25 Things You May Not Know About Veggie Tales
(in part, confirming why many Christian educators do not prefer Veggie Tales for Sunday School)
Excerpts from a blog post by Lifeway Research
8. Not as Much Bible As You Remember
VeggiesTales is commonly described a show where vegetables tell Bible stories to kids. But in actuality, only a small percentage of the videos consisted of retold Bible stories.
Instead, the overwhelming majority of shows involved spoofs of popular literary tales or well-known pop culture stories such as Indiana Jones (“Minnesota Cuke”) or Lord of the Rings (“Lord of the Beans”).
Each episode did introduce kids to a Bible verse that supported the episode’s theme.
9. Old Testament Emphasis
Of the VeggieTales shows that featured actual stories from Scripture, the canonical representation skewed heavily in favor of the Old Testament.
The breakdown goes: Genesis (featured in three videos); Exodus (2); Joshua (1); Judges (1); Esther (1); 1 Samuel (1); Daniel (2); Jonah (1); Luke (1).
Turns out, there’s a reason why the New Testament was used so sparingly…
10. Mom’s Rules
Vischer’s mom, who has a Ph.D. in Christian Education, gave him some initial rules about creating VeggieTales. They included: 1) You will not portray Jesus as a vegetable, and 2) try not to imply that vegetables can have redemptive relationships with God.
The first rule is why there are almost no VeggieTales episodes focused on New Testament stories.
The second rule is why Bob speaks in the second person when he ends episodes with, “Always remember: God made you (not us) special and He loves you very much.”
14. Vischer’s Regret
It can be argued that VeggieTales episodes were driven more by biblical values than they were by actual biblical stories.
Vischer lamented this in an interview. “When I lost VeggieTales and Big Idea, one of my first responses when my head finally stopped spinning, was, ‘Wait a minute, did I just spend 10 years persuading kids to behave Christianly without teaching them Christianity?” he said.
“I can’t just tell kids to behave like Christians. I have to teach them the tenants of the faith.”
This led directly to one of Vischer’s next projects, the "What's in the Bible?" series, which is terrific Sunday School material!
