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Over the past four years Martha Stewart has carved out a place of honor in our household. At first she was but an occasional guest, arriving every month or so on the cover of the glossy Martha Stewart Living magazine. Then she became a regular member of the family, appearing from Monday to Friday on our TV. Our computer's Web browser automatically invokes marthastewart.com to appear on the screen. We have consulted "Martha Stewart" paint chips when decorating the kitchen, purchased at Kmart some "Martha Stewart" French-style bedspreads for our daughters' room, and enjoyed the results of more than a fair share of Martha's recipes.
A successful caterer, Martha has employed her entertaining skills to become the North American arbiter of what constitutes gracious living. It's true, of course, that people love to make fun of Martha. Her perfectionism and her know-it-all, do-it-all, have-it-all manner can be hard to bear and easy to mock. But after enjoying far too much of a Martha-inspired chocolate cake, I decided I could no longer hide that she has greatly enriched my life (and my waistline).
If Martha Stewart is ubiquitous in her chosen domain, so too are VeggieTales in their realm, the world of children's entertainment. Created in 1993 by Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki through their company, Big Idea Productions, the VeggieTales video series uses computer-animated characters such as Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber and Junior Asparagus to illustrate biblical stories and messages through silly situations and even sillier songs.[1] On paper this doesn't sound like a formula for astonishing commercial success, but in fact the distinctive VeggieTales mixture of "Sunday morning values, Saturday morning fun" has sold more than 20 million videos, sprouting into a growth industry that also includes books, CDs, Vacation Bible School materials, and a panoply of plush toys, finger puppets, ties, party supplies, and key chains.
I first heard about VeggieTales just after Martha became part of our lives. A friend of mine, also a French teacher, had told me about an animated Christian video in which peas with outrageous French accents took the role of the Philistines while a large pickle played Goliath. When I responded skeptically, my friend assured me that the video was not only Christian but, surprisingly, funny and intelligent. When my eldest daughter Anna, age three at the time, began to discover our church's video collection, we took out VeggieTales' Dave and the Giant Pickle. Both Anna and I laughed as we watched the young Dave try to tend sheep that constantly fell over, and I could not help but grin when I heard the Philistine French Peas.
In the months that followed, Anna and I continued to borrow VeggieTales videos from the church library. I realized that the creators of VeggieTales grew up immersed in the same bad television shows that I used to watch as a kid. While teaching biblical values, VeggieTales often parody such TV standards as Gilligan's Island, Batman, and Star Trek. Other episodes pay tribute to the inspired silliness of British comedy, most notably when Josh looks up at Jericho's walls and the French Peas berate him and cast slushies upon him—alluding to a classic scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Some of the VeggieTales parody literature, with references to writers such as Flaubert (by way of a materialistic Madame Blueberry) and Steinbeck (through some rather wrathful grapes). The fifteenth and most recent video in the series, Lyle, the Kindly Viking, contains parodies of Masterpiece Theatre, Hamlet ("Omlet"), and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. The video also features Archibald the Asparagus, a character whose British accent and uptight manners were inspired by Monty Python's John Cleese.[2] The success of the VeggieTales videos may rest on their ability to entertain parents as well as their children.
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