VeggieTales in the House is an animated series that aired on Netflix on November 26, 2014. It is essentially a spinoff series of VeggieTales, all while co-produced by DreamWorks Animation.
The series follows the further adventures of all the familiar Veggie characters that we all know and love as they venture off the kitchen countertop for the first time and explore other areas of the house, such as the living room, all while still learning all about God's love and the biblical and moral values that He teaches us. With familiar characters like level-headed Bob the Tomato, fun-loving Larry the Cucumber, playful Junior Asparagus and his best friend Laura Carrot, sweet and caring Petunia Rhubarb, stiff-upper-lipped Archibald Asparagus, always-hungry brothers Jimmy and Jerry Gourd, et al., it is sure to be an adventure you'll never forget. Doug TenNapel, creator of Catscratch, is the producer. Although the new character designs are not familiar to the last ones, it's still a Christian show, no matter what.
Creators Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki still voice their regular roles, though other characters are now voiced by well-known voice actors Rob Paulsen and Tress MacNeille. Also part of the cast are Maurice LaMarche and Kel Mitchell (yes, the one who played Kel on Kenan & Kel.
When the series was first announced back in March 2014, it has been hinted that the characters would be receiving redesigns, which a lot of longtime fans were not happy about. Once the redesigns were finally revealed, there has been a lot of backlash from a lot of fans because of how the new designs looked. However, while a lot of people were in an uproar about it, some have been able to embrace the changes.
In Feburary 2017, the show was retooled into VeggieTales in the City, moving the action to the downtown area (that Bob says was built really fast). The changes end there, as the formula didn't change.
Despite being made in partnership with Netflix, Netflix removed "House" on September 2022 with "City" being following suit in 2023.
Now has a Recap page.
Tropes found in this series include:
- Achilles in His Tent: Larry-Boy quit a few times. "For the Honor of LarryBoy" due to Ichabeezer not being grateful for helping him, and "JimmyBoy" because Jimmy stole his identity. Though that doesn't last long since Bob tells him it's the right thing to do to help others in need.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Bob is much more intelligent in this series and is able to build things such as an Weather Machine.
- Aesop Amnesia: A rare In-universe example. When Larry starts acting like an idiot by playing with the carts in Pa's store.Petunia: Larry! Didn't you learn anything?!Larry: I learned NOTHING!!!! Weeee!
- All Animals Are Dogs: A rare non-animal example: This series, starting with the episode "Puppies and Guppies", introduces a green olive, who looks and acts like a dog, named Rooney.
- Animesque: The redesigns have huge shiny eyes. Plus, the Plantasaurus and Ultra Veggie sequences in "Sorry, We're Closed Today" are drawn in an anime art style. Plantasaurus and Ultra Veggie are even based on two popular Japanese franchises.
- As the Good Book Says...: The moral to most episodes is generally summarized in the form of a bible passage.
- Ate It All: In the episode "Sorry, We're Closed Today", after Bob, Larry, and the others get locked in Pa Grape's store by accident, Bob tries to look at the positives by stating that there's enough food to last them for several months, before cutting to Larry and Jerry, who have already eaten all of the food, with Jerry remarking that it only lasted a few hours.
- Baseball Episode: "Laura at Bat" and "Coach Ichabeezer".
- British Brevity: The first two seasons were 15 episodes and 11 episodes (which you can say they are 13 episodes each season), though the seasons afterwards went to the standard 13 episodes per seasons.
- Canon Foreigner: All of the new characters were created specifically for this show. Whenever or not they'll be part of the main series is unknown.
- Carnivore Confusion: In "Bob's Bad Breath", Larry is eating a sandwich which has tomatoes and lettuce on it. Bob is so gonna be cross with him.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Several characters are noticeably absent. Mr. Nezzer is the most noticeable, having been replaced by a look-alike named Ichabeezer due to DreamWorks' policy against interracial casting (detailed on the YMMV page). Other key absences include Qwerty, The Scallions, Khalil, and Scooter Carrot.
- Clueless Aesop: In "Bob's Bad Breath", Pa gives Bob a lecture on being considerate and thinking of how others feel despite his bad mood, even though his moodiness was Larry's fault. Larry kept on acting like a total nitwit by keeping Bob up all night and wouldn't stop. And yet, Pa blames Bob for everything?!
- Denser and Wackier: This series appears to be more cartoony and slapsticky than the regular series ever was, as well as making use of a wide array of various cartoon sound effects (mainly from the Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera libraries). In fact, this series appears to have the same level of slapstick as that of other cartoons such as Looney Tunes, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Mr. Bogus.
- Disembodied Eyebrows: Most of the characters' eyebrows appear to take on this trait.
- End-of-Series Awareness: "Bye Bye Bacon Bill" has Bacon Bill moving away, culminating in a giant musical number from the entire cast saying goodbye.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: Happens to Bob in "Bacon VS. Tomato" when he eats sardines.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Jenna Chive wants to be like this since she's getting tire of fame. Though she later appreciates for the life she has at the end.
- Impossible Shadow Puppets: Ichabeezer shows a rather surprising display of shadow puppet skills, despite the lack of hands, much to the surprise of Junior and Laura, in the episode "Sorry, We're Closed Today". The shadow puppets that he makes are a horse, a merry-go-round, a baseball game (off-screen), and a fireworks display.
- Iris Out: A lot of episodes ended this way.
- Locked in a Room: The episode "Sorry, We're Closed Today" involves Bob, Larry, Junior, Laura, Archibald, Jimmy, Jerry, Mr. Lunt, Jean-Claude, Phillipe, Madame Blueberry, and Ichabeezer getting locked in Pa Grape's store. Eventually, the group learns a lesson in cooperating with each other, even in times of trouble. In fact, this episode is one of the rare cases in which a large group of characters, instead of just two or three characters get locked in.
- Lost in Translation: In most languages, Beau Rockley's name is a pun on "broccoli", but this never translated well in the French dub. Instead, he's renamed to Patrick Ragotin, which the last name is based after "ragots", meaning "gossip" in French.
- Mouse World: The series takes place inside a human-sized house.
- Mustache Vandalism: Yambot in his debut episode draws a mustache on Ichebeezer's portrait.
- Mythology Gag: A part of the original VeggieTales theme ("Broocoi/Celery/Gotta be...") is used in this show's theme.
- No Mouth: Pa Grape was given this treatment with his mouth be completely obscured by his mustache, a la the Mayor of Townsville.
- Passing the Torch: In "Rise of Night Pony", Granny's alter ego Aspara Justice, hands this down to Laura, who became Night Pony.
- Purely Aesthetic Glasses: "Bob Gets Glasses". Bob gets tired of others of saying Larry is smart because he has glasses, despite he's already smart. So he decides to get himself a pair, though he can't see.
- Same Content, Different Rating: The series is rated TV-G on Netflix, but YouTube rates it TV-Y7 despite no changes.
- Self-Deprecation: In "Cooperate", Bob remarks "Just look at was has happened to us. What have we become?" It seems HE'S not to fond of the changes, either.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: A guy named Ichabezer replaces Mr. Nezzer in this show.
- Motato serves as one to Alvin Awful from the Flash-animated Larry Boy videos.
- That Poor Cat
- The Quiet One: Jerry's quiet one trait is much more exaggerated here (a la Clam) than in the original series. This is even jarringly carried over in The VeggieTales Show.
- Too Dumb to Live: Larry.
- Took a Level in Dumbass:
- Larry becomes a lot dumber and immature in this series.
- Likewise, Laura has become a lot dumber and ditzier as well.
- Voice of the Legion: Yambot had this in the Latin America and German dubs.
