So you're watching a rerun of an old TV show you used to love as a kid, when suddenly the characters start saying "That reminds me of what the Bible tells us with [insert any Bible verse here]". Then you realize... it's been redubbed to preach the gospel.
This was a brief fad amongst some distributors: If you want to keep an old kids' show that's not doing well in syndication on the air for a longer time, just redub it with religious context/content and sell it to any religious broadcaster that's interested.
Subtrope of Religious Edutainment. Compare The Moral Substitute, in which a religious show plays Follow the Leader to a secular show.
Examples
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Multiple
- There exist alternate Islamic Arabic dubs of several western cartoons and anime. The difference? There's no music, the theme song's a nasheed
(being sung a capella), and most of the time characters state religious things about Islam.
- Toad Patrol is one of the few known shows to have an Islamic dub but not a secular dub.
- The Islamic dubs of Case Closed actually caused controversy.
Comics
- In the 1970s-80s, artist Al Hartley produced an officially licensed series of Archie Comics in which all the characters were born-again Christians. The storylines and art were generally the same as you would find in a regular issue, except with Archie and Betty praying, generously quoting the Bible, and preaching the gospel to all their friends.
Literature
- Since the Turn of the Millennium, the originally-secular The Berenstain Bears series has been heavily marketed towards Christian families, with newer books having very Christian themes. This wasn't to goose falling sales; the creatives simply noticed how popular the franchise was with that particular market due to its wholesome, Aesop-driven nature.
Live-Action TV
- When the Dutch Christian broadcasting company Evangelische Omroep aired David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals, they omitted any references to the evolution theory, and completely left out the episode dealing with apes and humans. Naturally, Attenborough was not amused.
- The mid-'90s Barney and Friends imitator The Reppies had its songs redubbed to discuss Christianity for the religious syndication market.
- Inverted. Gerbert was a Religious Edutainment show in its original run, but was then turned into a secular Edutainment Show for its second airing.
Music
- In 2010, Cee Lo Green covered the famous song "Imagine" by John Lennon, replacing the (admittedly very pro-atheist) lyrics "and no religion too" with "all religions true", resulting in an immediate backlash from fans who believed that he had disrespected Lennon's legacy by changing the lyrics of his most iconic song. But this wasn't the only one — some interpretations also change that line for "and one religion too", to better appeal to Christian listeners.
Video Games
- Sunday Funday is an edited version of Menace Beach, both of them made by Wisdom Tree, with the original version of the game involving the player character saving his girlfriend from Demon Dan with each cleared level showing his girlfriend with less and less clothing, while the edited version involves the player character just trying to make it to Sunday school and the girlfriend cutscenes being replaced with an Imagine Spot of how his Sunday school teacher might scold him if he arrives late.
Western Animation
- A modified version Danger Rangers was released on some home videos aimed at Christian audiences. While the episodes are unedited with no religious references, each episode would end with a scripture lesson from The Bible that is relevant to an episode.
- Meteor and the Mighty Monster Trucks has a religious version, "Monster Truck Adventures", with the race announcer bookending the show and using a Scripture reference to help summarize the plot.
- The infamous religious version of Jay Jay the Jet Plane by Tommy Nelson. The stories are unchanged, but the dialogue is altered to make mentions of Christianity and the Bible throughout. This is to the point that the episode descriptions on the back of the VHS releases actually end the plot summaries with something like "Feels like Romans 8:25" (the religious summarization of "Tracy's Shooting Star").
- A variant regarding the Arabic dub of The Simpsons, Al-Shamshoon — not only does it rename the characters (Homer Simpson becomes Omar Shamsoon) but it removes all elements incompatible with Islamic law: pork becomes beef, beer becomes soda, Moe's Tavern is removed, etc.
- The original show also parodied this in "The Monkey Suit". At Springfield Elementary, old educational films about evolution are redubbed — badly and obviously — to sell Creationism and "intelligent design".
- Played for Laughs in the Family Guy episode "Airport '07", when Peter embraces the Redneck lifestyle. He decides to watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos, which has been "edited for rednecks". The edits muffle over any scientific explanations with creationist viewpoints.
Carl Sagan: I'm Carl Sagan. Just how old is our planet? Scientists believe it's four b-HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD. Scientists have determines that the universe was created by a s-GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD-ig Bang. If you look at the bones of a JESUS-saurus rex, it's clear by the use of carbon dating that-MOUNTAIN DEW IS THE BEST SODA EVER MADE.
- "The Griffin Family History"'s opening flashback about the creation of Earth shows aquatic creatures evolving into land animals and then humans, but Peter's voiceover then announces that for viewers from Kansas (which has had issues with schools being pressured to teach Creationism/Intelligent Design rather than evolution) they're going to show an alternative flashback. In this version, the I Dream of Jeannie theme plays as the genie emerges from the ocean and then magics living things into existence (mostly animals, but also Jesus Christ) and they all dance around together.
- VeggieTales has a rare inversion. The show was originally very much intended to teach kids about the Bible and Christianity. However, when it was aired on NBC's qubo block, references to Christianity were initially removed. Protests from parent groups led to part of the content being restored in its second season.
