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There's never-ever-ever-ever-ever been a show like VeggieTales!note 

"Have we got a show for you!"

What's the best way to teach Christian values to children, short of a talking lion? Through semi-anthropomorphized God-loving vegetables. Obviously. Why vegetables? Well, they're good for you, and what child wouldn't want to munch on versions of their favorite characters? But mostly because they didn't originally have the budget (or technology) for CGI that could handle complex characters. After all, if you make a green sphere and call it a pea or a grape, who's to argue?

In the early 1990s, an animator named Phil Vischer took notice of a new computer-graphics method called lattice deformation which allowed very basic shapes to be twisted and manipulated, resulting in animation resembling the squash-and-stretch of 2D animation. He used this to develop a character out of a chocolate bar in his spare time, for a potential Christian children's show... until his wife, Lisa, pointed out that Christian moms wouldn't be happy if their kids "fell in love with candy bars". Cue a brainwave from Phil that birthed Larry the Cucumber (yes, Larry came first), followed by Bob the Tomato, and eventually the show we have today.

Silly songs, talking vegetables, and plots taken from The Bible make for much better entertainment than you might expect — aided considerably by a cast the size of a produce department, and a healthy seasoning of slightly demented and honestly funny writing heavy on good natured snark, Parental Bonuses, and fourth-wall-leaning, and light on the Anviliciousness. Notable characters include LarryBoy, the immensely quotable Badbutt suction cup-themed superhero, Buzzsaw Louie, the toy that saved Christmas, and The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, pirates who... oh, you would probably know by now; they would later receive their own movie.

The result is a just-self-aware-enough Fountain of Memes that has saved the sanity of more than a few babysitters in the church nursery, and broken out of the double ghetto of G-Rated Christian Media to a surprising degree. This is essentially Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: the series.

The show is an astonishing Long Runner for its genre, with its first installment released 'way back in 1993 (yes, folks, way before more mainstream CGI pioneers like ReBoot and Toy Story). Early videos used the format: Introduction by Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber talking about some issue (e.g. anger at siblings, materialism, not learning to share, not telling the truth, wouldn't help others, won't be patient or confident, etc.), sometimes prompted by a viewer letter; short story which illustrates the issue; silly Intermission, usually in the form of "Silly Songs With Larry"; another short story; discussion of the moral and relevant verse, the latter provided by QWERTY the computer. Later installments began using one long story with "Silly Songs" at the intermission. Currently, a given video could be either of these formats or simply be a single long story with no introduction, intermission, or theme song. Usually longer now than the Theme Song's claim of "half an hour" (which a recent updating of the opening removed).

The video series ended with Noah's Ark in 2015 and the Netflix spinoff was cancelled in 2017. In the spring of 2018, Phil Vischer, Mike Nawrocki and Kurt Heinecke, all of whom have been with the series since its first episode, all independently confirmed that there are no future plans for the series, with or without their involvement. And on what would have been the series' 25th anniversary, to boot. After production ended, DreamWorks Animation, parent company of VeggieTales studio Big Idea Entertainment, closed the studio's main Nashville offices, with the company only existing as an In Name Only unit of DreamWorks to handle intellectual property claims and licensing to the VeggieTales franchise and related properties.

Not long after that, in March 2019, TBN (which had been airing VeggieTales material for some time) announced that it had ordered new episodes for the franchise, with Vischer and Nawrocki returning as writers for the new episodes. The announcement trailer for the relaunch (under the title: The VeggieTales Show) can be seen here. The new series will bring back the original character designs and Mr. Nezzer, and eliminate pretty much every reminder of In the House/City. Lisa Vischer is also returning to voice Junior and other roles, and it has been reported that Kira Buckland, of all people, will also be voicing characters in the series. But two years later after more VeggieTales content was available on Yippee TV, DreamWorks' owner NBCUniversal decided that the show's creators (and many of the show's crew) were dismissed from Big Idea leading to a unknown future for the franchise. This was mainly due to the advent of their Peacock streamer and their ongoing efforts to improve many of their major franchises. In 2022, the show was later added to Minno.

References and parodies plots from The Bible, The Grapes of Wrath (God Wants Me To Forgive Them?!, with literal grapes of wrath), Gilligan's Island (God Wants Me to Forgive Them?!), Star Trek (Are You My Neighbor?), Batman (Larry-Boy), Madame Bovary (Madame Blueberry), Gilbert and Sullivan (Lyle the Kindly Viking), Indiana Jones (Minnesota Cuke), Hamlet (Omelet), The Lord of the Rings (Lord of the Beans), The Wizard of Oz (The Wizard of Ha's), Sherlock Holmes (Sheerluck Holmes), and all kinds of others.

Natural for Long-Runners, VeggieTales was also a Cash-Cow Franchise, with multiple media produced:


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    Tropes A to I 
  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: In Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed, this is where the Mother Weed lives.
  • Acid Reflux Nightmare: In The Asparagus of La Mancha, the dreams driving Don Quixote's odd behavior are caused by the extremely spicy salsa he eats before bed.
  • Adaptation Distillation:
    • The Penniless Princess is the VeggieTales adaptation of A Little Princess. It's a pretty faithful adaptation aside from a lot of simplification.
    • Many of the Bible stories are somewhat watered down, the main narrative remaining intact with a few details removed for the sake of time and clarity.
  • Adobe Flash: The 2D Larry-Boy cartoons.
  • Affably Evil
    • The French Peas (sometimes). They are pretty obvious parodies of the French Knights from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
    • Also at times, The Scallions.
    • Mr. Nezzer, whenever he's playing an antagonistic role.
  • Affectionate Parody: Of The Lord of the Rings ("Lord of the Beans" with the evil Sporks), Star Trek ("The Gourds Must Be Crazy", set aboard the U.S.S. Applepies), Hamlet ("Omelet"), Batman with the Larry-Boy character, Gilbert and Sullivan ("Lyle the Kindly Viking", "The Star of Christmas" and "Sumo of the Opera", the latter also parodying Rocky) and others.
  • Ageless Birthday Episode: Downplayed in "The Gourds Must Be Crazy", where a birthday party for Junior is mentioned but not given focus. It had already been established in an earlier episode that Junior was five. Did he turn six in this one, or was he about to? No clue.
  • All-CGI Cartoon: The very first full-length project to use this visual effect, used before even both film and television could use it.
  • All-Cheering All the Time: "Tomato Sawyer And Huckleberry Larry's Big River Rescue" had a trio of female pea cheerleaders who showed up at random times during the story.
  • Alliterative Name:
    • Archibald Asparagus.
    • Intentionally averted for most of the other characters. Series creator Phil Vischer explained:
      "If it were a typical Christian show, I figured, they'd be named Tommy Tomato and Kooky Cucumber. But the last thing in the world I wanted was to make a typical Christian show."
  • Alternate DVD Commentary: Many episodes have Veggie Commentary where some of the characters from the show talk over the episode. Episodes like Lord of the Beans and The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's only show certain clips, but Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie have Larry and Mr. Lunt commentate the entire movie.
  • Always Chaotic Evil: Supposedly, the Rhubarbarians from "Duke and the Great Pie War." The Sporks from "Lord of the Beans" are introduced this way, but it turns out to be wrong.
  • Always Identical Twins:
    • The Toy That Saved Christmas has Wally P. Nezzer, who is Nebby K. Nezzer's brother. It's never outright stated they're twins, but they look and dress and act so similarly (the only real physical difference being that Wally has a bigger nose) that it's some ridiculously Strong Family Resemblance at the very least.
    • In Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella, the Big Bad is Professor Rattan's twin brother Wicker. While there are a few differences, they look close enough that if one wasn't paying too much attention they could get mixed up, which Wicker uses to his advantage frequently.
  • Ambiguously Jewish: As much as a plant can be, at any rate. Pa Grape, originally created as a quasi-Appalachian hick, has developed into this.
    Pa Grape: I'm a viking, and I've come to take your land — oh, yes — I've come to take your land; and I've come to burn your crops and steal your horses! And I've come to step on your chickens, and soil your quilts!... oy.
  • American Kirby Is Hardcore: Double subverted for Madame Blueberry. The Korean cover shows her looking happy on the cover art and even on another release with that dub. All other versions show her with a sad look.
  • Anachronism Stew: Played for laughs, often Lampshaded.
    Junior Asparagus: [skeptical] Did [the Israelites] really build a rocket in the middle of the desert and get Slushees dropped on their heads?
  • And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Used during the QWERTY segments of the main show, and is also used as a moral of Dave and the Giant Pickle, Gideon: Tuba Warrior, Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Sampson's Hairbrush and Sumo of the Opera.
  • And I Must Scream: The Island of Perpetual Tickling in and Esther; The Girl who Would be Queen “The place where you are tickled day and night? Night and day? Without stop? Not even if you say pretty please?”- The French Peas (aka: Peaoni Brothers).
  • Animated Actors
  • Animate Inanimate Object
    • QWERTY the computer, who obliges when Bob and Larry ask him to give a Bible verse at the end of most of the episodes.
    • In An Easter Carol, a music box comes to life to guide Ebeneezer Nezzer to redemption.
  • Annoyingly Repetitive Child: In the Silly Song "Goodnight Junior" from It's a Meaningful Life, Lisa puts her young son Junior to bed, only for him to keep asking her to bring him more and more stuffed animals. She gets increasingly exasperated by his demands, and by the end of it, he's covered in a mound of plush toys.
  • Anthropomorphic Food: The whole show is full of them!
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: Most of the Larry-Boy villains; for instance, the Fib is a representation of a lie who grows with it, and the Rumor Weed represents a spreading rumor in the form of a weed that infests yards as it travels.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
    • This is played with in The Song of the Cebu.
      Archibald: Does the hippo see them? Is the poor mute cebu successful in communicating the imminent danger to the other passengers? Is the boy injured? Why is the sad cebu sad? Is the canoe wood or aluminum?
