Are You My Neighbor?

"*You know Junior, God wants us to love everybody, not just the people that are like us. So we need to accept others just the way they are. Besides, we can learn a lot from people who're different than us!*"
— Dad Asparagus

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**Are You My Neighbor?** is the third episode of VeggieTales. The first segment is in the style of the works of Dr. Seuss. The second segment is based on the 1960s sci-fi series *Star Trek* by Paramount Television.

## Plot

#### Countertop Intro

Bob and Larry are on the countertop again, though Larry's seen with a shoe on his head. When Larry asks why he has a shoe on his head, Bob explains that he got a letter from Latasha Robbins of Savannah, Georgia, who wants to know what it means to love your neighbor. Bob then says that he's going to tell Latasha "The Story of Flibber-O-Loo".

#### The Story of Flibber-O-Loo

*Written & Directed by Phil Vischer*

(*See the main page for the plot.*)

#### Silly Song

*Written by Mike Nawrocki and Directed by Chris Olsen*

(The Hairbrush Song.)

#### The Gourds Must Be Crazy

*Written & Directed by Phil Vischer*

(*See the main page for the plot.*)

#### Bible Verse

Leviticus 19:18, Love your neighbor as yourself.

## Production

Co-creator Phil Vischer had been wanting to make an episode that he could style after Dr. Seuss stories that he would read to his children, and at the same time wondered which story from the New Testament he could retell, given that his mother had suggested a policy that Jesus would not be depicted as a vegetable, and most of the New Testament besides the Gospels (i.e. the biographies of Jesus) were letters. He ended up choosing the Good Samaritan, one of Jesus' parables and it proved to be a time-consuming challenge, but in the end, proved to be very successful.

Meanwhile, Big Idea just went through some backlash from confused and disappointed fans regarding the lack of *Silly Songs with Larry* in the previous episode. Phil went to co-creator/voice actor for Larry, Mike Nawrocki, and told him to come up with a new silly song. While shaving, Mike looked for his razor and started singing to himself, "Oh, where is my razor?" and later suggested it to Phil. Mike was unmarried and had no children at the time, so he did not realize that children might get the idea to look for their parents' razors, so Phil suggested they find another, much less dangerous, object one would find in a bathroom, and thus Mike wrote The Hairbrush Song.

Phil then went on to make another pop culture spoof for the second segment after spoofing *Gilligan's Island*, this time based on *Star Trek.*

## Home media

It was first released on VHS on January 3, 1995, by Word Entertainment. It was reprinted in 1997 by Lyrick Studios, marking the first episode to be in the mass market. In 1998 and 1999, Word Entertainment and Lyrick Studios reprinted it twice. In 2006, it was released to DVD for the first time in the VeggieTales Classics line by Sony Wonder.

## Characters

* Bob the Tomato As Captain
* Larry the Cucumber As Lieutenant
* Flibber-o-loo citizens (miscellaneous verions) (debut)
* Dad Asparagus
* Archibald Asparagus As Mayor
* Jibberty-lot (miscellaneous verions) (debut)
* Dad Carrot (debut)
* Laura Carrot (debut)
* Lenny Carrot (debut)
* Henry (flibbian)
* The Scallions as Bandit
* Lovey Asparagus as Flibbian Doctor
* Junior Asparagus As Space
* Silly Song Narrator
* Pa Grape (silly song only)
* The Peach (debut)
* Louie (debut, mentioned only)
* Marsha (debut, mentioned only)
* Fernando (debut, mentioned only)
* Scooter Carrot As USS Applepies Engineer
* Jimmy Gourd Debut
* Jerry Gourd Debut
* Mr. Slushy (mentioned) (debut)
* Qwerty

## Songs

* VeggieTales Theme Song
* Busy, Busy
* Love Your Neighbor
* *Silly Songs with Larry*: The Hairbrush Song
* Meet Me in St. Louis
* The Muffin Man
* I Can Be Your Friend
* What Have We Learned

## Home media

### VHS

* Word Entertainment/Everland Entertainment (*March 28, 1995 original release*)
* Lyrick Studios (*December 6, 1997/March 31, 1998, 2000*)
* Sony Wonder (*March 11, 2006*)

## Other Languages

* Wie zijn mijn buren? (Dutch)
* Εισαι Γειτονασ Μου (Greek)
* Eripuraiset naapurit (Finnish)
* Unknown (Hebrew)
* ほんとうの友だちって？(Japanese)
* 누가 나의 이웃일까요? (Korean)
* Unknown (Mandarin) (Standard)
* 誰是好鄰居 (Mandarin) (Taiwan)
* Er du min nabo? (Norwegian)
* Você É o Meu Vizinho? (Portuguese) (Brazilian) (1st dub)
* Você é Meu Vizinho? (Portuguese) (Brazilian) (2nd dub)
* Os Meus Vizinhos? (Portuguese) (European)
* Ali si ti Moj sosed?/Ali si moj sosed?/Si ti moj sosed? (Slovenian)
* ¿Eres Mi Prójimo? (Latin Spanish)
* Hàng xóm (Vietnamese)

## Fun Facts

#### Moral(s)

* Don't judge others by their differences.

