God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?!

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**God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?!** is the second episode of VeggieTales. The first story is an in-name-only parody of "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, while the second is a parody of the 1960s sitcom, *Gilligan's Island*.

## Plot

On the countertop, Bob tells Larry that he ran into a friend of theirs named Marco after walking home from his bowling league. Marco says that when his little sister makes him mad and says she is sorry, their mom says he needs to forgive her, but Marco does not know why. Larry then tells the story of "The Grapes of Wrath."

### The Grapes of Wrath

(See the full page for the plot.)

After the story ends, Bob congratulates Larry on the story but asks him if that is actually how the story goes. Larry says yes and winks at him.

### The Forgive-O-Matic

This episode doesn't include a silly song but has a commercial hosted by Scallion #1 instead. In this commercial, Scallion #1 is dressed as a salesman and tells the audience (Bob, Larry and Junior, who are obviously watching the advertisement on an offscreen TV set) that misdeeds called sin need to be forgiven. He then introduces the Forgive-O-Matic from a company called Wrongco, an invention that supposedly forgives your sins when you use the dial and hit the button. He also says customers who order while the advertisement is still running would receive a set of indestructible knives. To prove so, he has a potato who works as a miner from West Virginia say (by obviously reading an off-screen reading card despite not having eyes) that he and his coworkers dug through solid granite with the steak knives, and they were still going strong.

All of a sudden, Junior comes on stage (despite leaving the countertop, leaving Bob and Larry perplexed) and tells Scallion #1 that he knows lots of people who have been forgiven without the scallion's product. He says that if we ask God for forgiveness, then he will forgive us. Knowing that no one will buy his product after what Junior said, Scallion #1 announces other dubious capabilities about the product and even introduces a Chia Forgive-O-Matic. Junior tells Scallion #1 to say goodnight as the lights go out. Scallion #1 chases after Junior but trips over a cart that holds the Chia Forgive-O-Matic.

## Production

After Big Idea finished *Where's God When I'm S-Scared?*, VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer began to wonder what he and his production team could make next. He then remembered a puppet skit he wrote in Bible college called the Forgive-O-Matic. Phil gave the script to his assistant animator Chris Olsen to animate and direct while he went to figure out a longer story. As he was considered their next project, he considered spoofing (in very loose terms) classic literature, something that he and VeggieTales co-creator Mike Nawrocki discussed before they began working on the first episode. Ideas the duo discussed included "Bridge over Pumpkin Pie," "War and Peaches," "Lime and Punishment," "Madame Blueberry," and "The Grapes of Wrath," and as of 2018, only the latter two have been created by Big Idea.

After Grapes of Wrath was done, Phil and Mike went out to dinner to think of the second segment, and they came up with *Larry's Lagoon*, a spoof of the 1960s sitcom, *Gilligan's Island.*

## Characters

* Bob the Tomato as Skipper
* Pa Grape Debut
* Tom Grape Debut
* Scallion #1
* Larry the Cucumber as First Mate
* Henry the Potato (debut)
* Ma Grape (debut)
* Rosie Grape (debut)
* Junior Asparagus
* Dad Asparagus as The Professor
* Archibald Asparagus as Millionare
* Lovey Asparagus as With Vacation Suit
* Palmy the Tree As Himself
* Sunny The Sun (debut) cameo
* The Tree (debut) cameo
* Snake (debut, cameo)
* Two great blue whales (debut, flashback) cameos
* The coconuts (debut)

## Songs

* VeggieTales Theme Song
* We Are The Grapes Of Wrath
* Some Veggies Went To Sea
* The Forgiveness Song
* What Have We Learned

## Home media

### VHS

* Word Entertainment (*original release, 1994*)
* Lyrick Studios (*1999, 2001)*
* Warner Home Video (*2004*)
* Sony Wonder (*2004*)

### DVD

* Warner Home Video (*2004*)
* Sony Wonder (*2004*)

## Other Languages

* حواديت الحساب (Arabic)
* God wil dat ik ze vergeef?!? (Dutch)
* Τα Σταφυλια της Οργης (Greek)
* Unknown (Hebrew)
* 神様が赦せとおっしゃっているんだ！(Japanese)
* Unknown (Mandarin) (Standard)
* 葡萄饒恕記 (Mandarin) (Taiwan)
* Vredens druer (Norwegian)
* Deus Quer Que os Perdoe?!? (Portuguese) (Brazilian) (1st dub)
	+ Perdoar… Por Quê? (Portuguese) (Brazilian) (2nd-3rd dubs)
* Бог Хочет, Чтобы Я Простил Им!?! (Russian)
* Sadovi jeze (Slovenian)
* ¿¡¿Quiere Dios Que Los Perdone?!? (Latin Spanish)
* Nho nhăn nhó (Vietnamese)

## Fun Facts

### Moral(s)

* Everybody makes mistakes and we have to learn from them.
* Holding grudges against others can hurt them, and it also doesn't do any good.
* Nobody is perfect.