    • In the first episode, when the wise men are trying to think of ways to get rid of Daniel, one of the suggestions is to give him donuts, and then take them away from him.
    • In Lord of the Beans, the four beans could change your appearance, create nice clothing, give you all the food you could ever want, and... make small kitchen appliances.
  • Art Evolution: The early episodes looked very crude, having been released a year before ReBoot first aired (which coincidentally also features a character named Bob), and two years before Toy Story was released. As technology increased for later episodes, they got better lighting, softer textures, and smoother animation. Those who haven't seen the series since the 90s are often VERY surprised to see that one of their childhood favorites now looks better than ever.
  • As the Good Book Says...: Thank you, QWERTY.
  • Aside Glance: In The Toy that Saved Christmas, Louie does one when it occurs to him that he's the only one of the group who has hands.
  • Award-Bait Song: "Hope's Song" from "An Easter Carol" has all the qualities of this. It is sung by Rebecca St. James.
  • Bamboo Technology: Played literally and Lampshaded in a Gilligan's Island parody, most extremely when The Professor builds a bamboo-coconut helicopter.
  • Barely-Changed Dub Name: The Finnish dub loves doing this trope. Examples:
    • Bob to Bobi
    • Larry to Lari
    • Junior to Juniori
    • Jimmy to Jimi
    • Jerry to Jeri
    • Scooter to Skootteri
  • Batman Cold Open: Used in "Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed", which of course makes sense, given that Larry-Boy is a fairly obvious Captain Ersatz for Batman.
  • Batty Lip Burbling: Larry the Cucumber does this in the silly song “Love My Lips”. However, he doesn’t have hands, so he motorboats instead.
  • Bears Are Bad News: In the Silly Song "The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps", the veterinarian's yodeling did not actually work; the nurse would have to give people the real cures to their pets' various ailments. By the time someone brought in their pet bear, the nurse had given up because the veterinarian wouldn't give him a raise, and the bear got angry and started chasing the veterinarian.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Ebenezer Nezzer from An Easter Carol is typically a gentle boss who encourages his employees to keep careful watch on his egg production. But disagree with him too much (regardless of whether you are making a point or not) and he will FIRE you, as Cavis and Millward find out the hard way.
  • Big Eaters: Jimmy and Jerry Gourd. In fact, when they made their debut in the Affectionate Parody of Star Trek, they managed to save the starship from crashing into a meteor made of popcorn by eating the entire meteor.
  • Big "NO!":
    • Larry the Cucumber did this in The End of Silliness?, when Archibald inserted "His Cheeseburger" in the jukebox. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..."
    • By Haman (Mr. Lunt) in Esther... The Girl Who Became Queen when he finds out he's getting banished to the Island of Perpetual Tickling.
    • Two by Don Quixote (Archibald Asparagus) in Asparagus of La Mancha, one when he wakes up from his first bad dream, one when Poncho (Mr. Lunt) weans him off the salsa, due to finding out that Don's addiction to his super-spicy salsa is causing the bad dreams.
    • By The Bad Apple in Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple, when her webs dissolve by using water.
    • By Archibald Asparagus in the silly song The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo, when everyone needs to take a potty break.
    • Also by Larry in the silly song Sippy Cup combined with Eat the Camera when Jimmy Gourd explains why Larry needs a sippy cup.
    • Two by the mirror in Sweetpea Beauty, one when Prince Larry and the seven peas save Sweetpea Beauty (Petunia Rhubarb) from her fall, one when he falls to his death. Prince Larry also utters this when Sweetpea Beauty is falling. Luckily, he and the seven peas save her.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows:
    • Larryboy and the Angry Eyebrows has living, flying Big Ol' Eyebrows that are attracted to anger and make whoever they land on angrier.
    • Mr. Nezzer has very bushy eyebrows.
  • Bilingual Bonus: "Usta" really is Polish for "lips"note .
  • Bird-Poop Gag: In "Lunch", a man tries to get candy from a vending machine. When he finally gets it out, a bird poops on it.
  • Biting-the-Hand Humor: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler has Don and Poncho floating around a Suck E. Cheese's named "Cheese E. Rodent" as a replacement for their restaurant. The actual Chuck E. Cheese has featured VeggieTales promos in-between the songs in their showtapes for years.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation:
    • The Brazilian Portuguese dub of the episode The Star of Christmas has "dental wax" translated as "creme dental". "Creme dental" actually means "toothpaste", while "cera dentária" means the proper term.
  • Boring Vacation Slideshow: Played With in the Silly Song "Song of the Cebu". Larry eventually gets to show his audience his trip to Spain with Bob, but outside of one noticeably off-screen photo, nobody seems to be interested in it. This is less because it's boring, and more because the photos are right in the middle of his presentation about the Cebu song.
  • Bowdlerize:
    • Many of the stories taken from The Bible are toned down; for example, in the original story of Daniel and the Lion's Den, the king puts the evil advisors and their families to death by tossing them in said den. With lions that went to bed without supper. The VeggieTales version of it instead ends in a more cartoonish way, with the advisors running off while the king chases after them.
    • They Bowdlerized one of their own cartoons. In Rack, Shack, and Benny, "The Bunny Song" is a song that the protagonists refuse to sing. The song originally had some genuinely troubling lyricsnote —which resulted in letters from parents because despite it being condemned onscreen, children were singing it anyway. It was then completely rewritten as "The New And Improved Bunny Song" for the sing-along video, as a good version of the song, but some parents were still bothered by the original, so when Big Idea started re-releasing all their videos, Rack, Shack, and Benny got its version's lyrics replaced with refusals to eat healthy foodnote  (however, sentient vegetables singing about eating other vegetables is a complete separate kettle of fish).
    • In The Bible's account of the story of Esther, Haman intended to hang the Jews on gallows he was setting up. The Veggie version: banishment to the Island of Perpetual Tickling.
    • "King George and the Ducky" is an adaptation of the story of David and Bathsheba; while the Biblical story centers around adultery, the VeggieTales version substitutes rubber duckie theft, the king gets a chance at reconciliation (the guy survived and won the war single-handedly in this version), and David was changed to George, because David had been the hero in an earlier episode.
    • In the Biblical account of Jonah, Nineveh was a city of adulterers and thieves. No mention of adultery in the Veggie version; the bad thing the Ninevites do that gets mentioned most often in their version is slapping each other with fishes.
    • "Moe and the Big Exit" is an adaption of The Exodus From Egypt. They tone down most of the plagues for children, people receive a plague of gophers instead of frogs, and acne instead of skin disease.
    • There are some notable aversions though: "Daniel in the Lion's Den" doesn't cover up the fact that the wise men want to kill Daniel, the "first born" plague isn't taken out of Moe and the Big Exitnote , Rack, Shack and Benny doesn't Bowdlerize getting thrown into a furnace, and they keep the Downer Ending of Jonah intact.
    • VeggieTales as a whole itself was bowdlerized during the Qubo years; all Christianity-related content before and after the story (although the stories themselves somehow remained largely untouched) was removed and replaced. Phil Vischer was not happy seeing all this done behind his back.
  • A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: The Carrot family has the oldest Laura, her brother Lenny, and their baby brother Lou.
  • Bravado Song:
    • In "Where's God When I'm S-Scared?", Junior's quite paranoid after watching a spooky movie, so Bob and Larry visit him and sing about how he should stay strong because God will be there to protect him from any old movie monster. Later, he sings a reprise of the song, claiming that he won't fear the monsters that lurk in the night anymore, since God will save him from them.
    • In "Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen", Esther mentions that her grandmother taught her a song about how she shouldn't feel too much fear, as God will always be with her. She sings it a few times in the episode when she's worried about what might happen if she stands up to Haman.
  • Brick Joke:
    • One of the first Silly Songs With Larry, The Hairbrush Song ended with Bob confessing to Larry that he gave his hairbrush to The Peach, and Larry decides to let him keep it. After the song, The Peach made only a handful of other appearances, and never even got a name. Fast forward to Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Sampson's Hairbrush. When Larry/Minnesota Cuke consults an illustrated Bible manuscript in search of Samson's Hairbrush, the character standing in for Samson is The Peach!
    • In one of the earliest episodes' songs, Jerry mentions that 'Aunt Ruth has a beard.' In the I Love My Lips Silly Song, Larry had to kiss his great-Aunt Ruth. 'She had a beard, and it felt weird.' She also appears in The Song of the Cebu, during Larry's Embarrassing Slide.
    • In The Toy That Saved Christmas, there is a sled wreck, and then Bob says: "You roll your dice, you move your mice. Nobody gets hurt." Guess what happens in The Tale of St. Nicholas....
  • Bubble Pipe: In its Sherlock Holmes parody, the Sherlock character has a bubble pipe.
  • Butt-Monkey: Mr. Lunt, who is frequently the worthless sidekick, appears insufferably lazy, cross-dresses at least twice, and laments that his life has only included one half hour of happiness. That one day. Between two and two-thirty.
  • Call-Back:
    • As noted in the commentary for "Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry's Big River Rescue", the scene where Larry helps Bob put a sign back up by letting him stand on his shoulders may remind some people of "An Easter Carol", where Bob hops on Larry's shoulders to try to climb over Ebenezer Nezzer's factory gate.
      • Furthermore, The "Duke of New Orleans" (Jerry Gourd) sings "Meet Me in St. Louis." Which Jerry and Jimmy were doing when they first appeared in "Are You My Neighbor?"
    • At one point during Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson's Hairbrush, Minnesota (played by Larry) starts humming the hairbrush song. Really, the whole episode can be considered a Call Back to the song.
    • In the sequel, Minnesota Cuke and The Search for Noah's Umbrella, Minnesota finds himself in a Spanish village. One of the locals suggests they do "The Dance of the Cucumber" which was also an earlier Silly song.