#### Trivia

* This is the first episode for several things:
* The first appearance of The Peach, Scooter, Laura, Lenny, their father, Jimmy and Jerry Gourd.
* The first episode Ron Smith worked on.
* The first to feature Bob and Larry's voices they would use for the rest of the series.
* The first episode not to have "God" in the title.
* This is the first episode to feature the kitchen sink, as shown in "The Hairbrush Song".
* The first episode not to have Palmy, Tom Grape, Rosie Grape, and Ma Grape since their debut appearances.
* However, in the case of Rosie and Ma, they wouldn't appear after their debut until Larry-Boy! and the Fib from Outer Space!
* In the case of Tom, he wouldn't appear after his debut until Dave and the Giant Pickle.
* The first episode to use Big Idea's logo (with Bob and Larry) at the end of the video.
* The previous two shows and the VeggieTunes CD never had this in their original releases, as the company likely didn't have a logo until this episode came out.
	+ File:AreYouMyNeighborPrototypeVHSCover.png   The first episode to start the trend on December 31, 1994 of cancelling out the prototype video cover prior to its release. However, it can be found on the back cover of the original release of the VeggieTunes CD.
	+ The first VeggieTales video to have an FBI Warning screen and the Word, Inc. bumper logo before the show. This had only made it into a rarer 1995 VHS edition of the episode.
	+ This had a blue version of the Disney's 1991 Green FBI Warnings, where the second screen was in a different font. The Word, Inc. logo used a Sonic the Hedgehog/Sega Genesis/New jack swing-like synth fanfare.
	+ Also, this is the only VeggieTales video in the entire series to include the Word, Inc. bumper logo before the show. Besides this, the Word, Inc. logo in any form only appeared on video cover art of other episodes.
	+ The first episode to be distributed by Lyrick Studios in 1997.
	+ It was the only episode to reuse the 1995 cover print (with minor differences) and original Everland Entertainment master for its initial Lyrick Studios reprint in 1997 as it was used as a test tape. All the other episodes didn't reuse their original cover prints or Everland masters for their Lyrick Studios reprints, unless otherwise for their screener tapes.
	+ This is also the last episode for several things:
	+ The last appearance of Henry the Potato Miner.
	+ The last classic VeggieTales episode to be released on DVD, not counting *Very Silly Songs!* and *The End of Silliness?*.
	+ The inspiration for the shoes being on the citizens of Flibber-o-Loo's heads' was inspired by the 1985 film *Brazil* which features a group of women wearing hats with upside down shoes on them. Lovey's hat is the closest to resembling the ones shown in the film.
	+ The Story of Flibber-o-loo will return in A Taste of VeggieTales, Heroes of the Bible!: Stand Up, Stand Tall, Stand Strong!, Silly Little Thing Called Love, the TV version of Babysitter in DeNile, and a bonus from A Snoodle's Tale.
	+ The Hairbrush Song will return in Very Silly Songs!, The Ultimate Silly Song Countdown, Sing-Alongs: Dance of the Cucumber, and If I Sang A Silly Song.
	+ The Gourds Must Be Crazy will return in God Made You Special.
	+ This episode can be featured in A Taste of VeggieTales, Heroes of the Bible!: Stand Up, Stand Tall, Stand Strong!, Silly Little Thing Called Love, Babysitter in DeNile from the TV version, A Snoodle's Tale as a bonus, featuring The Story of Flibber-o-loo, and God Made You Special, featuring The Gourds Must Be Crazy.
	+ According to the DVD ROM feature, the scripts for the two stories were written in 1994.
* As referred to in the inner pamphlet of the original 1995 release of the VeggieTunes CD, The Story of Flibber-o-Loo was originally going to be titled "A Tale of Two Cities". This was changed as the original title didn't make sense.
* VeggieTales' official store website still refers to it as "A Tale of Two Cities*".*
* Some scenes on the "Flibber-O-Loo" segment were rendered interlaced (where the first, third, fifth, and so online is rendered, then the second, fourth, sixth, and so online is rendered) rather than progressive (where the first, second, third, and so online are rendered in sequence) because they would have caused a strobing effect otherwise with VHS quality. They are rendered progressively in the DVD releases.
* Not counting the original 1993 version of Where's God When I'm S-Scared?, this is one of three VeggieTales episodes (the other two being Rack, Shack and Benny and The Toy That Saved Christmas) to have had major differences in the animation, graphics, and sometimes sound, all of which get remastered or corrected in later versions. You will notice this easier on one scene during the Love Your Neighbor song in The Story of Flibber-O-Loo: there were some glitches with the animation (more on that below), the shading of the characters was darker in contrast to the 1998 version, the lighting of the nurse's office abruptly changes to bright before Larry faints forward, and the camera is slightly zoomed in on the characters after Junior helps Larry get up. An extra animation of Archibald and his wife turning their faces towards Junior and Larry (before they resume singing) was added in the 1998 animation as well.
* While this episode and The Toy That Saved Christmas had this effect of audiovisual remastering, reanimating and graphic corrections in 1998, Rack, Shack and Benny (which had the least visual differences) didn't have this effect until its 2002 VeggieTales Classics re-release.
* On some versions of the 1997 Lyrick Studios VHS edition, the end credits get sped up after the "Dialogue Breakdown, Audio and Video Editing" credit, causing the Big Idea logo to appear while the instrumental of "I Can Be Your Friend" is playing and fade out right to where the song ends, just before the 1997 Lyrick Studios logo comes up.
* According to the 2002 "Silly Snow Day" product catalogue, the DVD was originally planned to be released in 2003 but cancelled, likely due to Big Idea's bankruptcy. The commentary referring to Sumo of the Opera as a future episode hints that it was planned to be released in 2004 around the same time as the DVD releases for "God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?!", "Larry-Boy! and the Fib from Outer Space!" and *Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed* before being shelved once more until its eventual release in 2006.
* However, the VeggieTales Classics version of the episode was released to VHS in 2002 but uses the 2000 version without any edits to the audio.
* This episode as a whole was banned in the Arab World because its lesson is allegedly related to the fear that one of Egypt's neighboring countries is politically regarded as an enemy.
* As a result, its silly song "The Hairbrush Song" replaces "Love My Lips" in the original Arabic dub for "Dave and the Giant Pickle", given that the producers of the dub felt that they didn't want to leave out Larry's signature song from the dub.