### Trivia

* This episode was the first for several things:
	+ The first appearance of the Grape family, the miner and Lovely Asparagus. This also marks the only video speaking role of Rosie (not counting A Very Veggie Christmas).
	+ As Phil Vischer had not considered the *Silly Songs with Larry* segment a regular staple of the series at the time, this is the first episode to not have a Silly Song. After frustrated and confused fans flooded the Big Idea studio with letters asking where the segment was, however, Phil suggested to Mike Nawrocki that he write more Silly Songs for future shows, which ultimately led to the segment becoming a regular appearance.
	+ The first episode not to have a letter from a child. Instead, Bob is asked a question by Marco, one of his TV friends (though what this means is uncertain).
	+ The first episode to spoof classic literature.
	+ The first episode to use constriction (pupils shrinking).
	+ The first episode someone cheers.
	+ The first episode not to have Frankencelery, Lisa Asparagus, Scallion #2, and Scallion #3 since their debut appearances.
	+ The first episode where QWERTY displays two verses on one episode. The second was in Abe and the Amazing Promise.
	+ The first episode that reveals more of the kitchen countertop, including cabinetry. The kitchen sink was not yet added until Are You My Neighbor? where it is seen in The Hairbrush Song.
		- This is also the only episode in which the cabinetry and drawers look different.
	+ This is the first time Junior appeared on the countertop, as shown in The Forgive-O-Matic.
	+ This is the first episode that ended with Larry saying God Made You Special, and He Loves You Very Much by himself. The second was in Rack, Shack and Benny.
	+ The first episode not to have a prototype video cover for the front.
	+ The first episode to use a Word Entertainment FBI warning screen in 1997 (the year it was reprinted on VHS).
* This episode can be featured in Happy Together! and Growing Faithful Kids! featuring The Grapes of Wrath, and Lessons from the Sock Drawer featuring Larry's Lagoon and The Forgive-O-Matic.
* The Grapes of Wrath will return in Happy Together!, and Growing Faithful Kids!.
* The Forgive-O-Matic will return in Lessons from the Sock Drawer, and the TV version of The Gourds Must Be Crazy.
* Larry's Lagoon will return in Lessons from the Sock Drawer.
* An episode based, however loosely, on *The Grapes of Wrath* was actually suggested by Mike prior to production on the first episode.
* This episode is notorious for having more animation errors than any other episode in the VeggieTales series.
* This is the only other episode to have Larry's lower dopey voice. However, Larry's voice was starting to improve and bear more resemblance to his current voice from the next episode. His voice gets to its final form in the closing countertop.
* The Forgive-O-Matic segment was based a puppet show Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki performed at Bible college.
* The sound effect of the boat's motor in the second segment was actually Mike Nawrocki making a motorboat sound with his mouth. The grapes' car's motor was also a sound effect made by series musician Kurt Heinecke using his mouth as well.
* Larry's original daydream that caused him to crash the boat was that his nose would come off his face and float around him, but the production team thought the idea was strange.
* In the Forgive-O-Matic, when Scallion One tells Junior that he's busy with advertising, a picture of Bob, Larry, Junior, Lisa and Mike Asparagus with the original VeggieTales logo can be seen on a bulletin board in the background if you look closely.
* The first few copies of the original 1994 VHS has the same designs as the original 1993 VHS of the previous episode.
* The Latin Spanish and Japanese dubs have the theme song from Where's God When I'm S-Scared?.
* The Slovenian and Japanese dubs are the only dubs that perfectly time Bob and Larry's screaming with their voice actors.