    • In "The Song of the Cebu;" after struggling to get his slide show back on track, Larry thinks he has found another slide of a cebu, only to find out that it's a water buffalo, providing a call back to the first Silly Song, "The Water Buffalo Song."
    • In the episode based on Joshua, when Moses and the Israelites take a shortcut to the Promised Land, they find that it is populated by giants, who all look like the giant pickle from "Dave and the Giant Pickle".
  • Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: At the end of "Lyle the Kindly Viking," by (who else) Larry.
    • "Uh, Sven, you can stop singing now."
    • Literally in Lord of the Beans - Legolamb's brother, the Other Elf, keeps holding up the group because he has to stop and go to the bathroom.
    • In Veggies in Space, Larry tries to do this during the "What We Have Learned" song, but is cut off by the next verse of the song.
  • Captain Ersatz: "The Other Elf" from Lord of the Beans looks suspiciously like the Keebler Elf. Especially at the climax, when he bakes cookies inside of a tree.
  • Captain Obvious: "And now it's time for 'Silly Songs with Larry': the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song."
  • Catapult Nightmare: Don Quixote in "The Asparagus of La Mancha" because he ate too much salsa before going to bed.
  • Chain of People: In The Toy that Saved Christmas, Louie and a bunch of penguins do this to save Mr. Nezzer from falling off a cliff. And then George has to go save them all from dangling off the edge of a bridge forever.
  • Character Catchphrase:
    • Larry-Boy's "I! Am! That! Hero!"
    • Bob's "And remember, kids, God made you special, and he loves you very much."
    • "Perhaps I can be of assistance!"
    • "I'm Bob, I'm a tomato, and I'm here to help you!" "I'm Larry, I'm a cucumber, and I'm here to make you giggle!"
    • “Yeah, [subject]!”
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • Combined with Viewers Are Goldfish in The Toy that Saved Christmas. The bridge to Puggslyville is out... clearly it's important because it's mentioned at least three times.
    • In a scene very early on in An Easter Carol, Reverend Gilbert and Edmund are talking about Mr. Nezzer, and the reverend mentions offhand that Nezzer's family owns a lot of land, even the land St. Bart's Church sits on. This becomes critical to the episode's plot.
    • In Lord of the Beans, Randalf comments on the jewel Lord Falaminion Tereglith is wearing. Lord Falaminion Tereglith was bribed with it to send Toto into a trap.
    • In The Star of Christmas:
      • Seymour promises Millward he can drive his rocket-powered car at some point. It happens towards the end of the episode.
      • Seymour says the lights on the scenery pose a fire hazard, which is exactly what happens later.
  • Christmas Episode:
    • Six so far: "The Toy That Saved Christmas", "The Star of Christmas", "Saint Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving", "The Little Drummer Boy", "It's a Meaningful Life," and "Christmas Sing-Along Songs!".
    • Another recent video "Beauty and the Beet" had a Christmas song included as a bonus.
  • Clock of Power: In "A Snoodle's Tale", Bob the Tomato tells the story of the Snoodles, "a curious folk who eat pancakes and noodles and spend half their days making sketches and doodles and cutting their hair into shapes like French poodles". In the center of Snoodleburg, the hometown of all of the Snoodles, there is a large Clock Tower that produces a new Snoodle every fourth Tuesday at quarter past nine.
  • Comically Missing the Point:
    • Larry, all the time, especially with regard to Archibald.
    • Pa Grape and Mr. Lunt's reaction to Larry's lyrics in The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: "I've never plucked a rooster and I am not too good at ping-pong and I've never thrown my mashed potatoes up against the wall and I've never kissed a chipmunk, and I've never gotten head lice and I have never been to Boston in the fall!"
      Pa Grape: Huh?!? What are you talking about? What's a rooster and mashed potatoes have to do with being a pirate?
      Mr. Lunt: Hey, that's right! We're supposed to sing about pirate-y things!
      Pa Grape: And who ever kissed a chipmunk? That's just nonsense! Why even bring it up?
      • Of course, Larry goes on to sing, "And I've never licked a spark-plug and I've never sniffed a stink bug and I've never painted daisies on a big red rubber ball and I've never bathed in yogurt and I don't look good in leggings and I've never been to Boston in the fall."
        Pa Grape: You just don't get it.
  • Composite Character: Mr. Nezzer is sort of one. "The Toy That Saved Christmas" introduced Nebby K. Nezzer's brother Wally, who had the exact same character model and voice. Eventually they started casting "Mr. Nezzer" in other roles. Although we've never seen this out of character in the "real world", it can probably be assumed that he is a single character.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment
    • Banishment...to the Island of Perpetual Tickling!
      Everyone: Gasp!!
    • From their version of Daniel in the lions' den:
      Scallions: We could give him jelly donuts, take 'em all away, we could fill his ears with cheese balls and his nostrils with sorbet. We could use him as a footstool or a table to play Scrabble on, then tie him up and beat him up and throw him out of Babylon! (from the song "What We Gonna Do?")
    • From Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie:
      Guard: ...The slap of no return!
      Everyone: [laughs]
      • But then you see it's a giant metal fish that swings down on you, turning you into a paste.
    • From "Gideon — Tuba Warrior":
      Gideon: We will defeat the Midianites with our horns and flashlights!
    • Then there's the Hebrews marching around Jericho getting slushies dropped on their heads.
  • The Corrupter: All the villains in the Larry-Boy films are this on some level:
    • The Fib in Larry-Boy! And the Fib from Outer Space! convinces Junior to tell lies to cover up the fact he broke a plate belonging to his dad. It turns out Junior's lies make the Fib more powerful, and before long Fib has kidnapped Junior and is destroying the city.
    • The Rumor Weed in Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed takes what she hears from Junior and Laura about Larry-Boy's butler and spreads it across the whole city, and eventually everyone is convinced Alfred is a robot and views him with fear and hatred.
    • To round out the list, The Bad Apple from "Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple" uses straight up temptation to trap citizens inside caverns of chocolate and endless video games.
    • Finally, the mad scientist Dr. Flurry from "The League of Incredible Vegetables" makes use of a freeze ray that is fueled by other people's fear.
  • Couch Gag: In the NBC TV version (which had a theme song completely different from the VHS and DVD versions), Pa Grape makes a different off-topic remark at the end of the theme song in every episode. For instance, in "Larry-Boy! and the Fib from Outer Space", he says "Maybe next time, they'll mention me in the song!" after changing his hat, where in another he asks when his sweater will be finished, eventually figuring out it probably won't be because of his lack of arms.
  • The Cover Changes the Gender: "The Rumor Weed Song" is sung by the female Rumor Weed, and other characters in the song say "she's a rumor weed!" The lead singer of The W's is male, so when The W's covered the song, the backup singers say "he's a rumor weed!" instead.
  • Counter-Productive Warning: In "The Toy That Saved Christmas", Mr. Nezzer has the heroes tied up and loaded on a bobsled, intending to exile them from town. An earlier scene had established that the bridge to Puggslyville has collapsed, and Larry the Cucumber chooses the worst possible time to remind Mr. Nezzer of that fact:
    Mr. Nezzer: Let's see. Where would you like to go? Wibblestown? Bumblyburg?
    Larry: Just don't send us to Puggslyville. The bridge is out.
    [Beat. Mr. Nezzer sports a sinister grin.]
    Mr. Nezzer: Puggslyville... Oh, I hear it's nice this time of year. Mr. Lunt, four tickets to Puggslyville, please.
  • Creator Cameo: In Madame Blueberry, Annie's parents are modeled after Phil Vischer and his wife, Lisa.
  • Credits Gag: "King George and the Ducky" featured an In Memoriam credit for... the computer server that Big Idea worked on, affectionately named Lumpy and was upgraded during the episode's production.
  • Cutaway Gag: Used in the TV version of A Snoodle's Tale, in which Larry asks Jimmy if he had a dream about a bagel once, which leads to Jimmy mentioning that he once had a dream about an aardvark that sang opera, which cuts to the short "Binky, The Opera Singer".
  • Dancing Bear: An In-Universe version occurs during The Star of Christmas. The protagonists are attempting to open a musical called "The Princess and the Plumber" on Christmas night in order to escape the fate of using their talents to sell dental wax. While some effort is made towards advertising it based on its merits as an actual play, Cavis Appethart repeatedly sells new actors and backers on it with the promise of using fancy, newly-invented electrical lights on the sets and costumes.
  • Dark Reprise: Mr. Nezzer's Villain Song has the same background music as "The Bunny Song" even if it's mostly spoken (and sounds very intentionally like "The Oogie Boogie Song" from The Nightmare Before Christmas).
  • Darker and Edgier:
    • Esther... The Girl Who Became Queen.
    • The Larry-Boy episodes are noticeably darker in tone than most VeggieTales. The first two both feature manipulative villains who trick innocent people into telling lies or spreading rumors. The Fib from Outer Space has a lot of city destruction and a child's life being in constant danger for about half the episode, and The Rumor Weed has an entire city turned against an innocent man to the point that they don't care if he dies. And in both of these episodes, the villain dies at the end. In the case of Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple it's also pretty dark. Though the villain survives this one, she is one of the more legitimate threats, calling into play the adult fear of surrendering to temptation and forcing people to cave to their desires. Also, veggies' lives are at risk when the apple tent rolls around and Larry-Boy himself is rendered almost powerless as a result of her powers.
    • Moe and the Big Exit is this, especially in regards to its predecessor The Ballad of Little Joe. While the first was a lighthearted Western revisionist take on the story of Joseph in Genesis, this one tells the story of Moses and actually doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of the story. People are sent "up the river" in this version. Moe really is banished and has to fight for his freedom, the plagues are real (even the newborn plague) and the villains are presumed to boil to death at the end in Death Valley.
