If you were a television executive, which program do you think would offend the most viewers across America?<\/p>\n\n
The first is a children\u2019s show featuring digital vegetables that sing and dance and tell silly parables. Each episode ends with a Bible verse and a witty tomato\u2019s reminder that \u201cGod made you special and he loves you very much!\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The second is a prime-time special in which Madonna sings her enigmatic ballad \u201cLive to Tell\u201d while hanging on a disco-mirror crucifix and wearing a crown of thorns.<\/p>\n\n
If you decided that it\u2019s the vegetables that are too hot to handle, then you\u2019re on the same wavelength as NBC.<\/p>\n\n
Actually, both shows got early green lights \u2014 although the latter had to surrender its Bible verses and some key God talk. The man in charge of slicing the \u201cVeggieTales\u201d is Phil Vischer, the heart, mind and voice behind Bob the Tomato and many other characters. He has faced a crucial question while wrestling with NBC program guidelines: How much God is too much God?<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe parameters of what we\u2019re doing have not been clearly articulated,\u201d said Vischer, who works as a consultant for Big Idea, Inc., the company he created that is now owned by Classic Media. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like hunting for the electronic fence in your yard. You keep walking until the back of your neck starts tingling and then you know that you\u2019ve hit it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
However, he discovered a crucial clue while editing the broadcast version of \u201cMinnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson\u2019s Hairbrush.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
In the script, Larry the Cucumber is convinced Samson must have gotten his extraordinary strength from his hairbrush. No, replies Bob the Tomato, the Bible says that Samson\u2019s strength came from God.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThat line was OK,\u201d said Vischer. \u201cWhere we got into trouble was the next line, where Bob says, \u2018And God can give us strength, too.\u2019 The NBC people said we had to take that out, so we must have crossed a line right there. \u2026<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWhat God does in the past is OK as long as it stays in the past. But if you cross that line and say that God can affect your life in the present, then that\u2019s too much. That\u2019s reaching out to the audience and that\u2019s proselytizing or something. That\u2019s bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The rules get tougher when children are the primary audience, he admitted. Media executives worry about programs that blur the line between \u201cvalues\u201d and \u201cevangelism.\u201d Still, anyone who studies modern cartoons knows that producers are constantly trying to shape the beliefs of children when it comes to the environment, racism, gender, self esteem and a host of other topics.<\/p>\n\n
Thus, some angry conservatives sense a double standard.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cNBC has taken the very essence of \u2018VeggieTales\u2019 \u2014 and ripped it out. It\u2019s like \u2018Gunsmoke\u2019 without the guns, or \u2018Monday Night Football\u2019 without the football,\u201d argued L. Brent Bozell III of the Media Research Center. \u201cNBC is the network that hired a squad of lawyers to argue that dropping the F-bomb on the Golden Globe Awards isn\u2019t indecent for children. \u2026 Or, as one e-mailing friend marveled: \u2018So, saying \u2018(expletive) you\u2019 is protected First Amendment speech on NBC but not \u2018God bless you.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n\n
Also, some \u201cVeggieTales\u201d loyalists \u2014 Big Idea has sold 50 million DVDs and videocassettes \u2014 have posted notes at PhilVischer.com arguing that the grown-up believers behind the silly stories have \u201csold out\u201d in the secular marketplace.<\/p>\n\n
Vischer said the key is that edited \u201cVeggieTales\u201d episodes will be shown on television, but they will not replace products on store shelves. If children like what they see on Saturday mornings and want their own copies, they will end up watching the original versions \u2014 with \u201cthe Bible verses and the rest of the God stuff still in there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n
The semi-open door at NBC, he said, is \u201ckind of like being invited to sing at the White House. The good news is that you get to sing at the White House. The bad news is that they aren\u2019t going to let you sing all of your Christian songs because they might upset the ambassador from Saudi Arabia and some of the other foreign dignitaries.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s still good, in the long run, that people at the White House get to hear your music. The goal is for them to want to hear more.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you were a television executive, which program do you think would offend the most viewers across America? The first is a children\u2019s show featuring digital vegetables that sing and dance and tell silly parables. Each episode ends with a Bible verse and a witty tomato\u2019s reminder that \u201cGod made you special and he loves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[324,521,589,656,1545,905],"class_list":["post-1404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-entertainment","tag-madonna","tag-network-television","tag-phil-vischer","tag-popular-culture","tag-veggietales"],"yoast_head":"\n