VeggieTales / YMMV

Adorkable:
- Larry the Cucumber. He likes silly songs, is funny, and ditzy.
- Petunia Rhubarb is an air-headed, sweet-natured girl. In other words, she and Larry are perfect for each other.
Alternative Character Interpretation: In "Madame Blueberry", the scallions play a trio of salesman who offer the titular character an extravagant trip to the "Stuff Mart". Were they a group of sleazy businessmen who were trying to turn Madame towards a materialistic lifestyle, or were they simply doing their jobs and promoting their store to the nearby townsfolk, unintentionally coming across as aggressive in the process?
Audience-Alienating Era: Very few fans of VeggieTales have much love for the VeggieTales in the House era of the show for a multitude of reasons. One of the first reasons were the change in character designs; the folks at Big Idea felt that the characters' designs now looked antiquated due to being based on how they looked all the way back in 1993, and decided to revamp them. However, the new designs they chose received a severely mixed reception, especially from fans who found the characters' original designs too iconic to change. Then In The House (and its sequel series In The City) properly premiered to a chilly reception. The show was criticized for feeling so much more wacky and hyperactive than the original show to the point that it was seen as detrimental to the show, older characters undergoing Flanderization (especially Larry the Cucumber, who went from the "cool but clumsy co-host" to a childish idiot) while the new characters were unlikable and/or annoying, and in general feeling like the charm that made the original series so beloved was no longer there. It was thought that the poor reception to In The House/City would kill the franchise outright until the franchise won back the crowd with a second reboot in the form of The VeggieTales Show which brought the series back to something (both in tone and aesthetic) resembling the original show.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: "Dave and the Giant Pickle" had, for some odd reason, subtitles when the Philistines (played by the French Peas) first spoke, which makes it extremely odd because they were speaking English and we can understand what they were saying. They never appear afterwards, thus making the addition of subtitles pointless.
Bizarro Episode: "The Wonderful World of Auto-Tainment" has been called one of the weirdest VeggieTales videos yet. Bob and Larry travel to the future, where they learn entertainment will rely entirely on making characters perform songs and jokes related to subjects picked at random. Some might also find the Aesop randomly tacked on ("Even if your day doesn't go as planned, at least God still loves you!"). The episode started out as a compilation of music videos for songs from VeggieTales-themed soundtracks, though one could easily mistake it for an Ashcan Copy that was released in desperation due to its nonsensical narrative, random crossover with 3-2-1 Penguins! (Big Idea's other animated show), the inclusion of a completely-unrelated animated short that doesn't feature any of the VeggieTales cast, and the fact that the script for The Ballad of Little Joe (which came out after this episode) was finalized on September 5, 2002, nearly a year before it came out. The only thing the episode is really remembered for is the "weedeater" meme.
Broken Base: Esther... the Girl Who Became Queen has a much more serious tone than the other episodes, more reminiscent of a Disney film than a typical VeggieTales episode. Some fans praised it for this reason, while other fans were alienated by it, believing that a show about talking vegetables shouldn't take itself this seriously. It doesn't help that the episode lacks a Silly Song as well as Bob and Larry's countertop segments (which are generally considered some of the best and funniest parts of the series)^note, or that Esther never makes another appearance in the series afterward due to her hair being difficult to animate.
Cargo Ship: Larry is in love with his Barbara Manatee plush, much to Bob's confusion.
Crosses the Line Twice: In the Silly Song "Oh, Santa", Larry bakes three cookies for Santa; however, when a robber breaks in, Larry decides to give him one out of generosity, and the same goes for a Norse Viking. However, he brazenly slams the door in the face of an agent from the IRS, and even gives a knowing smirk to the camera, as if to say "yeah, parents, we hate them, too". At the end of the song, the agent comes in anyway, asks if Larry has "claimed" the cookie, then takes it anyway.
Designated Hero: Larry-Boy in his first two appearances comes off this way. Although he is supposed to be The Ditz and this is technically the point, he ultimately doesn't do a whole lot to solve the problems in either episode. In The Fib From Outer Space, he not only fails to find the Fib before he grows out of control entirely (in fact, he actually drives by and greets him and Junior at one point, right after stating that he will have no problem tracking down the alien), it's not even he who helps solve the problem — he just happens to be in close proximity to Junior when Alfred yells through his headset that Junior is the only one who can stop the Fib from growing. In The Rumor Weed, he does even less; he at least attempts to stop the weed from growing, but still never realizes that the only way it can be stopped is through refusing to spread rumors, so his attempts end up doing nothing at all. Worst of all, he was the one responsible for creating the villain of the episode (albeit by accident, but still). Thankfully in The Cartoon Adventures & The Bad Apple this got much better; while he still has flaws and the villains still thwart him to some degree, he actually figures out how to stop them and aids in doing so too.