    • The first episode to fit this trope is probably Rack, Shack, and Benny. A greedy CEO with no regard for labor laws trying to murder his workers for not worshipping his company image is certainly on the unsettling side for a religious kids' cartoon.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Bob, Mr. Lunt
  • Delicious Distraction: During the song "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything", Lunt notes Pa Grape is wearing a Captain Ersatz Captain Crunch hat, leading him to say, "You're making me hungry!"
  • Depth of Field: In "Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed", several Camera Tricks, such as playing with the depth-of-field, are used extensively when hitherto they were not.
  • Didn't Want an Adventure: Bob after a nasty spill in The Toy that Saved Christmas.
    Bob: Mouse Trap.
    Larry: Huh?
    Bob: I wanted to play Mouse Trap. You roll your dice, you move your mice, nobody gets hurt.
  • Did You Get a New Haircut?: Larry asks Bob this question at the beginning of "Noah's Ark" (In reality, everyone's character design was changed to match VeggieTales in the House.) Bob subsequently asks Larry if he's been working out.
  • Digital Destruction:
    • The original two shows that were released on DVD seem not to be remastered for whatever odd reason as the ones after those were completely clean footage. So when it came to the 15th anniversary of Where's God When I'm S-Scared?, they tried fixing it by saturating the colors, but it ends up having a purple tint over the whole episode and some sound effects were missing (eg. the Psycho sting when the wisemen were taking Daniel away). The reason this is odd is because the Silly Song was restored for the "Ultimate Silly Song Countdown", done in the similar way from Are You My Neighbor? (show 3) onwards. So it's possible either the original masters were either stolen or are currently in possessions of someone. Speaking of the Silly Song, the audio for The Water Buffalo Song from the 15th anniversary release was taken from the live shows which is completely re-orchestrated and uses Larry's current voice. While one can understand why since Mike Nawrocki stated he disliked the old voice, the problem is that only parts of the old audio can be heard and the beginning bits of Archibald's lines were cut.
    • When the VeggieTales Classics line in 2002-2004 remixed earlier episodes in 5.1 surround sound, a few major sound effects did not survive the transfer, and in "Rack, Shack and Benny"'s case, some music cues either play at the wrong time or go missing entirely. Also, changing the DVD track to "Stereo" will not save you, as it's typically just a mix-down of the newer 5.1 track instead of the original audio. The only DVDs in the Classics line that give you a choice between new and original audio are "King George and the Ducky" and "Madame Blueberry."
    • Aside from the two films, the show never went into widescreen until Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry's Big River Rescue. Strangely, this move never came onto the DVD releases until Pistachio. So many of the compilations made after 2011 would either zoom in the footage from the pre-2008 shows or stretch the sides to match with the new footage. This also includes the Blu-ray releases of the pre-2008 episodes.
    • Framerate is another issue. Despite the earlier episodes (up to and including Esther) being animated at 30fps, compilations and some rereleases bring it down to 24fps, creating noticeable frame-skipping.
    • Rack, Shack & Benny has a bizarre example: When the video was originally released, several complex shots were rendered at 15 frames per second due to crunch time. These shots were reproduced at their intended 30fps for all reprints of the video from 1996 to 2001, but for whatever reason, the 2002 DVD and all subsequent re-releases "restore" the original broken framerate, alongside introducing many other problems with color and sound.
    • Many of the official YouTube channel's uploads of some videos, mainly full episodes, have a glitch in the audio that sounds like echoing. Examples include the uploads of Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, Pistachio: The Little Boy Who Woodn't and "The Story of Saint Patrick" segment from Sumo of the Opera.
  • Disney Acid Sequence: Some of the Silly Songs fall under this, most notably "Where Have All the Staplers Gone?"
  • Disney Villain Death: The mirror in Sweetpea Beauty.
  • Disproportionate Retribution:
    • In Rack, Shack and Benny. What else do you call burning people alive because they won't sing a song about chocolate bunnies?
    • Happens again in The Toy that Saved Christmas. While Nezzer's understandably angry at the group for sneaking on his property and using his tv studio without his knowledge or consent, responding by planning to send them off a cliff to their deaths is rather over the top.
  • Downer Ending: To the Silly Song "Pizza Angel". Larry waited for hours for a pizza delivery... The delivery boy couldn't find his house and then ate his pizza.
  • "Down Here!" Shot: A chapter book based on Larry-Boy: The Cartoon Adventures features an evil emperor who is a cherry tomato. A Running Gag in this particular book is that nobody can see him when he talks, so he has to tell everyone "I'm down here!"
  • Dream Intro: The story "The Asparagus Of La Mancha" from the episode "Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler" starts with Don Quixote (played by Archibald Asparagus) having a bad dream where he is confronted by a horde of pea soldiers that start throwing giant hamburgers at him. This is one of several bad dreams that he has throughout the entire story.
  • Drive-Thru Antics: "Madame Blueberry" has the song "His Cheeseburger", in which Jerry Gourd tries to order a cheeseburger at the Burger Bell drive-thru, but finds the restaurant is closed for the night. But he wants that burger so much, and Burger Bell reopens at 10 the next morning, so he decides to wait at the drive-thru until then (until he heads to Denny's for breakfast, but "he'll eat and be back here for lunch.").
  • Dub-Induced Plot Hole: The Finnish dub of Where's God When I'm S-Scared? changes the moral to say that monsters do not exist, yet they were part of a plot point on how Junior got scared.
    • The Indonesian dub of Rack, Shack & Benny cuts the scene where the titular characters introduce themselves, leading viewers to wonder how Mr. Nezzer knows their names.
  • Eerily Out-of-Place Object: Noah's ark, of all things, becomes this in Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella. The ark itself is perched on the snowy ledge of a mountain, and is easily mistaken for a pub from the outside.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • The show definitely took a while to find its niche. The first three episodes used the Two Shorts formula as opposed to the later episodes where one long story is usually used. Larry's voice is also far different in the early episodes, using a deep dumb sounding one with a lisp (the lisp did stay for a while, until Mike Nawrocki got tired of it and stopped). Where's God When I'm S-Scared?, being the first episode, shows the most of this — it is the only one to use title cards for each segment, an actual child reads the letter that opens the episode as opposed to Bob or Larry paraphrasing it, and a female voice narrates the second segment instead of a character from the show (this wouldn't happen again until Esther). God Wants Me to Forgive Them!? also lacks a Silly Song (using instead a commercial for the "Forgive-o-matic"), as it was originally intended to be a one-off skit and not a recurring thing, until parents complained about it.
    • Where's God When I'm S-Scared? was even weirder in the original VHS print run (of which there were only about 500). The Theme Tune is missing the middle section lyrics sung in turn by Bob, Junior, and Larry, and individual sets of credits are played after both Tales From The Crisper and Daniel And The Lion's Den instead of at the very end. The latter was changed because parents reported that their kids thought the whole video was over at the credits and subsequently missed out on the Silly Song and ending countertop scene.
  • Easily Forgiven:
    • Mr. Nezzer tries to kill Rack, Shack and Benny by throwing them into a fiery furnace, all because they won't bow down before his giant chocolate bunny and sing "The Bunny Song". He even laughs maniacally once they fall in and seemingly die. When they miraculously survive, he apologizes and they all forgive him instantly.
    • This happens again in The Toy That Saved Christmas. On Christmas Eve, Mr. Nezzer tries to kill Bob, Larry, Junior and Louie, and gets caught red-handed by the entire population of Dinkletown, including Junior's parents. Not only do they respond by giving Nezzer a present, but on Christmas Day, he gets invited to their Christmas party anyway.
    • Also happens in The Ultimate Silly Song Countdown, after Pa Grape is caught trying to stuff the ballot so his song will get first place in the countdown.
    • King George in King George and the Ducky admits to Thomas what he did and why he did it, and asks for forgiveness. "After thinking it over," as the narration says, Thomas forgives him. This is despite the fact that King George sent him off to war just so he could steal Thomas's rubber duck.
    • Subverted in The League of Incredible Vegetables. Dr. Flurry expresses gratitude to Larry-Boy for saving his life despite his actions and asks if they could become friends, only to be taken away by the police a few moments later.
  • Easter Egg: Every DVD before 2010 has a few. Fitting, seeing as this is a Christian show we're talking about.
  • Easter Episode:
  • Easter Special: "An Easter Carol", which also happens to be a sequel to "The Star Of Christmas".
  • Eat the Camera:
    • By Larry in the silly song "Sippy Cup" while doing a Big "NO!" when Jimmy Gourd explains why Larry needs a sippy cup.
    • Also done by Junior in "The Gourds Must Be Crazy" when he says "Grab the gourds!"
  • Elvish Presley: Literally, in Lord of the Beans. Larry wears a sequined jumpsuit and fake elf ears for his Silly Song. Jimmy Gourd even invokes the trope by calling him "an Elvish impersonator."
  • Embarrassing Slide: A version of this occurs in one of the silly songs (The Song of the Cebu): the song is sung along with a slideshow... which eventually stops showing relevant pictures and starts showing vacation pictures instead. The song quickly ends, to the consternation of Archibald, who wonders just what the ending of the song was supposed to be. The vacation pictures aren't that embarrassing, but there is one slide that's not shown to the viewer...note 
    In-Universe Audience: Oooooo...
    Larry: Forgot about that one. [quickly changes to another slide]
  • Enhanced on DVD: The version of The Toy That Saved Christmas that was released in 1997 had several scenes that were reanimated which resulted in more fluid animation and additional effects. This version has been used for all subsequent releases of the show afterwards although the original version with less fluid animation can still be found on any copy of the show that was printed in 1996 as well as early printings from the 1998 release.
  • Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: The Japanese part of "The Hairbrush Song" in VeggieTales Live: Sing Yourself Silly! is subtitled as "[Larry singing in Romaji]".