#### Remarks

* The original version of the episode has had low audio and footage quality just like with the previous two episodes. Unlike those two episodes, it was the first episode to have no white noise artifacts on the bottom edge the screen (despite still having noise artifacts on the left edge of the screen), and was the only one of the first three episodes that was able to be re-rendered in high quality in later re-releases (with the exception of the STARS Classroom Editions, which also use the original master of the episode), hence why clips from this episode were used in a montage of clips from other later episodes in the 1998 theme song onward.
* However, in the 1998 re-release, the close-up shot of Qwerty was oddly left in low quality from the original version but later fixed in the 2006 DVD release.
* The audio for later releases is different than in the original. This includes the classic *Star Trek* door opening SFX being omitted (possibly to avoid copyright issues), the songs using remastered audio, and some new music cues being added in.
* Oddly, any international dubs of the episode (even when its songs were featured in dubbed compilation videos) keep the original unremastered backing track intact.
* According to the audio commentary on Dave and the Giant Pickle, Phil Vischer has stated that the space environment, along with the desert environment, was the easiest environments to create at the time.
* The quotation at the end is only part of Leviticus 19:18. The whole verse is, "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD." It was likely cut because the rest would seem distracting and it would look small and might not have been legible on VHS.
* Bob said that Jibber-de-Lot would look down at the shoe people, but the towns are actually on the same altitude.
* On a similar note, why are the towns separated at different lengths between shots?
* Bob introduces himself as a tomato to Junior even though he had already done so in the first episode.
* Jimmy and Jerry can breathe in space, despite not wearing any helmets.
* The table, despite losing one leg, still stands.
* Bob and Larry need directions for the freeway, yet they're in a spaceship.
* Bob says they need the Mr. Slushy money for tolls even though they could easily fly over the toll booth in their spaceship.
* The bleeping sounds that Bob and Larry's spaceship make are obviously a reversed, sped-up version of circus music.
* In the original Latin American Spanish dub, this is one of two episodes (the other being Rack, Shack and Benny) where the letter sender is changed.﻿
* While most versions from 2003-2005 used the 1998-2000 theme songs, the Slovenian and Korean dubs use the 2001-2003 theme song.
* Both dubs also have Jimmy echoing "Planet!" being re-recorded from "Sometimes, I think I could eat a whole planet!" each time he says it.
* File:The Baltimore Sun Wed Nov 29 1995 .jpg  The Baltimore Sun Wednesday, 29 Nov 1995 newspaper article, Page 167 and The Tampa Tribune Saturday, 9 Dec 1995 newspaper article, Page 144 label this episode as the first VeggieTales video, which is false.

