I Like Talking To Tomatoes, Squash makes me Smile…

After I watched two tapes of VeggieTales with friends that were already hooked on them, I had to collect the cartoons myself. At first I couldn’t get past the bad computer animation; however, the humor these cartoons have is far above the average child. Even an adult can enjoy sitting with their children watching any of these movies.

One of my favorite Bright Idea’s cartoon is VeggieTales—A Lesson In Handling Peer Pressure. We have all had at one time or another been faced with this difficult situation where “everyone is doing it”, so why can’t we? This episode mirrors the Biblical story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace.

In our VeggieTales version, Mr. Nebby K. Nezzer (also known as Mr. Nezzer) rules the chocolate bunny factory and mass produces chocolate bunnies daily. The morale is low in the factory and catchy tunes are sung by different vegetables denoting the misery of their lives.

After the chocolate factory sells an enormous amount (2 million chocolate bunnies, Mr. Nezzer commands that all his employees should eat as much chocolate as they wanted for 30 minutes. Well, all but three did. Shack (Junior) reminded Rack and Benny of the song his mother would sing to him when he was little and that his parents had taught him that eating a lot of candy wasn’t good for him. Shack goes into a lovely little tune his mother sang to him that goes like this:

Think of me everyday, hold tight to what I say, and I’ll be close to you even from far away,
Know that where ever you are, it is never too far, if you think of me I’ll be with you.

After being reminded of this song, Rack and Benny heeded Shack’s words, and they did not over eat on candy. However, the other veggies did not pay attention to the words of this song. The veggies that ate too much candy got sick and were “laying down on the job” when Mr. Nezzer came to see how appreciative his employees were to eat his chocolate. Mr. Nezzer was surprised to see that only three veggies were still standing (Even though Mr. Lunt thinks the tomato is sitting are the two vegetables get into an argument over this!).

Mr. Nezzer decides to make the three veggies into Junior Executives and let them in on a secret plan that Mr. Nezzer was about to reveal. Mr. Nezzer unveiled a 90 foot bunny that all his loyal employees would have to bow down and sing “The Bunny Song”. The Bunny Song goes like this:

The Bunny, the Bunny, woah I love the Bunny, I don’t love my soup or my bread just the Bunny,
The Bunny, the Bunny, yeah, I love the bunny, I gave everything that I had for the bunny,
I don’t want no health food, I don’t when it’s time to feed, a big bag of bunnies is all that I need,
I don’t want no bunnies that come out and play, I’ll sit on my sofa eat bunnies all day
I won’t eat not beans and won’t eat tofu, that’s stuff’s for sissies but bunnies are cool,
The Bunny, the Bunny, woah, I love the Bunny, I don’t love my soup or my bread just the Bunny,
The Bunny, the Bunny, yeah, I love the bunny, I gave everything that I had for the bun-ny!

But the veggies knew this was wrong from the way they were raised and could not ever bow down to a statue of a bunny, chocolate or otherwise! But Mr. Nezzer made it clear that if they did not sing the song, they would be considered a “Bad Bunny”, and they knew that the Bad Bunnies were thrown into the furnace. Decisions, decisions!

So, when the time came that the Bunny Song would be sung, all the other veggies bowed and sang accordingly. All but Rack, Shack, and Benny (aka Bob the Tomato, Junior, and Larry the Cucumber) were singing the Bunny Song, and as Mr. Nezzer scanned the crowd, they stuck out like a sore thumb!

When Mr. Nezzer approached Rack, Shack, and Benny, he asked why they were not singing the Bunny Song. Their veggie friend encouraged them to sing because “everyone was doing it”. Shack begins to sing that song that his mother use to sing to him, and the other two veggies joined in.

Mr. Nezzer was not amused. He demanded that Rack, Shack, and Benny to be thrown into the fiery furnace at once. The three veggies were tied up and lowered into the furnace. Although a friend of theirs at the factory makes a feeble attempt to rescue them, they still fell into the furnace.

But to everyone’s amazement, Rack, Shack, and Benny were not burning up! In fact, Mr. Lunt (Mr. Nezzer’s henchman) peers into the furnace and sees a mysteriously white figure in the furnace with them. Mr. Nezzer orders them to come out of the furnace, and he realizes he has been wrong.

The “special song” before the fiery furnace scene is sung by Larry the Cucumber and translated from Spanish by Bob the Tomato. Larry sings a cute silly song called “The Dance of the Cucumber”. Larry portrays the cucumber as a lion and dances well and is envied by all other vegetables. Then Larry points out that the tomato cannot dance and the tomato wishes he could dance like the cucumber. The song is interrupted by Bob the Tomato getting angry at Larry the Cucumber. The song continues and eventually Larry makes Bob so angry that Bob stops the music to chase him.

There is no age restriction to watch VeggieTales as my 18 month old, my six year old, my husband, and I really enjoy watching these movies. You can find more information on VeggieTales at http://www.veggietales.net. VeggieTales can be purchased at Family Christian Stores, Berean Christian Stores, Lemstone Books, LifeWay Christian Stores, Wal-Mart, Target, Sam's Club, Costco, Kmart, Amazon.com, E-Toys, and Reel.com and some video and grocery stores.

Each VeggieTales episode teaches a wonderful value such as courage, obedience, thankfulness, telling the truth, self esteem, forgiveness, loving your neighbor handling fear and lessons that teach against selfishness, power of words (rumors). All in all these are great videos, and VeggieTales—A lesson in Handling Peer Pressure is one of the best I have seen.

The theme of this VeggieTales movie is not to give in to peer pressure just because everyone is doing it, and remember your parent’s teachings (hopefully they are good ones). This story is a musical and is around 30 minutes long.

Songs include: VeggieTales Theme, The Chocolate Factory Theme, Mommy’s Song, The Bunny Song, The Dance of the Cucumber, Nezzer’s Fury, and Stand For What You Believe In. Of course, I came up with the titles of these songs except for The Bunny Song and The Dance of the Cucumber. I just couldn’t leave these wonderful songs out since they are such a great part of this video and would be a shame to exclude their mention.

Although I was not crazy about the computer animation at first, after watching at least three videos, the character’s personalities shine through, and I eventually ignored my bias about computer animation. Each character has a distinct personality, and I would encourage all to rent, borrow, or buy any of the VeggieTales videos.