  • Everybody Do the Endless Loop: The first happy part of "God is Bigger" has Bob and Larry going from side to side in the same way for almost the entirety of said part.
    • The building's dance at the end of Rack, Shack and Benny also counts as this. It even continues to dance when the music temporarily stops at the end.
  • Evil Makes You Ugly: Used in "Sweetpea Beauty"; the queen's obsession with becoming beautiful coupled with the evil mirror's manipulation leads her to do increasingly horrible things, which gradually makes her more and more hideous. The mirror hides this fact by showing her false reflections of herself.
  • Exact Words: When Pistachio realizes he's been tricked, this exchange happens:
    Pistachio: But you said you wouldn't steer me wrong!
    The Fox: No, we said "Why would we steer you wrong?" And the answer is, five. Gold. Coins.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Silly Songs with Larry," the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song.
  • Exit, Pursued by a Bear: In the song "Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps", Larry is chased off by an angry bear, as retribution for refusing to give his assistant a raise.
  • Expository Theme Tune: Whether this is played straight or averted is rather iffy. The theme song says the show's name an awful lot, addresses the show's demographics (It's for the kids who like to talk to tomatoes), and even states how long an episode is. (Cauliflower, sweet and sour, half an hour, Veggie Tales) However, it speaks very little of the show's premise, aside from the mention of the lack of the characters' dexterity, a common point the show makes, and doesn't even speak of the religious aspect, confusing a lot of first-time viewers.
  • Extra-Long Episode: Starting around 2002, later episodes began to run for either 40 minutes or even 50 minutes, as opposed to earlier episodes, which ran only 30 minutes.
  • The Faceless: Rack's, Shack's, and Benny's savior.
  • Facepalm: Hope does this a few times in An Easter Carol in response to some of the things Nezzer says.
  • Fear Song: The League of Incredible Vegetables: In "Freeze, Freeze, Freeze," Dr. Flurry sings about his fear of the heroes, listing the symptoms it causes in him. He also describes how he plans to weaponize the heroes' own fears against them.
  • Flat "What":
  • Follow the Bouncing Ball
  • Food Fight: "The Great Pie War", which plays a role in both King George and the Ducky and Duke and the Great Pie War.
  • Forbidden Chekhov's Gun: Towards the end of The Star of Christmas, Seymour warns Millward not to use the eleventh rocket on the rocket-powered car as it has not been tested yet. Millward ends up using it.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • After Larry, Mr. Lunt and Pa Grape successfully host an entire episode (Gideon: Tuba Warrior) as The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, Pa makes a mock poster with a suggestion to star in their own pirate movie." A year later and guess what happens?
    • At the end of the episode (Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler), Larryboy (Larry the Cucumber) states his dress rehearsal for the next show (LarryBoy and The Bad Apple) starts in two minutes.
  • Four-Fingered Hands:
    • The angel Hope in An Easter Carol has these.
    • And Buzzsaw Louie from The Toy that Saved Christmas has fingerless hands.
  • Framing Device: Most episodes are framed by scenes of the characters on the countertop, who tell the stories. A few don't use the countertop scenes, but still have the main episodes' plots put in the context of a character telling a story. It's averted in Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen and the two Netflix spin-off series, though.
    • The TV version used scenes set at Bob's house instead of the countertop segments, while in Brazil, in 2005, the show had another spin-off series called Os Amigos Vegetais which used costumed character versions of the VeggieTales characters playing in their house and also had musical numbers and segments that took place outside of the set.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus:
    • When the characters are looking around the TV studio in The Toy That Saved Christmas, the couch from "I Love My Lips" and the broken vase picture and the steak knives from the Forgive-o-Matic make a very easy-to-miss cameo.
    • During the Rorschach test part of "I Love My Lips," among the cards is a caricature of Sonny Bono, and the formula of the Avogadro Constant.
  • Frothy Mugs of Water: During any tavern or bar scene, root beer is substituted for the real stuff.
  • Furry Confusion: Given the fact that the characters are anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables, this occasionally happens.
    • In "The Lord Of The Beans" story, an anthropomorphic asparagus is given a powerful non-anthropomorphic bean.
    • Apple pie is eaten in "Madame Blueberry."
    • "Duke and the Great Pie War" also includes regular apples alongside the anthropomorphic blueberry, as well as lots of pies. This was addressed in the DVD commentary for this episode. When asked by fans whether or not the consumption of apples and other plants was cannibalism, they replied that it "didn't count" if the vegetable could not talk.
    • The silly song "Pizza Angel" from the "Minnesota Cuke" video includes a reference to how much Larry the Cucumber likes tomato sauce — while ignoring the fact that his best friend is a tomato. One wonders if Mr. Lunt likes pickle on "His Cheeseburger". (And then one wonders where the crust came from. There's probably flour in it. Flour comes from wheat. Wheat is a grain. Grains are seeds. Seeds are embryonic plants. So the pizza is cheese on top of the mashed innards of Bob's uncle, on top of hundreds of abortions.)
    • There are animals in the VeggieTales world as well.
    • Larry Boy and the Rumor Weed has Mr. Nezzer grilling what is clearly a steak.
    • VeggieTales likes to play with this all the same. Peas refer to being smashed into soup, but a non-anthro pumpkin is acceptable for pounding into slurry. In a book adapting the Egyptian plagues, tomato juice is substituted for blood in the Nile. In the episode with the plagues of Egypt, there's a short scene of Bob the Tomato seeing this and fainting.
    • There are now VeggieTales branded tomato, cucumber, and so on seeds.
    • The song "The Dinner Time Song" from the album Bob and Larry's Toddler Songs contains the recurring line "But hold the tomatoes and the cucumbers, please!", sung by Larry, who himself is a cucumber.
    • In "The Asparagus of La Mancha", Don, played by Archibald, gets nightmares from eating salsa, which is made from tomatoes.
    • Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie has The Slap of No Return demonstrated on an non-sentinent pumpkin. In addition, the Japanese dub replaces the "Do you prefer poking or non-poking?" joke with a quip about a vegetarian menu, when the characters themselves are vegetables.
    • In "Celery Night Fever", the caterpillar character Stix chops vegetables up and flings them into his vegetable customers' mouths during the song "Feel The Beat".
  • Gender Flip:
    • In The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's, their The Wizard of Oz parody, their Dorothy analogue is named "Darby" and played by Junior Asparagus.
    • In A Little Princess, the homeless child and the baker whom Sara meets were both female, but in The Penniless Princess, these characters are played by Junior and Bob, respectively.
  • George Lucas Altered Version:
    • "The Toy That Saved Christmas" had several shots re-animated and some music re-composed two years after the original release.
    • The 15th anniversary release of the first episode had a redubbed version of the Silly Song with Larry's current voice. This is somewhat jarring due to the fact that the first part of Archibald's dialog ("Stop it! Stop!") is muted out.
  • Good Shepherd: Reverend Gilbert (Dad Asparagus) in The Star of Christmas and An Easter Carol. He is seen teaching his son Edmund moral lessons, extending goodwill to people like Mr. Nezzer, and going out of his way to help those in need. He keeps this general attitude even when he's under a lot of pressure, such as the possibility of the church he works at being knocked down or his son becoming deathly ill.
  • Goofy Print Underwear: When the van crashes into a clothesline in Jonah, a pair is plastered against the windshield.
  • Graceful Loser: While not exactly a loss in the technical sense, the effect is still the same. In Sumo of the Opera, Apollo Gourd and The Italian Scallion (Larry) have a sumo match. The result of the match is a draw. Since no one had ever gotten that far against Apollo Gourd, all the praise gets showered on The Italian Scallion anyway. Apollo is a good sport about it.
  • Grand Finale: Subverted in Noah's Ark. While the episode makes no clear reference to it being the final one, the theme song features pictures of past episodes instead of a montage of clips.
  • Grandpa God: During both Snoodle poems and the Pirates movie, although these portrayals are allegorical.
  • Gratuitous English: The Japanese dub not only refers to The Peach as "peach-kun," but also leaves every instance of the song titles in "Busy, Busy" and "Love Your Neighbor" in English.
  • Guilty Pleasures: Larry likes his soap operas, and owns a plush of Barbara Manatee that he dances with.
  • Hand Wave: Done in-universe in The Toy that Saved Christmas. When Annie questions the fact that a toy just came to life in the story George is telling her, George waves it off with, "Maybe he was wired different! Who knows?"
  • Hard-Work Montage: The "Sumo of the Opera" parodies the Rocky series.
  • Hate Sink: Miss Minchin in The Penniless Princess. She is easily one of the most vile and loathsome characters depicted in the show, and she is one of very few major VeggieTales villains not to undergo a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Headdesk: Done by Larry in The End of Silliness?, Archibald in The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo, and Mr. Lunt during the outtakes of Jonah: A Veggietales Movie after Larry messes up his lines three times.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: According to audio commentary they came up with Wally P. Nezzer in The Toy that Saved Christmas in an attempt to avert this; they'd just had Mr. Nezzer Heel–Face Turn in Rack, Shack, and Benny so having him come back as a villain seemed odd, hence giving him a brother. They gave up on the idea after that.
    Phil Vischer: Rather than just keeping expanding his family we installed a little morality switch in his back. Good Nezzer, bad Nezzer, good Nezzer, bad Nezzer...
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • "Rack Shack and Benny": Nebby K. Nezzer
    • "The Toy That Saved Christmas":Wally P. Nezzer
    • "Daniel and the Lion's Den": King Darius
    • "Minnesota Cuke": Prof. Rattan between story arcs.
    • "Saint Nicholas": Gustav
    • "Lord of the Beans": The sporks
    • "The Ballad of Little Joe": Little Joe's brothers
  • Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The personalized DVD and the two personalized CDs.