Designated Villain: In the "Grapes of Wrath" segment from "God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?!", the eponymous grapes are supposed to be a bunch of jerks, but the only ones among them actively causing trouble are the children, Tom and Rosie Grape. Their parents, on the other hand, are shown to be quite a bit saner, especially Ma Grape, who gets on her children's case after Junior Asparagus is humiliated trying to get back at them for their latest prank. This is pretty much justified considering the story is intended to teach the value of forgiveness^note.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- The Peach only has a speaking role in two Silly Songs^note, but is still a memorable character and has been subject to many memes.
- Annie is a minor background character who's really only known for the "Thankfulness Song", yet she's very well-remembered for it.
- The French Peas don't appear in many episodes, but many people love them. In fact, in 2006, when Big Idea held a poll to see what female fans' favorite characters were, they beat out Bob the Tomato in popularity.
Esoteric Happy Ending: The episode "Madame Blueberry" is surprisingly shocking and rather brutal, considering how light-hearted the series was up to this point. The episode details how the titular character goes around buying things, hoping that they won't make her feel sad anymore. However, by the time she learns that she just needs to be thankful for what she has already, her own house gets destroyed, all of her possessions become worthless, and she herself becomes homeless. Though the trope may be downplayed if you take the book "Madame Blueberry Learns to Be Thankful", wherein Bob and Larry help rebuild the treehouse after the events of said episode, to be a canon follow-up to the episode.
Friendly Fandoms:
- With, of all things, ASDF Movie, thanks to a series of well-made animations by YouTube animator Cmanflip recreating ASDF skits with Veggie Tales characters.
- There's some noticeable overlap between the VeggieTales fandom and the Chuck E. Cheese fandom. This may be due to the showtapes featuring Silly Songs and other musical numbers in between the animatronic performances.
- SpongeBob SquarePants fans also get along with fans of VeggieTales, due to their similar styles of humor. It's gotten to the point where fan animations with VeggieTales characters reenacting scenes from SpongeBob exist.
- There are also many PBS Kids fans who like VeggieTales. It helps that they ran the episode The Star Of Christmas a few times.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- The series was hugely popular in Brazil beginning in 2005, to the point of becoming a Cash-Cow Franchise there. This essentially gave way to a fan club, lots of double features/compilation releases, a dub of Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, a spin-off that aired on Rede Record, and a CD and DVD featuring Cristina Mel (the latter being a show recorded at Teatro da Rede Record).
- It was also quite popular in Germany as well. There, it gave way to three music videos that were also included as bonus features on most of the DVD releases in that country and public appearances.
Growing the Beard: The early episodes are... awkward, to say the least. The models are very stiff (and shiny), the characters don't have their quirks yet, and Larry has a lisp and a much less silly voice. Roundabouts "The Toy That Saved Christmas" and "Josh and the Big Wall", the models were vastly improved, the characters had been fully established with all of their quirks and idiosyncrasies, Larry's voice now sounds perfect for the character, and it was very evident that Big Idea! had come a long way. This brought a surge in popularity that culminated in the series making a full theatrical movie.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Has its own page.
Just Here for Godzilla: The Periphery Demographic tends to watch this series primarily for the Silly Songs.
Magnificent Bastard:
- "Silly Sing Along 2: The End Of Silliness?": The nurse is the sole assistant to the eccentric Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps. While people travel long distances to heal their pets from the veterinarian's singing, in reality, the doctor is unaware his cure does nothing, with recovery instead resulting from the nurse's more practical medical advice. Though the nurse is genuinely happy for the pets' wellbeing, when the vet declines to give him a raise, the nurse deliberately allows the vet to be attacked by one of their client's bears. With the Yodeling Vet last seen running from the bear, the singers conclude that "when you go a little loopy, better keep your nurse well paid."
- "Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple": The titular Bad Apple is a manipulative fruit who considers herself the embodiment of temptation. Seeking vengeance on all of Bumblyburg for the humiliation of her ancestor, the Bad Apple plans to lure every citizen into a temptation-based funhouse to trap them forever so she can claim the city in her family's name. To accomplish this, the Bad Apple lures the mayor of Bumblyburg and its top reporter Petunia into her "temptation webs", trapping them both before doing the same to Larry-Boy himself and his butler Alfred. With a silver tongue always ready to spin a web of lies and deceit to accomplish her goals, the Bad Apple comes dangerously close to succeeding in her scheme, proving to be one of Larry-Boy's most notable and dangerous adversaries.
Memetic Mutation: Right here.
Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: In one of the commentaries, the creators explain that when Canadians were shown an episode with the French Peas, they thought they were offensive and they shouldn't be featured on the show. They then showed the episode with the peas to some people from France, and they thought it was hilarious.