### Remarks

* Larry blowing on a sail to propel himself out at sea is physically impossible due to the concept of closed systems.
* When the grapes sing their song in their car, they sing about smiling seldom and never laughing, despite doing both several times later in the segment. They might not have found something so amusing until seeing Junior's sprouts.
* As he flies the helicopter, the Professor claims he "made it entirely out of bamboo and coconuts," but those materials alone cannot be used to make an engine capable of flight.
* This is the only 1990s episode whose audio and footage have not been remastered in its VeggieTales Classics reissue, and without a 5.1 Surround Sound audio track on the DVD.
	+ This could possibly be because the original project files of *God Wants Me To Forgive Them!?!* have been lost or even deleted to free up disk space (with the exception of most footage for the The Forgiveness Song being re-rendered in high quality for *Very Silly Songs!* in some form). This is evidenced by Phil stating in the commentary that the Grapes' car twitching (when the Grapes leave in their car after being renamed the Grapes of Math) was an unfixable error (more on that below). Big Idea has also never bothered to recreate that scene.
	+ However, unlike with the previous episode that was in much worse quality, this one is still in marginally good quality like the rest of the episodes.
* Out of all the early VeggieTales episodes that were edited for later re-releases, this is the only episode whose modifications with the scenes, animation, voices, music and sound effects from the original version (with the exception of the VeggieTales Theme Song and an added 1997 Big Idea logo with Bob and Larry) remained untouched for every re-release.
	+ The original 1994 VeggieTales Theme Song is included as a bonus clip on the 2004 DVD release, in which it can be watched when you answer all the hard Trivia questions correctly. However, this version of the theme song has the text "Original Open from 'God Wants Me To Forgive Them!?!'" added on the screen prior to the text "Big Idea Productions presents" popping up on the screen and also has the 2003 audio (with Larry's current voice) dubbed over the original.
* On the alternate VHS cover for the original Latin Spanish dub (with the La Bamba font), the back states that the video features "Silly Songs with Larry", which is indeed false because of the aforementioned Forgive-O-Matic skit having replaced it in the actual episode.
* The original 1994 VHS of this episode is one of only three 1993-1997 VeggieTales VHS tapes (the other two being the original 1993 VHS of Where's God When I'm S-Scared? and the 1996 VHS of Dave and the Giant Pickle) that have a different sticker label aside from the rest of the tapes from 1993-1997. The 1997 Lyrick Studios VHS of Are You My Neighbor? didn't count.
* When the episode was reprinted in 1997, despite the Word Entertainment FBI warning before the video, it still uses the original 1994 master of the episode, just with the cropping panned a bit to hide the white noise on the left side of the screen (with the exception of the theme song).
	+ Unlike Where's God When I'm S-Scared? and Are You My Neighbor?, the entire box cover for the 1997 reprint is oddly unchanged and instead reused the second 1994 box cover, making this reprint of the episode confusing and harder to find.

### Goofs

* When Larry says it's great Bob bumped into his TV friend, his tooth is missing.
* When Bob says, "Oooh, that's a classic! This'll be good!", the lid on the pink canister briefly changes to a lighter purple colour before reverting back to its standard purple colour.
* As the Grapes' car leaves behind smoke in the first shot, the edge of the shadows of trees on both sides flickers.
* The other road path (behind the grapes) is glitched via over hinge.
* The car appears to fly above the road in one shot.
* One shadow suddenly disappears.
* In the shots showing the side of the Grapes' car as they're driving, neither of the Grapes have mouths, even when they're singing.
* Pa and Ma's glasses clip through their noses.
* Rose's braids clip through Tom's hat while they're driving.
* One of Rose's braids clips through the piece of fence in the back of the car as she is throwing the snake into the tree's milkshake.
* One shadow renders too late.
* The car's tires are clipping through the ground when they're driving.
* The tree running down doesn't stay on the sloped hill.
* After the Grapes' car hits the tree stump, when Tom and Rose are arguing over "who did it," Rose is floating above the ground.
* Pa Grape clips through the car as he jumps out while asking Rose to apologize to Tom.
* Rose's pigtails are displayed in front of the stump instead of behind it in one shot.
* When Pa Grape says, "Well it must be some kind of a bean or something," something black appears to the right of his nose and flickers in the shot afterwards.
* Junior states that he's in a Liliopsida genus. Liliopsida is not a genus, but a class.
* After Junior takes off his hat, a small part of his eyes clips through.
* When Pa Grape admits he and the other Grapes of Wrath are teasing Junior, Dad Asparagus's tie flickers between various colour schemes, which was dubbed "disco tie" by the production team.
* Tom's hat clips through the car.
* There are many shots where either the tool, sandbox, or truck disappear.
* In the scene where the grapes wonder what Junior is, Ma Grape's (who's in the car) mouth flickers.
* As the Grapes leave in their car after being renamed the Grapes of Math, the car twitches. Phil explained in the audio commentary that this was an unfixable mistake.
* The knife cache is removed after it falls. Whether or not this is an error or someone removing it is unknown.
* Bob's eye twitches while he and Larry talk on the boat before taking off.
* The steering wheel's center glitches in one shot.
* Bob's eyes are detached from his nose in one shot.
* There's an inconsistent background shot when the millionaire and his wife were talking without any movement.
* Archibald's eye clips through his wife's hat in one shot.
* Palmy's coconuts are floating and are not connected.
* Palmy's leaves clip through his body.
* The ladder vanishes after its end reaches the helicopter.
* Bob's eyelids twitch for a bit when he says, "You smashed our boat! Now, what are we gonna do?"

### Real World References

* The Chia Forgive-O-Matic is a spoof on Chia pets.
* QWERTY is seen playing Pong, one of the first commercially available video games, before pulling up the first Bible verse.
* Mike states in the *Very Silly Songs!* audio commentary that the shot in which the shipmates fly into the distance on the helicopter is reminiscent of a 7-UP commercial that was popular at the time.