  • Herbivore Confusion:
    • In a world populated by talking vegetables and fruits, there are pies and popcorn balls as food, and apparently "apple choppers". It was confirmed in the commentary for Duke and the Great Pie War (and demonstrated in Jonah) that there are non-sentient fruits and vegetables in their world as well.
    • In their version of Daniel and the Lion's Den, a cucumber is tossed to lions.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Bob and Larry.
  • Hive Mind: The other little weeds in Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed turn out to be under the control of "the mother weed", a giant weed that lives under the ground.
  • Homage: The ending of The Toy That Saved Christmas is a huge one to the climax of Batman Forever.
  • Honesty Aesop:
    • The episode Larry-Boy! And The Fib From Outer Space has Junior break his father's limited edition Art Bogatti plate. At the same time, he meets a creature called a Fib who convinces him to lie about the situation until the Fib becomes a monster. Larry-Boy is then called to deal with the monster, and is told by his butler Alfred that Junior has to stop the Fib by confessing that he lied himself, which shrinks the Fib down to normal size.
    • The VeggieTales in the House episode "Lie-Monade" has Larry learning a lesson in honesty when he cons the veggies out of their money to buy a video game.
  • I Am X, Son of Y: In "Lord of the Bean": Randalf, son of Mandalf; the leader of the Razzberry Forest, Lord Falaminion Tereglith, son of Therebil-Elithimon.
  • I Can See My House from Here: Daniel says this in Daniel and the Lions' Den while he is facing a pit of lions.
    • In The Star of Christmas, Edmund says this when the rocket-powered car is launched upwards after Millward uses the eleventh rocket.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Discussed and then averted in The Toy that Saved Christmas. At the end, Louie wants to get rid of his buzz saw because even though the fact he had it saved everyone's lives earlier, he thinks that it's too dangerous to keep around. Then he changes his mind and goes into carpentry.
  • I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Laura uses this to excuse herself when Junior breaks his dad's plate in Larry-Boy! And the Fib From Outer Space!
  • I Take Offense to That Last One: In the first story of God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?!, Rosie unleashes a long string of insults on her brother Tom, ending with the word "boy"; Pa tells her to apologize since Tom just turned 18 and is now should be called a "man."
  • I Will Show You X!: When Larry says "No comprendo" in response to Bob's question about if Larry had seen Bob dancing at Uncle Louie's polka party, Bob exclaims, "No comprendo?! I'll show you 'no comprendo!'"
  • Identical Ancestor: Nebby K. Nezzer's Victorian-era ancestor Ebeneezer is presumably one.
  • Identical Stranger: Miss Minchin uses the same model as Miss Acmetha. Word of God says they are two distinct characters.
  • Idiot Ball: During the opening countertop segment of Rack, Shack, and Benny, when Bob brings up what the topic of the show is (trying to do the right thing), Larry's first reaction is to go straight to Qwerty for help. The only reason they have him do this is because he has an oven mitt on his head (thus he can't see), so of course he doesn't see where he's going and falls into the sink. While Larry is a Kindhearted Simpleton, this is a course of action that never happens until the closing countertop segment; they specifically made him break away from the usual routine just to make him fall into the sink.
  • Inconsistent Spelling:
    • Larry-Boy/Larryboy/LarryBoy. The first was used in Fib from Outer Space & Rumor Weed, the second was used in the Flash-animated spinoff series, and the third was used in Bad Apple.
    • Edmund/Edmond Gilbert (played by Junior Asparagus) in The Star of Christmas and An Easter Carol. He is credited as "Edmond" but in subtitles and on the back of the box for The Star of Christmas it is spelled "Edmund".
    • Mr. Nezzer's name in Brazilian Portuguese is often spelled as Sr. Nozzor, Sr. Nozor, or Sr. Nosor.
  • Inherently Funny Words: Say it with me now: "CeBUUUUUUU!"
  • In Name Only: Invoked in "God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?!" When Larry presents the short "The Grapes of Wrath", Bob is surprised that it involves a family of cranky grapes and bears no resemblance to the book the title comes from.
  • In-Universe Factoid Failure: In Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry Bob/Tomato Sawyer wants to open a Tax Firm on the land that they're trying to own... but little does he know, the income tax hasn't even been started in America yet.
  • Insane Troll Logic:
    • "The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill And Came Down With All The Bananas": The Englishman takes all the bananas from a hill, but doesn't eat them because "You can't eat bananas without strawberries!" And then a Swedish man takes all the strawberries from another hill, but "can't eat strawberries without bananas!" And then they refuse to share with each other.
    • One of Pa Grape's home movies in the TV series has a girl say that she is 15 feet tall and 12,000 pounds because she ate a lot of corn growing up.
  • Insistent Terminology:
    • Larry gets a bit offended whenever anyone mistakes him for a pickle.
    • In "Minnesota Cuke", Larry insists that it's not a hat, it's a fedora.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Junior sometimes is shown to have this with Bob and Larry, as well as Jimmy Gourd and Mr. Lunt since they and Larry became the band, Boyz in the Sink.
  • Invisible Anatomy: Averted with feet (the characters move around by hopping), but the characters' lack of hands is constantly Lampshaded:
    • Right from the start, before the theme song:
      Bob: I know! You play the guitar!
      Larry: Bob, I don't have any hands.
    • Josh and the Big Wall had Tom Grape and Pa Grape lampshade how they and other characters were applauding a giant rocket.
      Tom: How are we clapping?
      Pa: I have no idea.
    • Probably one of the funniest ones, from "Madame Blueberry."
      Larry: [crying out loud with Bob after the ending] Hold me, Bob!
      Bob: I would if I could, maaaaan!
    • "Lyle the Kindly Viking" has a reference.
      Bjorn (Lunt): I would clap if I could.
    • Dr. Jiggle and Mr. Sly repeatedly shows close-ups of a character's hands and feet, who is then shocked when he doesn't have limbs in the long shots. It's kind of weird, really.
    • Invisible hair as well - in Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson's Hairbrush, Martin notices Minnesota's haircut even though he never had any hair to begin with. Though a few scenes later, Minnesota can't use the power of the hairbrush since he has no hair (a reference to The Hairbrush Song). Go figure.
    • From the personalized show:
      Larry: I think we should give our good friend a hand!
      Bob: But, Larry, we can't. We don't have hands.
      Larry: I was speaking metaphorically, Bob.
  • It Was with You All Along: In Larry-Boy! And the Fib from Outer Space!, Larry-Boy and Alfred get a bit frantic trying to figure out how the monster can be stopped, especially after the Fib catches Larry-Boy. As it turns out, the only one who can stop the Fib is Junior Asparagus, who has been about five feet away from Larry-Boy for the past several minutes.
  • It's a Wonderful Plot: "It's a Meaningful Life".
  • It's the Only Way: In The Toy that Saved Christmas, Junior uses this to justify sneaking into Mr. Nezzer's factory when Bob and Louie question the wisdom of doing so.

    Tropes J to R 
  • Jesus Taboo:
    • The show's theological consultant forbade them from portraying Jesus as a vegetable, which is one reason most of the Bible stories are from the Old Testament. Jesus of course is discussed in many of the segments, so still somewhat averted. Jesus does appear in human form on the stained glass windows in "An Easter Carol".
    • When the series was syndicated on Qubo, Executive Meddling changed Bob's closing catchphrase from "God made you special, and He loves you very much" to "Thanks for coming to my house today, kids. See you next week! Goodbye!" Phil Vischer was annoyed.
  • Karma Houdini: Typically in VeggieTales, villains either have a change of heart or are defeated in some way, but there are some exceptions:
    • In "The Story of Flibber-O-Loo", the crooks (the Scallions) who mug the Flibbian (Larry) simply run off with his money and are never seen again.
    • In Madame Blueberry, the Stuff-Mart people wind up destroying Madame Blueberry's house. No one sues them.
    • In Lord of the Beans, the Elders of the Razzberry Forest were bribed by Scaryman to betray the Fellowship. Nothing happens to them.
    • In Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella, the Scallions steal a prize trophy fish. Minnesota Cuke (Larry) makes several attempts for years to stop them, only to fail every time. Nothing is shown of the Scallions afterward.
    • In Pistachio, a puppeteer tries to kidnap Pistachio, and when Pistachio flees in terror he encounters three con men who trick him out of his money and then toss him into the sea. These guys all quietly drop out of the story after their scenes are over.
  • Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: "Where's God When I'm S-scared?" starts with Junior Asparagus watching "Frankencelery," and becoming frightened by everything in the house after that. However, the point of the episode is that Junior doesn't need to be scared because God is taking care of him, not that he shouldn't have watched the movie.
  • "Kiss the Cook" Apron:
    • In Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Sampson's Hairbrush: Mike Asparagus wears a white "Kiss the Cook" apron while grilling outdoors.
    • The cover of the CD "Bob and Larry's Backyard Party" has Larry don a "Kiss The Cuke" apron.
  • "King Kong" Climb:
    • In Larry-Boy! And the Fib from Outer Space!, the Fib carries Junior to the top of a water tower. Then Larry-Boy flies up there after them in his Larry-Plane.
    • Played with in the next Larry-Boy movie, when the Weed is wrapped around a building and reaches out a vine to grab Alfred.
  • Large Ham: Archibald, Larry as Larry-Boy, occasionally Bob
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: In the episode "Lessons From The Sock Drawer", we learn that Lutfi is performed by Khalil from Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie. The outfit he wears is the one he wears at the end of said movie, during the scene that reveals he exists in the world the story was being told in as a tow truck driver. He also wears the same costume in the "Bubble Rap" song that premiered in "If I Sang A Silly Song...", but to avoid this trope, the hat and jacket now has a patch with the text "K-LIL" instead of an image of a truck.
  • Later-Installment Weirdness:
    • Most episodes produced after Phil Vischer left the writing team used original stories based on pop culture rather than biblical adaptations, the lone exception being the final direct to video installment Noah's Ark.
