Larry

## Larry the Cucumber

**Larry the Cucumber** is the deuteragonist and silly co-host of *VeggieTales*. He hosts the show alongside his best friend, Bob. Whether he's singing a silly song, fighting crime as a superhero, or just helping his friends, Larry is truly an essential member of the *VeggieTales* crew and never fails to be a crowd pleaser.

## Bio

Larry made his first on-screen debut in a 1992 *VeggieTales* screen test aptly called *Mr. Cuke's Screen Test*, where he pops out from a ceramic bowl on the kitchen countertop and hops towards the camera and smiles at the viewer.

Later that year, an additional screen test was made entitled, *VeggieTales Promo: Take 38*. Here, Larry is searching for his blue, plastic wind-up lobster, unintentionally interrupting Bob the Tomato throughout the short as he gives a speech to do a show pitch of *VeggieTales* for potential investors.

Eventually, in 1993, Larry made his big public debut in *VeggieTales*, co-hosting alongside Bob. Since then, Larry has gone on to become an integral part of the *VeggieTales* family, gaining fame and notoriety for his many performances in character roles and personas such as Daniel of *Daniel and the Lion's Den*, Little Joe in *The Ballad of Little Joe*, Moe in Moe and the Big Exit, the strapping adventurer Minnesota Cuke, the first mate of the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, a member of the band Boyz in the Sink, and of course, his superhero alter-ego, Larry-Boy.

Above all, Larry is probably most famous for starring and singing in his own segment on the series: *Silly Songs with Larry* (much to the chagrin of Archibald Asparagus). With this segment, Larry has gone on to sing about all sorts of silly and bizarre things, such as a water buffalo, a hairbrush, lips, a yodeling veterinarian, SUVs, pants, a soap opera starring manatees, and many, many more.

According to Larry's official bio — if he weren't an actor, he would've been the world champion at Candy Land or be clerking in the Supreme Court.

## Personality

Larry is kind and loyal, always willing to help a friend in need and make others happy. Despite these traits, Larry is a little scatterbrained at times and can get distracted by his own thoughts and ideas. This often leads to Larry doing what he's not supposed to do or making a few mistakes. However, Larry is generally resilient when he has to face a problem and is able to work through his struggles with the help and support from his friends, especially Bob.

Larry is quite silly too, which is a trait fed by his absentmindedness and his creative mind. This often leads to outrageous and bizarre ideas, most of which end up being written into songs for *Silly Songs with Larry*. Sometimes though, Larry goes a little overboard with the silliness and can get himself into trouble with others such as Bob or Archibald. Larry doesn’t stay in trouble for long though, as he's usually able to cooperate and compromise to get a result that everyone can be happy with.

Larry is also very child-like. He holds a very innocent and simple perspective on life that impacts almost everything he does. However, Larry does have a mature side, which comes out whenever he needs to take something seriously, such as rescuing someone or explaining the moral of a story.

All-in-all, Larry is a true friend to everyone he meets, and never ceases to come up with new and exciting ideas to share with others.

## Physical Appearance

Larry is a green cucumber with a singular buck tooth. He is not very tall and thin like average cucumbers, which gets him mistaken for a pickle a lot. His skin is fairly bumpy with many striations. He has two egg-shaped eyes that are very close together with black pupils, and a perfectly round nose that is a slightly lighter shade of green than his skin. His eyelids are the same shade of green as his nose. Initially, Larry's skin was a much darker green like a regular cucumber, but around the 2000's, his skin gradually grew lighter and more vibrant in color.

In *LarryBoy: The Cartoon Adventures*, Larry was depicted as himself and as LarryBoy. Here, however, his appearance reflected the show's 2-D cartoon style. The biggest change for Larry was that his body was slimmed down significantly, now tapering down from his head to his lower half to make him look like he was puffing out his chest heroically. Larry also began to wear a tan Janitorial outfit when he had to assume his role as an undercover janitor at the Daily Bumble to get the latest scoop on the news of Bumblyburg. Alternatively, he also wore a black and gray sweater whenever he was off-duty as a superhero or janitor.

In *VeggieTales in the House* and *in the City*, Larry was completely redesigned along with the rest of the VeggieTales cast. For these series, he gained amber irises and thin, black eyebrows. Larry’s skin also changed to a very bright green, with streaks of dark green and yellow-green along the bottom half of his body. His tooth also changed shape to looking more trapezoidal. His nose is also slightly larger than before.

## Voice Actors

* Mike Nawrocki: *VeggieTales Promo: Take 38* (1992), *VeggieTales* (1993-2015), *Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie* (2002), *LarryBoy: The Cartoon Adventures* (2002-2003), *The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie* (2008), *VeggieTales in the House* (2014-2016), *VeggieTales in the City* (2017), *The VeggieTales Show* (2019-present) and various other projects
* Phil Vischer: *VeggieTales on TV* (2006) (one line only)
* Sean Chiplock: *Very Veggie Silly Stories* (2022-present)

## Larry's Family

*Click here to read about Larry's family*

## Fun Facts

* Larry was the first character in the show to ever be designed.
* Larry's voice has changed quite significantly over the years:
	+ In *VeggieTales Promo: Take 38*, Larry's initial voice was loud and nasally, not unlike Scallion #2's voice.
	+ When *Where's God When I'm S-Scared?* was produced, Larry had a lower, dopey type of voice, especially when singing. His voice gradually evolved and got higher in pitch as the years went on.
		- The lower dopey voice was inspired by a voice Mike Nawrocki used for a puppet named Soupy, which he performed in puppet ministry while studying at Bible college.
	+ Larry also had a lisp for many years, possibly because of his tooth. According to Mike Nawrocki in the audio commentary for *Where's God When I'm S-Scared?*, he said he grew tired of the lisp and jokingly said in the episode's studio commentary that Larry "went to speech therapy for a while and got rid of the lisp".
* Larry has appeared in every *VeggieTales* episode and subsequent productions to date.
* A running gag in the series is that other characters mistake him as being a pickle. Thus, he often responds, "I'm not a pickle, I'm a cucumber!".
* Before Phil Vischer came up with Larry as a cucumber, he was originally going to make him a candy bar. But when Phil's wife Lisa saw the initial character, she told him that parents would be upset if he made kids fall in love with candy bar characters because it would promote unhealthy eating. So Phil agreed and changed the candy bar to a cucumber.
* A potential name for Larry was "Kooky the Cucumber", but Phil Vischer decided that name was too cutesy for the character.
* Larry's favorite foods are:
	+ Chicago hot dogs (hold the pickles)
	+ Sardines
	+ Doodle-Whoppers cookies
	+ Chocolate
* Larry has been one of the few characters to portray someone who dies in a story, and the only character who has died in three stories (the other two being *LarryBoy and the Bad Apple* as Obadiah Bumbly and *Moe and the Big Exit* as Little Joe).
* Larry can play the following instruments:
	+ Tuba/Sousaphone
	+ Harmonica
	+ Piano
	+ Accordion
	+ Guitar
	+ Trumpet
	+ Woodblock
	+ Electric Guitar
	+ Drums/Drum Kit
	+ Cello
	+ Bagpipes