Broccoli, Celery, Got to Be ...

Y'all know the rest, don't you? Of course you do.

VeggieTales!!!

My children came along at just the right time to catch the peak popularity of Bob the tomato and Larry the cucumber. Up until we gave them away, we owned a dozen VHS tapes and more than a few plush toys. We were among those who went to the movie theatre on opening day to watch the first VeggieTales movie, Jonah. Alas, not many more followed.

VeggieTales was the brainchild of Phil Vischer, born here in Iowa, and was taken to the retail world in 1993. It was a unique creation -- talking vegetables that humorously told Bible stories to the under 10 crowd. Like any good youth-oriented product, it was written at a level that both kids and adults could enjoy -- kids for the sheer entertainment of it all, and adults for the cultural references only an adult would understand. VeggieTales become a Christian cultural phenomenon that would eventually become a mainstream phenom too, culminating with the Jonah movie in 2002.

About that time, VeggieTales became VeggieFails -- from a business perspective, anyway. As outlined in the humorous and captivating Vischer book Me, Myself, and Bob, Vischer's Big Idea Productions company had taken on too much debt and could not continue. The vegetables declared bankruptcy and embarrassment. They survive today as an entity of a huge conglomerate, with only moderate creative input from the original players.

This past week the veggies became stars in their second motion picture -- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. The picture will be panned by "critics" as being too nice, or too simple, or too archaic in its animation. Remaining fans of the series will hungrily lap it up as one of the very few movies they can take their small children to and not have to be even slightly concerned about obvious, or even subtle, innuendo. To be sure, the most onerous part of taking your kids to a Veggie Tales film is the previews for the other films you must sit through.

My 12 and 9 year-old kids no longer long for VeggieTales, though it wouldn't surprise me if we see this film sooner or later. I'm pretty sure the novelty of talking vegetables telling Bible stories is beyond its expiration date. Yet nothing has taken its place in the retail world.

As I've written before, creative types at Disney, Pixar and other media giants could make a financial killing if they could simply give Christian parents -- any parents -- and young children what they want: squeaky clean entertainment. No eight year-olds swearing, no bare bottoms, no innuendo sexual humor, no political statements. The task seems so easy, yet ... it must be harder than I think or someone would be doing it.

There has never, ever, ever, ever, ever been a show like VeggieTales. Perhaps there never will be again. So come on down to the local theatre -- its time for VeggieTales.