Misaimed Fandom:
- A minor example. Because of the show's popularity, it was soon sold in regular video stores like Blockbuster, rather than confined to the Christian bookstores where it was originally intended to be sold, and was enjoyed by plenty of children who weren't devoutly Christian. There were a handful of non-Christian parents who were upset about this, as they felt it was propaganda, though they were few and far-between. Even Phil Vischer had this fear himself when he initially dove into the mass market.
- "The Bunny Song", oh "The Bunny Song". Created as a goofy but still serious retelling of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the song was designed to be obviously as bad as possible. Unfortunately, the song was too catchy, leading to parents complaining about kids singing about not loving their mom and dad and not wanting to go to church and school.
Phil Vischer: "Villains tend to sing negative messages, because they don't know any better and that's why they're villains. If they sang good songs they wouldn't be villains. So what we learned in the "What Have We Learned Song" is it's okay to have a negative message in a film as long as you don't put it in a really catchy song."
Narm: On September 11, 2017, a certain post◊ on the VeggieTales social media commemorating 9/11 became the subject of mockery. The accompanying picture featured Bob and Larry with the text "Never Forget 9/11", which wouldn't have been bad if Bob and Larry hadn't had looked oddly happy. The internet quickly responded to this in as exactly as respectfully a manner as the internet usually does.
Narm Charm: As a tribute to/parody of sad soft-rock ballads based around a fairly ridiculous-sounding premise that was clearly being Played for Laughs, "Pizza Angel" really has no business being the Tear Jerker that it is. Yet Larry is so anxious as he awaits his missing pizza that it makes you feel legitimately concerned and sorry for him, especially when it turns out that the pizza delivery boy got lost looking for Larry's house and ended up eating Larry's pizza, after a Hope Spot no less, and Larry's heart just utterly breaks.
No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: The qubo version of the show got flack from parent groups for removing all references to God in order to be more secular. Despite this, the show was one of qubo's highest-rated programs, and had a second season produced.
Once Original, Now Common:
- It's hard to appreciate just how groundbreaking this show was back in the nineties and the Turn of the Millennium. For these reasons, people make fun of it outside of when Seasonal Rot kicked in.
- VeggieTales came out in 1993, in which basically CGI was in its infancy (before even ReBoot and Toy Story), and it was the first CGI Christian series where the genre was nearly unheard of. Now that the CGI has aged badly and every studio wants to take its crack on the CG Christian craze, it seems VeggieTales is now seen as just that, a CG Christian show.
- The "Silly Songs" were parodies of song styles popular at the time... and many of which were legitimately good, not working in Anvilicious bible messages (most of the time, bible references weren't even present in the Silly Songs!) on top of it. However, they've become rather dated, meaning people who see music videos nowadays will most likely not get all the jokes.
- The amount of references and adult humour, and its use of Anachronism Stew for the sake of humour was quite fresh. These days, it's likely to be seen as just overusing reference humour.
One-Scene Wonder: Palmy the Jamaican palm tree only appears at the end of the second episode and one Christmas album, but is still an extremely memorable character thanks to his upbeat song and the performance of Jeff Morrow, one of the few "professional" actors to appear in the series.
Only the Creator Does It Right: The episodes Phil and Mike wrote from the post-Jonah era seem to be the best ones out of the era.
Overshadowed by Controversy: Despite getting the highest ratings for the qubo block on NBC, VeggieTales on TV was overshadowed by complaints about the edits the show recieved to make it more secular in nature.
Periphery Demographic:
- Who got VeggieTales going in its early years? College students. To elaborate a bit more on this, Phil Vischer explained it in his autobiography: Christian book stores often had a children's section with a TV in one part of the store. Often, they would take a random tape and play it on the VCR on repeat throughout the day; college students who often worked in the store part-time usually didn't have a whole lot to do, so when they inevitably would pop in a tape for this show, they would find themselves enjoying it way more than they expected. It was one of the many ways word of mouth helped get this show on the map..
- The show is also enjoyed by many non-Christians for how appealing and hilarious the writing is, in addition to not being as heavy-handed to its viewers as most other Christian media.
Refrain from Assuming: Some people mistakenly believe the Silly Song from King George and the Ducky is called "Barbara Manatee" after its recurring line, even though its actual name is "Endangered Love".
Replacement Scrappy: Ichabeezer for main-stay character Mr. Nezzer during the In The House era. Despite having a very well-liked voice-actor, very few felt Ichabeezer had the charm (and occasional menace) of the show's beloved resident Jerk with a Heart of Gold Nezzer. Needless to say, many were relieved to see Mr. Nezzer return for the 2019 relaunch.
Sacred Cow: Christian media often gets a lot of flak for being very Anvilicious and full of Glurge, but VeggieTales is one of the only Christian shows that everyone, even people of other religions and atheists, will go to bat for. This is because it's fun, entertaining, and treats its audience with respect. Its messages can also apply to everyone, with or without the religious context.