    • In the episodes produced between Vischer's departure and the DreamWorks buyout, the "Silly Songs" segment were replaced with other musical skits starring other characters. After the DreamWorks buyout, "Silly Songs with Larry" was brought back.
    • The final episode, Noah's Ark, had a completely different art style to match VeggieTales in the House.
  • Lighter and Softer: The League of Incredible Vegetables in comparison to the earlier Larry-Boy episodes. The villain is a Large Ham who is not nearly as calculatingly manipulative as the villains in the earlier Larry-Boys, many of the characters' fears are Played for Laughs, and even the lighting and the music is much lighter and more cheery.
  • Literal Cliffhanger:
    • In The Toy that Saved Christmas, Louie and the penguins form a Chain of People to save Mr. Nezzer...and it leads to all of them stuck dangling off a cliff. Thankfully George comes to save them.
    • In Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella, at one point Cuke and his friends are captured by their enemies and left locked in a cage dangling over a cliff. Cuke comments that he hates cliffhangers. Cue "Silly Songs with Larry".
  • Littlest Cancer Patient: Edmund Gilbert (played by Junior Asparagus) is apparently perfectly fine in The Star of Christmas, but he becomes dangerously ill by An Easter Carol. What sets Ebeneezer Nezzer towards his change of heart is Hope informing him that Edmund has less than a year to live if nothing changes.
  • Live-Action Adaptation: A spin-off series titled Os Amigos Vegetais was released exclusively in Brazil, showing the veggies as live-action characters.
  • Living Toys:
    • The Toy that Saved Christmas: A Buzzsaw Louie doll mysteriously comes to life, realizes that he doesn't like the sound of whatever he was originally programmed to say, and sets off to find the true meaning of Christmas.
    • Pistachio: Pistachio (played by Junior Asparagus) is a wooden toy carved from a "very special" log.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: How Bad Apple plans to conquer Bumblyburg just like her great-uncle almost did, starting with the mayor, the reporter, and Larry-Boy.
  • Loud of War:
    • Josh and the Big Wall!: Joshua and his men scream to make the wall fall down.
    • Gideon: Tuba Warrior: Gideon's side uses their horns and flashlights to defeat the Midianities.
  • Lured into a Trap: In Lord of the Beans, Scaryman bribed the Elders of the Razzberry Forest to send Toto to the Land of Woe where Scaryman could ambush him and take the bean.
  • Major General Song
  • Maurice Chevalier Accent: The French Peas. Of course, they are based on the French knights from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
  • Mean Character, Nice Actor / Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Frankencelery.
  • Medium Awareness: In The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's, Larry tells Bob that they can't let the show be too short, since they have a whole DVD to fill.
    • Also in The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's when asking why Pa Grape/The Lion didn't eat the rabbits and animals in the forest if he was so hungry he responds with "They won't let me do that. Children's film."
    • In Jonah, Dad Asparagus isn't satisfied until there's a big musical number to close the film.
    • Also in Jonah, "The Credits Song".
  • A Minor Kidroduction: As a tribute to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, "Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella" starts off with Minnesota, Marten, and the Scallions as kids.
  • Missed Him by That Much:
    • In Larry-Boy! And the Fib from Outer Space!, Larry-Boy must find the mysterious object that fell from space. The object in question is Fib, who is out with Junior. Larry-Boy says "hello" to them one time and another time passes by without even seeing them. He gives up and goes home...only to have to head out again because Fib is destroying Bumblyburg.
    • In The Penniless Princess, Mr. Carrisford and Sara run into each other while Sara is running errands. After they have a friendly chat, Mr. Carrisford leaves, having no idea that he just spoke to the girl he's been searching for for a long time.
  • Mistaken for Santa: In one "Silly Song", Larry is up late on Christmas Eve, and so thinks that anyone who enters his house must be Santa. He ends up letting in two criminals instead of Santa, although the real Santa does show up afterwards.
  • Mood Whiplash: A number of the single-story episodes have a cliffhanger or otherwise dramatic moment close the first half, immediately followed by Silly Songs with Larry.
  • The Moral Substitute: A major exception to examples typical of the trope. As well as being its own completely original concept, and being a much higher-quality product overall than most Moral Substitutes, VeggieTales has the distinction of being the Trope Maker for the entire medium of All CGI Cartoons. For once, a Religious Edutainment series broke new ground while everyone else played Follow the Leader.
  • More than Mind Control: How the Bad Apple gets citizens to fall into her Lotus-Eater Machine.
  • Motionless Chin: Not to mention, literally, No Knees.
  • Mountaintop Healthcare: Played for Laughs in a Silly Song, where Larry (playing the Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps) runs a veterinary shack up in the mountains and his yodeling supposedly cures animals of all ailments (it's actually his nurse and said nurse's more practical aids)
  • The Movie: Several, though only two had theatrical releases — Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie and The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.
  • Mr. Imagination: Larry. They call him LARRYBOY!
  • Murder by Cremation: Almost happens in "Rack, Shack, and Benny", just like in the Bible.
  • Musical Chores: In The Penniless Princess, Sara and Becky sing while they do the work assigned by Miss Minchin.
  • Mythology Gag: The slushees in "Gideon: Tuba Warrior" and the hairbrush in "The Search for Samson's Hairbrush" are a couple of examples.
  • Namedar: Done unintentionally in the Indonesian dub of "Rack, Shack, and Benny". The dub gets rid of the scene where Rack, Shack, and Benny introduce themselves to Nebby K. Nezzer, leading to Nezzer knowing their names without being told what they are.
  • Never Say "Die":
    • Averted. Not only are several deadly situations portrayed in the show (such as being thrown into the fiery furnace or sent down a collapsed bridge), the characters don't shy away from mentioning it. Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space has a particularly harsh aversion that happens just as Larry-Boy is trying to get his Larry Mobile to transform into a plane on the verge of running into a wall:
      Larry-Boy: I am going to die!
    • The Penniless Princess takes it a step further, with Captain Crewe being explicitly stated to have died in war and Sara having to deal with losing her father at such a young age.
  • The Nicknamer: Mr. Lunt's character in "St. Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving" ... and all his nicknames are directed specifically at Nick.
  • "Nighthawks" Shot: The ice cream parlor in "The End of Silliness?"
  • Nightmarish Factory: The setting of "Rack, Shack and Benny" is this in spades. The employees are shown during the opening song to be worked absurdly hard for pitiful salaries and at least two of the employees, possibly more, are child laborers. Things come to a head when the protagonists' boss Mr. Nezzer decides that all of his employees have to bow down and worship a giant bunny statue or else he will burn them alive.
  • No Ending: The Song of the Cebu
    Archibald: You can't just start a song and leave it hanging like that!
    • Also parodied in "St. Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving". Bob stops the story at a seemingly random point (hesitant to tell his audience of very young vegetables that Nick's parents die) and they can't believe it's over already. Larry explains to them that it's one of those "European endings" meant to raise "more questions than answers."
  • No Flow in CGI: The characters were designed as vegetables because they were basically spheres with a few extra features. Easy to animate. At least that's how it began. While the later character designs are largely the same, the subtle details have changed quite a bit. Larry now looks more like an actual cucumber, with bumps and color striations. The animation has gotten more sophisticated, but why would the animators want to do something more complex when what we have now works so well? Giving Bob and Larry hands at this point would make about as much sense as putting a drop-tile ceiling on the Sistine Chapel.

    Clothes or costumes that the Veggies wear, however — notably shirts — tend to stick rigidly to their bodies, because this simplifies the animator's job tremendously. Occasionally this results in strange-looking object behaviors — like the paper bag that Larry wears over his head in the counter-top bookend scenes for "Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella," which sounds like a paper bag but moves like a rubber artist's eraser.
  • No Fourth Wall:
    • The intro and outro segments, some of the Silly Songs, and less frequently the stories themselves.
    • A rather memorable example was during "Omelet", modeled after Hamlet. As Ophelia, Mr. Lunt was pushed onto the "stage" in full drag:
      "I think we're going to get letters about this."
    • Jimmy Gourd's reaction is endlessly hilarious to this "fair Ophelia".
    • Subverted during the counter top segment leading to "Larry's Lagoon."
      Bob: Do you think the kids at home would like to hear about it? (The story where they learned forgiveness)
      Larry: Oh, yeah, most definitely. [Gives an Aside Glance] You would? Wouldn't ya?
      [Beat]''
      Bob: So what'd they say?
      Larry: Um...I don't know. I think they said yes.
  • No Indoor Voice: At first, Junior's voice actress wanted to use a childish voice for the character, so she spoke the lines of Junior in a very VERY high-pitched, squeaky voice. The creators didn't like that, though. They thought she was screaming her lines as Junior rather than speaking them. As the creators have pointed out in commentary, it wasn't really until "Lyle the Kindly Viking" that Junior's voice actress stopped speaking all of her lines in a really high-pitched, squeaky voice. Since the creators didn't like it, she toned down the high pitch and removed the squeak.
  • No Name Given: Given a Lampshade Hanging at one point:
    Larry: What's your name?
    Scallion: [pushing a broom] They've never given me a name. I've been around since Show One (Where's God When I'm Scared?), and I still don't have a name.
  • No Product Safety Standards: "The Toy that Saved Christmas" has Buzz-Saw Louie, the hot new toy with a real working buzzsaw!
  • Ode to Apathy: The trope-naming song about "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything", with lyrics including "We just stay at home and lie around!".
  • Off to See the Wizard: "The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's".
  • Oh, Crap!: Several examples;
    • Daniel (Larry) gets one after the Wisemen discover him praying to God instead of to Darius in "Daniel In The Lion's Den" in Where's God When I'm S-Scared?.
    • In "Larry's Lagoon" on God Wants Me To Forgive Them?!?, Bob and Larry both get this reaction when they see that their boat is about to run into a rock.
