VeggieTales

VeggieTales on TV! (2006–2009)

For three seasons, VeggieTales on TV! ran on NBC, Telemundo, and Ion Television as part of the Qubo children's programming block from 2006 to 2009.^[18] The television show altered the general format by opening at the front gate of Bob the Tomato's house. Bob, Larry the Cucumber, and other Veggie characters then sing the show's theme song as they hop to Bob's front door. The theme song ends with Pa Grape making a random comment on Archibald's new sweater. Bob and Larry then wait for the mailman, Jimmy Gourd, to deliver a letter. When Jimmy comes, he happily sings his Mail Song, which either Bob, Larry or both find tedious at times. Similar to the opening countertop sequence of the VeggieTales videos, either Bob, Larry or both read the letter and the cast tries to decide how to solve the viewer's problem through one of three regular segments: Archibald reads a story from his Big Book of Oddities, Pa Grape shows an old film, or Mr. Lunt appears with his stick puppet (Paco the Storytelling Mule) and tells a story. The result always proves disastrous, as the story or film makes no sense. Bob and Larry then intervene with a story from a VeggieTales video. The show ends with Bob and Larry wrapping things up by reiterating the story's lesson and Bob thanking the kids for coming over to his house. NBC episodes end with characters bidding the audience a simple "Good-bye".


According to the Los Angeles Times, "VeggieTales has been very successful for NBC in a Saturday morning time slot that has traditionally been difficult for the networks". NBC saw its biggest ratings jump in Saturday morning children's programming since 2003."^[19] As a result, ratings on NBC's Saturday morning program had grown from an average Nielsen Rating of 0.5 between 2003 and 2005 to an average Nielsen Rating of 0.95 between 2006 and 2008, with an average of 430,000 children watching each weekend.^[18][20]


After NBC aired the first few episodes of the first season in September 2006,^[21] the company chose to edit the episodes to remove religious messages, including references to God. The original sign-off message—"And remember kids, God made you special and He loves you very much! Good-bye!"—was replaced by "Thanks for coming to my house today, kids. See you next week! Good-bye!". The changes were made at the request of the network's standards and practices department to enforce compliance with network policies regarding religious neutrality. The original dialogue remained viewable by users of the network's closed-caption feature.^[22]


The conservative watch group Parents Television Council complained to NBC about the changes.^[23] L. Brent Bozell, president of the group, complained of the network "ripping the heart and soul out of a successful product". His argument was that if NBC was concerned about references to God, they should not have taken the series. Bozell stated "This just documents the disconnect between Hollywood and the real world."^[23]


The response from NBC stated the editing now conformed to the network's broadcast standards, which direct producers "not to advocate any one religious point of view." NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks said "Our goal is to reach as broad an audience as possible with these positive messages while being careful not to advocate any one religious point of view."^[23]


Vischer expressed disappointment with these edits, stating that he was not informed that religious content would be removed from the series, and that he could have refused to sign a contract with Qubo if he had known of the decision beforehand. He said, "I would have declined partly because I knew a lot of fans would feel like it was a sellout or it was done for money."^[23] Still, Vischer said he understood NBC's wish to remain religiously neutral, and he said, "VeggieTales is religious, NBC is not. I want to focus people more on 'Isn't it cool that Bob and Larry are on television."^[24]