The VeggieTales TV Show

* The series' title logo in Seasons 1-2
* The series's title logo in Season 3
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***The VeggieTales TV Show*** (often marketed as simply *VeggieTales*) is a live-action/CGI animated children's television series and a spin-off of the American Christian CGI animated children's video series, *VeggieTales*.

The television series is produced through the partnerships of Modern Cartoons and Big Idea Productions.

It aired in syndication from September 10, 1996 to August 9, 1999 and later on Nickelodeon as part of the Nick Jr. block from October 20, 1996 to September 19, 1999.

## Premise

The show focuses on the VeggieTales characters putting on a big show in the chamber of silliness that include videos and shorts. Phil Vischer says the show will start with a question in the form of letters from the ten kids, and then Bob and Larry will respond to that question by putting on a big show. Bob the Tomato attempts to use the big show to accomplish his dream of becoming the next James Murray. According to Vischer, "the thing that drives Bob crazy is when James Murray does *The Adventures of Timmy the Tooth*, everything goes perfectly. Nothing ever goes wrong on ‘The Adventures of Timmy the Tooth.’ And Bob wants that for his big show, but he can never achieve it. ”Each show would never go the way that Bob had initially planned, resulting in complete progress.

Phil Vischer says "It's really all about Bob and Larry wanting to put on a show for all the kids. They want to teach things to all the kids. Bob wants to help all the kids, Larry wants to help Bob."

## Characters

All the characters are the same from the early VeggieTales videos. The show brings new characters, as the owners of the chamber of silliness in which the show takes place. It also featured ten kids of the VeggieTales dance party. Junior's red-headed 7-year-old sister Julie is featured in the television series. Buzzsaw Louie from The Toy That Saved Christmas also appears as a television reporter. Goliath from Dave and the Giant Pickle has been teased in storyboards from the teaser trailer with the Fib from Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space, with possibilities that they will be included in the television series as well in Season 2.

## Production

The television series was produced by Modern Cartoons and Big Idea Productions. Unlike the video series, this television series used a variety of CGI animation techniques:

* The backgrounds were miniature sets (usually built on two 4 by 8 feet (1,200 mm × 2,400 mm) sheets of plastic).

* The humans, including ten kids, are live action children and shot in front of a greenscreen.

* The VeggieTales characters were the same 3D models created in Softimage 3D and Alias Wavefront Maya, the beta version which is acquired by Alias Wavefront PowerAnimator.

* The movement of the VeggieTales characters was recorded by playing out the scene with squash and stretch models equipped with cartoony rejects. The VeggieTales characters had a switch to fix the bouncing, jumping, dancing, facial expressions, and lip syncing due to some of the animation errors, clipping objects, and minor mistakes in the cartoony rejection data.

* The VeggieTales characters' facial expressions and lip synching were done by face controlling, an animation technique where reflective spots are put on a voice actor's facial expression. The voice track is digitally recorded along with the spot data. Then the textures were rendered using Pixar's RenderMan.

* Body movement and other effects were done by joysticks.

The animation complex and CGI issues were solved by Sillicon Graphics and Alias Wavefront.

A number of proprietary software systems were used:

* Data/audio recording and smoothing were done on a Microsoft Windows machine.

* Daily cuts were done on "SGI" computers running a 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0.

## Episodes

**Season 1 (1996)**

1. Where's God When I'm S-Scared?
2. God Wants Me to Forgive Them?!?
3. Are You My Neighbor?
4. Rack, Shack and Benny

**Season 2 (1997)**

1. Dave and the Giant Pickle
2. The Toy That Saved Christmas
3. Larry-Boy! And the Fib from Outer Space!
4. Josh and the Big Wall!