Seasonal Rot: Depending on whom you ask, the show started to decline either shortly after the first theatrical movie when the episodes became much more self-aware, filled with more pop-culture references, focused less and less on Biblical stories and flanderized much of the cast, or around the early 2010s when the animation budget was slashed in half thanks to Big Idea being purchased by DreamWorks Animation and outsourcing the animation to cheaper studios, and many episodes' plots were rehashed from previous episodes. The Denser and Wackier revival series VeggieTales in the House and VeggieTales in the City haven't helped matters.
Shallow Parody:
- The Grapes of Wrath sketch is just a pun on the name; other than the accents on the titular angry grapes, it has nothing to do with the original whatsoever. Bob calls Larry on this, having been expecting to hear the actual story being told.
- Out-of-universe, The Simpsons managed to do a two-second-long parody of the series by playing its premise totally straight:
  Moses: Mighty Yamses, we grow weary of building your food pyramids. Let my pickles go.
  Homer: (watching the video) Mmmmmmmmm, Moses.....
Special Effect Failure: "Sweetpea Beauty" has probably the worst animation of any VeggieTales video (with only the first two episodes even rivaling it). The lighting is very basic, props randomly move from one position to another, one character's mouth randomly grows and drops in framerate, and entire backgrounds and textures disappear for no apparent reason. Jimmy and Jerry are also discolored during the "Pants" song. As such, Hawaii Animation Studios only animated this video and "It's a Meaningful Life" before they were eventually fired and replaced by New Zealand-based Huhu Studios for the rest of the series run (previously they only animated "Abe and His Amazing Promise" and "Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella" before Hawaii took over).
Sweetness Aversion: The song "My Day" from The Wonderful World of Autotainment is pretty much saccharine to the core, especially in contrast to the more satirical edge the rest of the episode has.
The Problem with Licensed Games:
- Larryboy and the Bad Apple actually got two different games for both the PS2 and the GBA:
  - The GBA game is kind of a zigzagged case as, while at the end of the day it was still a pretty good and well put-together 2D puzzle-platformer and much more playable and enjoyable than most other examples, it was also somewhat derivative of the first Mario vs. Donkey Kong at the same time.
  - The PS2 game (a 3D platformer), however, was hampered by messy controls, somewhat repetitive gameplay, and wasted potential, and as such is a very played-straight example.
- VeggieTales also has gotten several PC games over the years, such as The Mystery Of Veggie Island (a point-and-click adventure game with Junior as the main character), Minnesota Cuke and the Coconut Apes (a side-scrolling platformer), and Jonah: A VeggieTales Game (a minigame compilation based on the movie). Most of them, while definitely playable and cleverly written like the show, come off as unremarkable gameplay-wise, however.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- In more recent years, VeggieTales has changed its intro (which cuts off a verse of the theme song), its animation studio (the quality seems to have gone down), its logo, QWERTY, the format of the letters (they're now videos from kids), and the DVD cases are no longer green. The DVDs also no longer have those fun little Easter Eggs on them, like they used to...
- In mid 2014, Big Idea unveiled new redesigns of the characters. The fan base did not approve. Luckily, in 2018, when Mike Nawrocki announced the possibility of more episodes, he announced that the show would return to using the original designs. Big Idea made good on those words come the announcement of the show's relaunch in 2019, which showed that the characters had indeed returned to their original designs.
Unintentional Period Piece:
- The opening to "Larry-Boy! and the Fib from Outer Space", as most of Larry's slang about the internet is somewhat outdated, as the terms were used in the 90s.
  - The opening to "LarryBoy and the Bad Apple" was a sort of callback to this one, using 2000s internet terms instead of 90s ones. It feels just as dated as the original now.
- Vanna Banana from "Princess and the Popstar", as Hannah Montana already ended by the time the video came out.
Win Back the Crowd: The 2019 relaunch of the show as The VeggieTales Show seems bent on going back to the series' roots and pointedly avoiding and/or removing many of the unpopular changes that ultimately made VeggieTales in the House/City disliked by fans, not the least of which includes discarding the base-breaking at best redesigns and using a slightly updated version of the veggies' "classic" designs, as well as bringing back Mr. Nezzer, having Lisa Vischer voice Junior again (while still keeping Tress MacNeille as Madame Blueberry, as well as bit parts) and unceremoniously dumping Scrappies such as Bacon Bill and Tina Celerina (and any characters ported over from In The House/City were redesigned to better fit the original artstyle; so far, only Callie Flower has made the jump). The reaction from the fanbase so far has been very positive.
The Woobie: Larry has his moments, particularly in "The End Of Silliness".
Woolseyism: Some international dubs have so many of these that Big Idea Wiki has a page of its own.

YMMV / VeggieTales

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