The French Peas

## Jean-Claude and Phillipe

**The French Peas** are a group of peas who appear as supporting characters in the *VeggieTales* franchise. As their name suggests, they hail from France and speak in broken French accents. The informal leaders of the group are **Jean-Claude and Phillipe**. The peas mostly function as utility performers amongst the Veggie troupe, often working behind the scenes or joining the ensemble to play cheeky and mischievous characters.

## Bio

While peas were introduced into the *VeggieTales* universe with the episode *Rack, Shack and Benny*, the peas of the French variety were not properly introduced until the episode *Dave and the Giant Pickle*. They were featured portraying the obnoxious Philistines who taunted the Israelites from their opposing hill. Here, the peas were led by Jean-Claude and another pea named Christophe in one of his few appearances.

In subsequent appearances, Jean-Claude began to be paired up with Phillipe. They officially became an iconic duo with the episode *Josh and the Big Wall!* where they played a pair of irreverent guards sitting atop the walls of Jericho taunting the Israelites once again.

The French Peas have gone on to become favorites among *VeggieTales* fans due to their cheeky nature and iconic performances. Besides portraying Philistines and defenders of Jericho, the Peas are also known for their rendition of There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea, portraying Little Joe’s brothers in *The Ballad of Little Joe*, playing a whole town of creatures called Munchies in *The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's*, and helping Archibald Asparagus take over an episode of *VeggieTales* (to somewhat disastrous results).

## Personality

As a group and individually, the French Peas have set a clear precedent of irreverence amongst their other Veggie peers. Although very helpful and hardworking, they tend to cause mischief and chaos by meddling with the plans of others or bending (if not even following) the rules that have been established beforehand. Thankfully, the peas are not always so deliberate with their trouble causing, and never mean to hurt anyone. If they do find out that they hurt someone's feelings, they are fairly apologetic and empathetic.

## Physical Appearance

All French peas look extremely similar. They are all small green peas with beady black eyes and small, round noses. Most French peas have red freckles around their noses, but not always. (Sometimes their freckles are absent in various appearances.) Because all French peas look alike, it's hard to tell them apart. The main difference is by listening to their voices. For example, Jean-Claude's voice is low and gravelly, while Phillipe's is more high-pitched and shrill. Sometimes, the peas will wear different costumes or clothes, mostly when in different character roles or in merchandise.

For *VeggieTales in the House*/*City*, Jean-Claude and Phillipe appeared with redesigns along with the rest of the *VeggieTales* cast. They appeared vastly different compared to their old design(s), mostly so they could be differentiated from each other.

Jean-Claude’s body was changed to a lime green hue and had a bright red nose. with a thin black mustache. He also gained whites in his eyes and thin black eyebrows as well. Phillipe’s body was changed to a darker emerald green and had a yellow-orange nose. He also gained a unibrow paired with a thin, curly black mustache. Both peas also became more angular in shape, looking more hexagonal and rectangular, respectively.

For The VeggieTales Show, the Peas returned to their original design.

## Voice Actors

### Christophe Pea

* Chris Olsen (1996-1997)
* Phil Vischer (2014; Beauty and the Beet only)

## Fun Facts

* The reason all French Peas look alike is out of necessity. In the studio commentary for *Dave and the Giant Pickle*, Phil Vischer said he wanted a large group of simple characters that would be easy to animate and render in their then current animation software.
* The French Peas personalities are based on the Frenchmen from the film *Monty Python and the Holy Grail*.
* According to the studio commentary for *Josh and the Big Wall!*, a former French-Canadian Big Idea staff member had made a complaint about the French Peas, believing it to offensive to portray the French peas as antagonistic while all other peas with no accents were not. However, when the episode in question was shown to native French people, they found it very funny and were not offended at all.
* In the *VeggieTales* franchise, it's never been clearly stated if Jean-Claude and Phillipe are related or not. In response to a fan on Twitter, Phil Vischer revealed that they're not.
* During Larry and Mr. Lunt’s commentary for the *Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie* DVD, Larry states that the French Peas are actually Swedish and speak with Swedish accents when they aren’t filming.