**Season 3 (1998-1999)**

1. Madame Blueberry
2. The Value Bargain Sale
3. The Road Trip
4. The Chamber of Commerce
5. The Invisible Cream at the Beach
6. The Run for President
7. LarryBoy Returns
8. I Like Your Funny Face
9. Dough-Nutty
10. The Veggie Zone
11. The Country Fair
12. Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed

## International Broadcast

### North America

* United States
	+ Syndication (VHS and DVD)
	+ Nickelodeon (Nick Jr.)
	+ PAX (Complete Season 3)
	+ Telemundo (Nickelodeon on Telemundo)

### South America

* Latin America
	+ Nickelodeon (Nick Jr.; Complete 6 episodes)
	+ Once TV
* Brazil
	+ Nickelodeon (Nick Jr.; Complete 5 episodes)
	+ SBT

### Asia

* Japan
	+ TV Tokyo (Complete 6 episodes)
	+ NHK (Complete 6 episodes)
* Taiwan
	+ EBC Yoyo (Complete Seasons 1-2)

### Europe

* United Kingdom
	+ GMTV
* France
	+ Canal+ Jeunesse (Complete Seasons 1-2)
	+ Télétoon (Les Minitoons; Complete Seasons 1-2)
	+ Piwi (Complete Seasons 1-2)
* Finland
	+ YLE TV2
* Norway
	+ TV 2
* Slovenia
	+ Pop TV
* Croatia
	+ HRT 2

### Australia

* New Zealand
	+ Shine TV

## Trivia

* The show is really entertaining, creative, and funny, it also manages to do a good job with its various lessons, like God, and without getting too preachy or tired.

* The CGI animation in Softimage/PowerAnimator is really appealing to watch, especially in Seasons 2-3.

* It spawn a reboot, *The VeggieTales Show*, which is funnier and a lot more entertaining.

* All the characters are lovable, cute, funny, and memorable, especially the ten kids from the VeggieTales Dance Party.

* It teaches plenty of Biblical lessons and great morals that are not jammed down your kids' throat at all.

* Amazing voice acting.

* The stories and shorts are really interesting and entertaining.

* Catchy and heartwarming songs. Most notably, *God is Bigger*.

* There are also good dubs of the television show.

* A lot of pop culture references such as *Batman*, *Madame Bovary*, etc.

* Catchy theme song.

* It was one of the first television series to be animated entirely in 3D with live-action and miniatures.

## Goofs/Errors

* While the Softimage/PowerAnimator animation is pretty okay most of the time in Seasons 2-3, some of the Softimage/PowerAnimator animation in Season 1 often times has some animation errors like objects clipping through something and other minor mistakes, with one major example being the inconsistent lighting in the first four episodes, but they're all flawless with a variety of CGI animation techniques.

* Some of the dubs on the other hand, especially the Mandarin Chinese dub, were pretty mediocre.

* The Season 2 episode "LarryBoy and The Fib From Outer Space!", although exciting in any way, received a lot of letters from parents criticizing it for a few flaws, Larry being too serious, some dark and intense scenes, such as the Fib catching Junior, Larry stating he is going to die if he and his Larrymobile crashes into a water tower (as well as Alfred, who is Archibald Asparagus, telling him to stop yelling at him), and shouting "GOODBYE BUMBLYBURG!!!" when he was about to be eaten by the enlarged Fib.

* Although the two LarryBoy episodes in Seasons 2-3 were okay, not only the first one as mentioned above was intense and dark, but the aforementioned episode and the second one ("LarryBoy and the Rumor Weed") always showed that LarryBoy didn't save the day or defeat the villains, but other characters such as Junior and Laura did (for Junior, he defeated the Fib by telling the truth about breaking the Art Bigotti plate, as well as encouraging the others to say nice things about Alfred to defeat the Rumor Weed with Laura).

## Gallery

### Season 1

VeggieTales Group during Season 1Bob and Larry during the Theme SongBob, Larry, and Junior in Space HelmetsJimmy and Jerry in Space PodsJimmy and Jerry during The Gourds Must Be Crazy
### Season 2

VeggieTales Group during Season 2Bob and Larry on CountertopVeggieTales Group during the Christmas PartyBob and Larry with CameraBob and Larry with JournalBob and Larry with StampBob and Larry with Two PencilsLaura Carrot Writing with the JournalLaura, Rosie, and AnnieBob, Larry, and Junior during the BibleVeggieTales Group with Message to Phil Vischer
### Season 3

Bob and Larry during Season 3VeggieTales Group during Season 3The Veggie Friends Celebrate Big Idea's 5th Anniversary during Season 3Happy Birthday from all the Veggies at VeggieTales!