Gaither's Pond is a Christian CGI animation series about a group of aquatic and amphibious animals who live in the titular pond, sing Gospel Music, and learn biblical lessons.
The series was the first release of then-newly formed Live Bait Productions, and was notably spearheaded by the Gaither Vocal Band, an award-winning southern gospel group who would also later be involved with Dorbees: Making Decisions, another Christian animated feature produced by Live Bait and created by the son of Bill and Gloria Gaither, Benjy (who also wrote and animated most of this series). Nearly all the characters are Ink Suit Actors of musicians from the Gaither ensemble, complete with Punny Names, such as Carp Lowry, Big Bass Bill, Jessy Frogman, Bullfrog Younce, David Perch, Russ Blow Taff, Vestal Gooseman, Buddy Greenfly, Guppie, Froggy Ponder, and Micheal Mantis note and a sunflower named Gloria Gladiola.
The series was produced from 1997 to 2003, being released Direct to Video and later periodically aired on the TBN Christian kids’ TV network Smile. It was relatively short-lived in terms of episode count however, with only four full episodesnote released over the show's 6-year life span.
Gaither's Pond contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: This series is full of allusions to the Gaither family, upon which the characters they play are based.
- Adults Are Useless: In "The Lure Depths", Guppie is lost in the Depths of the pond and looking for a way out or somebody to help him. He runs into Big Bass Bill, who's the Mayor and should guide him out, but all Bill does is berate him for wandering there in the first place and tell him to get a haircut.
- Art Evolution: The effect of the extended period of time between episodes is undeniably noticeable. Compare Gloria Gladiola's model in Fish Tales
to her model in The Legend at Gaither's Pond - As Himself: Literally every character fits this trope. Except the beavers.
- Blatant Lies: The main conflict of Fish Tales, with Carp Lowry's newsletter releasing falsehoods about other characters that cause them no end of trouble until Carp confesses.
- Beast with a Human Face: Literally all the fish characters fit this trope. Averted in the first video.
- Carnivore Confusion: Bullfrog Younce lists all his friends at the pond, one of whom is named Buddy Greenfly, and talks about how they all do their best to love each other at the pond... right after eating a fly.
- Cloudcuckoolander: In Fish Tales, there was Dennis Rodfrog who shows up and starts freaking out, chasing after Buddy Greenfly to challenge him to a game of basketball for no reason, not realizing that he's a horsefly.
- Deep South: All the pond animals have strong southern accents and the vegetation appears to be that of the southeastern United States.
- Deranged Animation: A notorious example. The characters frequently go Off-Model with bizarre squashes and zooms and frenetic camera movements.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The Lure Depths went the lightest on the Ink-Suit Actor treatment. Characters may have hair, but other than that, they look like average (if low quality) cartoon fish and birds with black balls for eyes.
- Gospel Revival Number: On many occasions, the story comes to a halt while the characters break into a Gospel song (generally of the Southern Gospel or quartet variety) often with little to no relation to the plot.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Nearly every character in the show is designed to resemble their actor, right down to a Punny Name based on their real name. So it resembles an earlier version of Shark Tale, but closer to the human side of the scale than the animal/plant side, giving the characters human noses, ears, hair, etc.
- Meaningful Name: Snappy Jake and Buddy Greenfly as examples.
- Pals with Jesus: The animals are implied to each have personal, redemptive relationships with God.
- Punny Name: Everyone.
- Religious Edutainment: Each story contains a Christian moral lesson, with an As the Good Book Says... segment at the end.
- Self-Deprecation: The Gaithers voice silly animal versions of themselves, and seem to willingly play up their real-life eccentricities. (Guy Pinrod playing himself as The Fool, Younce being incomprehensibly long-winded, etc)
- Shout-Out: This on occasions such as:Machine Tooth Kelly: Carp my fine new friend, you got problems! here in Gaither city.
- Short-Runners: The series only ever produced four episodes.
- Smug Snake: Inverted with The Protagonist Carp in Fish Tales, where his gossips and lies led to problems of his own and naturally fails at them because of his overconfidence, but he at the very least still comes to his senses.
- Species Surname: Or species first name; depending on what best fits the Gaither who's voicing them.
- Toothy Bird: Jessy Frogman has this.
