhood nostalgia because it’s one of the few things that’s still relevant decades later.

Also even if it has aged there's still enough visual clarity and cleanliness to the designs it doesn't look like a complete mess. It just looks low-fi

Veggietales is older than Toy Story and they mostly used the same models for the first run. They've got a niche in Sunday schools because they're good enough already owned, and don't need to be vetted like a new content would be.

I remember watching Veggietales in Religious Studies classes at school. We watched the episode where King David covets Bathsheba, even though he already had hundreds of other concubines rubber ducks.

Looking back at it now, I think it's pretty good given the limitations it sets itself (Old Testament stories, told in a child-friendly way, with 90s CGI).

I mean, it's no Recess, but it's pretty good.

It’s no Recess, and certainly no Chalk Zone

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