Veggie Tales

He was kind of like Paul Vischer. Paul is the co-creator of these characters you see on the screen. If you don’t know who they are, I guarantee you, your kids do. It’s the Veggie Tales. Paul, the creator of these characters, was deeply disappointed some time ago. While nutritionists tell you that you should never microwave your vegetables, because doing so removes all the nutritional value, apparently, nobody explained that to the television executives at NBC. The network added Veggie Tales—a popular and thoroughly Christian cartoon—to its Saturday morning lineup in 2006. But Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber got nuked, as many of the pertinent references to God and Scripture were deleted from each episode.

Initially, NBC stated that the cuts were simply a way to fit each episode into a tight, 23-minute slot. But as Christians began to investigate, it soon became clear that there was more to the story. After being pressured from several organizations to explain its leeching of biblical content, NBC released the following statement: "NBC is committed to the positive messages and universal values of VeggieTales. 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."

Phil Vischer, the co-creator of Veggie Tales, expressed deep disappointment in the edits. "It's a mistake to pitch VeggieTales as just values," he said, "because fundamentally it's about God." Bob Bozell, the president of Parents Television Council and the Media Research Center, was also disappointed. He said, "Today, no one in network TV fears what the children are watching—unless it makes them think about God."