#### Fixed Goofs/Goofs

* In the original version of the video, when the doctor of Flibber-o-loo, Larry, and the mayor of Flibber-o-loo gather with Junior to perform a chorus during the song "Love Your Neighbor", a couple of glitches occurred (which were fixed in later re-releases of the episode, despite the Stars edition still keeping in the animation glitches):
* The frames were chopping ahead when the doctor and mayor hop over to Junior.
* Larry abruptly appears halfway on the screen (while the doctor was hopping) before hopping over to Junior.
* Also in the original version, Bob turns away from the viewer to face Qwerty for the Bible verse, then suddenly jerks back to facing the viewer like he was before. Bob's face after this is only visible for a frame or two before the scene shifts to Qwerty displaying the verse. Like the glitches above, this too was fixed in later re-releases.
* When Henry is standing on top of the building, he clips into the edge where he's standing.
* When Larry says, "It's great that my lobster can get out and run!", his mouth doesn't move.
* When the bandits make their way down the hill to rob Larry, the sky is black.
* When the mayor of Flibber-o-loo first approaches Larry (while his head was stuck in a hole), he's seen coming from Jibber-de-Lot (the green town), not Flibber-o-loo (the pink town). He might have some diplomatic business to attend to.
* In the shot showing Junior and Larry walking up the hill after Junior helped Larry out of the ground, neither of them have mouths.
* There are a few instances where the characters' pupils clip through their eyelids. These include:
* Junior when he gets startled by Bob and Larry.
* Bob when his eyes are in closeup.
* When Bob and Larry are projecting the meteor coming towards the ship to Junior, the meteor is shown in one shot, but then disappears in the next.
* Some shots show Jimmy clipping through his seat.
* In the scene where Bob and Larry take Junior back home in the second segment, you'll notice the shadow of the spaceship is stuck perfectly still on the wall near the window before heading out the window.
* One shot shows Jerry clipping through his seat.
* One shot shows Jerry without his headset, and he has it in the next shot.
* After Bob runs to the right of the screen and just before Jimmy and Jerry are about to hit the window, he freezes for a second before running to the left.
* One shot shows Scooter without his hat, and in the next shot. It comes back.
* In the original version of the scene after Jerry turns the power back, the whole entire ship lights up. However the next scene with Scooter, the lights were still dimmed prior to the power being turned on. This was somewhat fixed when the story was repackaged for God Made You Special, where they adjusted the brightness.
* During "I Can Be Your Friend," if you pause at the right moment as Jimmy and Jerry Gourd's part cuts to the crew's, you can see what appears to be a second USS Applepies floating outside the window.
* During the end of the second segment, when Bob and Larry come back to Junior for directions for the freeway, the lights on the spaceship don't light up on Junior's face.
* Qwerty's verse background stays on his screen even when he's done displaying the verse.
* Many DVD covers of this episode, as well is in international releases, have the bottom green line missing from Jimmy's escape pod.

#### Inside References

* A few references from the first episode:
* The asparagus family photo and the dotted contract, which is seen in picture frames in the Flibbian doctor's office.
* Bob introducing himself as a tomato to Junior, shortly after he and Larry dropped in once again.
* This episode has a few nods to the previous episode, such as:
* The episode's production design looks nearly the same, except the countertop has slight modifications as described above.
* Henry the Miner and Lovey appear in The Story of Flibber-o-Loo, and Pa Grape appears in The Hairbrush Song.
* Like with Larry's Lagoon, the second segment parodies a 1960s television series.
* At the beginning of The Gourds Must Be Crazy, one of the Asparagus family photos shows Junior and Lisa Asparagus at an island that looks similar to the one from Larry's Lagoon.
* The music from The Forgive-O-Matic plays while Bob, Larry and Junior are taking the elevator in the USS Applepies.
* The bleeping sounds coming from Jimmy and Jerry's escape pods were originally used for when Qwerty was playing Pong.

#### Real World References

* Play-Doh is a modelling compound used by young children for arts and craft.
* Jell-O is a trademark of Kraft Foods for varieties of gelatin.
* "All they do is sing and eat, eat and sing!" is a take on a Garfield comic strip from June 30th, 1978 (*"All I ever do is eat and sleep, eat and sleep, eat and sleep. There must be more to a cat's life than that. But, I hope not."*).

#### Fast Forward

* "The Story of Flibber-o-Loo" would be reused at the end of "A Snoodle's Tale".
* There's a later episode whose second segment is based on the Good Samaritan.
* There's a later episode where they spoof Star Trek.
* There's a later episode with the same moral.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.veggietales.com/are-you-my-neighbor-veggietales-dvd.html
2. ↑ “The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland on November 29, 1995 · Page 167.” *Newspapers.com*, The Baltimore Sun, www.newspapers.com/newspage/171318405/.