I've been acquainted with VeggieTales, the computer-animated Christian
video series created by Big Idea, for more than a decade now, and I
still get excited every time a new video is released. Last month, it was
Abe and the Amazing Promise, a lesson in patience. I watched it
with a group of Sunday school kids who proved that they could use this
lesson when they snatched up the VeggieTales balloons we'd brought for
them to take home and, while we were getting the DVD ready, started
competing with one another to see who could blow his or her balloon up
the fastest.
In the video, it's cookies that have Junior
Asparagus all worked up. With usual co-host Larry the Cucumber away for
the day, Junior has the honor of hosting along with Bob the Tomato, but
he's a lot less interested in this job than he is in the cookies his mom
has promised him after the show. As a result, when he and Bob take an
imaginary trip to visit Abraham (Pa Grape) and interview him about his
long wait for his son Isaac, Junior is so busy trying to speed things up
that he completely misses the point of the story until a frustrated Bob
finally calls a time-out.
This is the first new Bible story
adaptation from VeggieTales in two years, and it's a pretty important
one, so it feels a little disrespectful for it to be presented in such a
chaotic manner. Additionally, while Abraham starts his story at the
right time - when he is 75 years old - he claims that Isaac was born 15
years later, rather than the Biblical 25. I can't see the reason for
shaving off ten years. I also think that his wife Sarah (voiced by
popular radio personality Delilah) is portrayed as too passive; we don't
really get a sense of her impatience.
The message gets
across in the end, and there are fun moments along the way, including a
running joke about a nurse (the eccentric Akmetha) enthusiastically
mistaking the word "patience" for "patients" and an amusing re-imagining
of Ur as an ancient retirement community complete with shuffleboard. I
wasn't so crazy about the recurrence of camels projecting green globs of
spit across the screen onto various characters, but the kids seemed to
love that bit...
The silly song finds us in yet another
doctor's office; this seems to be a favorite locale for the Veggie
folks, whether it's a generic doctor (Belly Button), a psychiatrist (Love My Lips) or a vet (The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps). In Sneeze If You Have To,
Larry is the doctor, and Bob is the patient who must be patient as he
waits for the sweet relief of a sneeze that just won't come. Larry
waltzes around the office, singing of his willingness to help with
extravagant gestures, many of which are, naturally, perfectly
ridiculous. This one didn't seem to hold the kids' attention as well as
some of the others, but I liked it.
Despite the name of the video, Blunders in Boo-Boo-Ville
is much more elaborate and carefully crafted than the Abraham segment.
In this tale, Jacques (Larry) is an inventor in a quaint town that makes
me think of Belle's village in Beauty and the Beast. He's a very
clever fellow, but he never takes the time to complete his creations
properly, nor do his fellow inventors in town. They all rush through the
work and wind up with shoddy craftsmanship, which is especially
troublesome when the object is potentially dangerous.
In some ways, this story is a bit of a retread of Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler,
in which Larry is the braggy detective and Bob is his long-suffering
assistant. Their relationship is similar here, but after Larry's lack of
consideration lands Bob in a heap of trouble, the green guy has to go
it alone for a good chunk of the story as he tries to figure out a
device that will lure back the birds for which the village is named. A
quest to retrieve the book penned by the town's most famous inventor
leads him to a reclusive oddball whose home is a mechanical wonderland.
What words of wisdom might this accomplished fellow have to offer?
This segment is incredibly appealing visually, with so many different
oddball inventions to marvel over, but then there is great attention to
detail in every element of this story. There are several songs, my
favorite of which is the lively, lyrically complex first number, in
which Jacques and his buddies sing about their need to get things done
in a hurry. Toward the end, a gentle lullaby that Jacques' mother used
to sing drives the story's point home in a tender way. Not only is this
part of the video complex, funny and visually appealing, it seems to pay
homage to The Lorax, one of my two favorite Dr. Seuss books, injecting a hint of environmentalism into the story.
The DVD ends on such a high note that it almost makes up for the faults
of the first tale, but it's such a significant story that I think it
ought to have been handled a bit differently. Still, for the most part, Abe and the Amazing Promise is an enjoyable Veggie installment.
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