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Thank you, Big Idea

Once upon a time…

During my early college years, my friend Girl With Flat Hat, who has her own blog, visited friends at Hillsdale College in Michigan. She came back with stories of a computer-animated Christian series of videos that were really funny, even for adults.

It was called “Veggie Tales.”

So on her recommendation, I went out to my local Christian bookstore and bought a copy of “God Wants Me To Forgive Them?!?”, which was a very early video, and watched it with my little sister. She LOVED it. I took it to a get-together with the friends. We LOVED it. When Bob and Larry made appearances in the greater Seattle area, we knew about it. College kids though we were, we thoroughly enjoyed these shows. We went to see Bob and Larry, but we did take my little sister with us so we wouldn’t look like total losers. We eagerly awaited each new video, and watched as Big Idea, the company that developed Veggie Tales, began to crossover from the Christian market to a more mainstream audience, all without changing the message that “God made you special, and He loves you very much.”

We were at the forefront of a trend.

Fast-forward to now. I depend on Veggie Tales for my very survival.

The Munchkin is old enough and has seen enough to identify certain TV characters. Elmo is “Emmo”. Cookie Monster is “Cookie”. Ernie is, well, “Ernie”. Big Bird is “Buh-ber”. But the very first character she ever identified? “Bob”. As in Bob the Tomato. She can’t say Larry yet (she calls him “Bob” too), but she calls Junior Asparagus “Juju”. She has Veggie Tales books. She knows where the Veggie Tales playset is in the preschool Sunday School classroom. She loves the sing-a-longs. And she loves the shows.

I wish I could buy stock in Big Idea. But since I can’t, I buy their merchandise. We already have a few surprises in store for the Munchkin come Christmas and her birthday that are Veggie Tales-related. I’m already planning to make her party Veggie Tales-themed.

Sesame Street, Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock – these were all elements of my childhood that I can share with her, and she will enjoy them. But Veggie Tales is uniquely hers. Since I discovered them as an adult, I will never have the same pull toward them as I do toward something like Fraggle Rock, though I enjoy Veggie Tales very much. Which is fortunate, since she watches one episode nearly every single day. When she is able to think back to her childhood, Veggie Tales will loom large in those memories.

And I could think of a lot worse things to dominate those memories. Like, say, Barney.

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