    • All of the Israelites in Dave And The Giant Pickle get this reaction when they see Goliath first arrive.
    • This was Jimmy and Jerry Gourd's reaction in King George And The Ducky when they hear Bob ask what's going on, while they were trying to host the show, without any success.
  • Once per Episode: Bob hates the song that precedes the final Aesop; Larry loves it. Turned on its head in Lord of the Beans, when the evil sporks steal the record — and Bob admits he misses the song.
  • One-Steve Limit: Played straight with the real names of main characters, but averted with names belonging to characters who appear less often, or characters they play. The name Louie appears very frequently—Junior invites someone named Louie to his birthday party in Are You My Neighbor, Bob says he danced at Uncle Louie's polka party in the Silly Song "Dance of the Cucumber", the toy in The Toy that Saved Christmas is named Louie (and Laura Carrot's youngest brother, who also appears in that episode, is named Baby Lou). Also the fact they have a character named George did not stop them from having Larry play a George in King George and the Ducky.
    • One of Larry's brothers is named Bob the Cucumber (which Bob the Tomato is shocked to learn)
    • There's both a Steven and a Steve (Steve being another of Larry's brothers)
  • Only Sane Employee: Bob.
  • "Pachelbel's Canon" Progression: The song "I Can Be Your Friend" uses it.
  • Painful Rhyme: Occurs in the theme song in the Latin Spanish redub (episodes dubbed at HCJB - Televozandes), where "coliflor-a" is used solely to rhyme with "zanahoria." Episodes dubbed at BVI Communications Inc., on the other hand, remove the "-a" from "coliflor", thus averting this trope.
  • Pair the Spares: Bob/Madame Blueberry is often a compliment ship for Larry/Petunia shippers.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Gee, who could "Larryboy" possibly be?
  • Parental Abandonment: In The Penniless Princess, Sara's mother is never shown and is implied to have died. (In the book it's based on, this is indeed the case.) Her father is in the opening scene, but dies later on (which is also accurate to the book).
  • Parental Bonus: What's pretty notable about this is that they tend to rely mostly on references and parody rather than sex stuff
    • Most of the literary references, for starters.
    • The Star Trek and Gilligan's Island parodies.
    • Monty Python references, the most explicit being the French Peas as the people of Jericho taunting the Israelites from atop their wall. Oddly enough, they started out playing Philistines in a less explicit reference to the same scene.
      • The Fish Slappers in Jonah are explicitly explained as being inspired by Monty Python, in the audio commentary (the Larry and Mr. Lunt one).
    • In Lyle, the Kindly Viking, the episode starts off with Larry mentioning various viewer questions about sharing, such as "When do I have to share?", "Why do I have to share?", "Whatever happened to Sonny & Cher?".
      • On that note, in the Silly Song with Larry "I Love My Lips", when Larry sings "It's a lip, it's a lip, it's a lip lip lip" to the tune of the William Tell Overture during a Rorschach test, one of the cards is a non-animated photo of Sonny Bono.
    • In the silly song Larry's High Silk Hat it opens with a white feather floating down from the sky as Larry is sitting on a bench with a box of chocolates waiting for the bus.
    • "What are the Philippines?" "The Philippines are a group of islands off the coast of Southeast Asia, but that's not important now. The Philistines...."
  • Perverse Sexual Lust: An in-universe example; in "Barbara Manatee," one of the Silly Songs With Larry segments, Larry appears to be crushing on a manatee from a TV show. He even has a plush of her, which he sings to and dances with.
  • Piano Drop: Once on a cake in Esther, and several times down a flight of stairs in Sumo of the Opera.
  • Pirate Song: The original Pirates Who Don't Do Anything introduce themselves by singing about all the acts of piracy and seamanship they've never done.
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The Trope Namer is the silly song of the same title, which centers around a group of pirates who don't do anything. One of them doesn't even seem to know what a pirate is supposed to do!
  • Playing Against Type:
    • In-universe example: the episode Pistachio has Junior, the kind, lovable asparagus, playing a rebellious, talkative puppet.
    • Mr. Nezzer is usually cast as a villain, and when he's not playing a villain he's playing a rather goofy fellow. And then in Lord of the Beans he plays Randalf, and while he still is occasionally goofy, for the most part he comes across as a wise leader and the Only Sane Man.
  • Potty Emergency:
    • Larry has this multiple times-once as Sven in Lyle The Kindly Viking, and as LarryBoy in all but two episodes (LarryBoy and the Rumor Weed and The Leauge of Incredible Vegetables lack a mention of this sort of thing). He also has one in the countertop segments of Veggies in Space.
    • Junior also mentions having one in the song "Are We There Yet?"
  • Prince and Pauper: The story Princess and the Popstar with Princess Poppyseed and Vanna Banana.
  • Product Delivery Ordeal: In the short "Going Up!", Larry, Jerry, and Mr. Lunt work for a delivery service run by Mister Nezzer and they are given the difficult task of delivering a piano up a large staircase for their customer, Madame Blueberry. Jerry and Mr Lunt eventually get distracted when an ice cream truck passes by, leaving Larry to deliver the piano by himself.
  • Product Placement:
    • The Silly Song "His Cheeseburger" plays it straight - when they mention Denny's, we actually see a Denny's sign.
    • In The League of Incredible Vegetables, Pull-Ups and Go-Gurt are mentioned.
    • This exchange from the Qubo series:
    Pa Grape: Is that (sweater) from Land's End?
    Archibald: L.L. Bean.
    • The Silly Song "Sport Utility Vehicle", from the episode "A Snoodle's Tale", mentions no less that five real-life brands by name in its lyrics, with the specific brands being Jeep, Subaru, 7-Eleven, Frito-Lays, and Dunkin' Donuts.
  • Production Foreshadowing: Bumblyburg gets a little mention in The Toy That Saved Christmas when Mr. Nezzer is deciding where to send the main characters as punishment. The first Larry-Boy video didn't come out until less than a year after, which actually took place in Bumblyburg.
    • In Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella, we see the front of a theater that the protagonists are coming out of. The movie featured on the marquee? Saint Nicholas, the next show to be released.
  • Prompting Nudge: At the beginning of the episode "King George And The Ducky", Jimmy and Jerry Gourd are both wearing cardboard cutouts of Bob and Larry. After Jimmy tries introducing himself as Bob the Tomato, Jerry tries introducing himself as Larry the Cucumber, but stops after saying "And I'm Larry", prompting Jimmy to give Jerry a nudge in the side, so that Jerry can finish with "Cucumber".
  • Pun: Oh so many. One of their collections is called "Lessons From the Sock Drawer: A Collection of VeggieTales Shorts and Briefs."
  • Pun-Based Title: Besides the title of the show itself (VeggieTales. Vegetable tales. Get it?), several episodes also have pun-based titles (for example, "Pistachio — The Little Boy That Woodn't", "Celery Night Fever", "Beauty and the Beet", etc.).
  • Punny Name: Frequently.
    • Perhaps nowhere more obviously than in Lord of the Beans, where two of the adventurers' names are food puns on those of actual Fellowship members — Ear-a-Corn and Leg-o-Lamb.
    • Also Nebby K. Nezzer.
  • Raiders of the Lost Parody: The episode "Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson's Hairbrush"; Larry the Cucumber in a story about bullying.
  • Recurring Riff: The opening notes of The Thankful Song from "Madame Blueberry" (We thank God for this day...) were often used for the Big Idea title card.
  • Reading Foreign Signs Out Loud: The 2nd Latin Spanish dub does this for 2 episodes (although Bully Trouble's title card remains untranslated, even on the box art.
    • Not only that, this is mostly averted in this same dub and even the 1st and 3rd dubs.
      • This is also done in the Brazilian Portuguese dubs (although being done for signs that a viewer can easily see) along with the Hungarian and Croatian dubs, but Croatian episodes only translate the title cards and Silly Song cards.
  • Red Boxing Gloves: On Goliath the Giant Pickle.
  • Red/Green Contrast: Bob and Larry. Bob the Tomato (red) is the more rational one and serves as the Straight Man to Larry the Cucumber (green), a goofy, fun-loving cloudcuckoolander.
  • Remembered I Could Fly: In The Toy that Saved Christmas, at one point the protagonists are tied up on a sled hurtling to their doom. It doesn't even occur to Louie to use his built-in buzz saw to get them out of this predicament—and then Larry accidentally bumps his arm.
    Louie: Watch it! You bumped into my...(realizes)...buzz saw...
  • Rule of Personification Conservation: The series originally used vegetables instead of humans because when they started, their CG computers were so basic that complex characters were difficult, but a pea (sphere), cucumber (elongated sphere) or asparagus (cylinder with spheres on top) was doable. They were also easy to render realistically, since tomatoes, cucumbers, and kitchen tiles do have that generic glossiness that was easy to create with the shading methods available at the time.
  • Running Gag:
    • Bob hating the "What We Have Learned" song and trying to turn it off in the middle. Some shows don't contain that song. In one case the song didn't play, but Bob's relief was interrupted by Larry deciding to carry on himself — until Bob soaked him with water.
      • Bob once admitted that it's not that he hates the song, but he hates the fact the second verse of the song always cuts him off mid-sentence when he tries to make a point, which is the ACTUAL running gag.
    • The vegetables don't have hands. This doesn't particularly stop them.
      • This was lampshaded in a 3-2-1 Penguins! trailer, in which Larry and Bob were worried because the penguins did have limbs.
    • The creators of the show seem to have an affinity for places named "Moose Lake."
    • In the NBC TV version, Jimmy always delivers a letter to start the show; each time he does, he attempts to slide it through the mail slot (even though, as Bob and Larry always point out, he could just hand it over the door), and always manages to crumple it up in the process.

    Tropes S to Z 
  • Separate Scene Storytelling: "Lyle The Kindly Viking" is shown this way.
  • Shaped Like Itself: "And now it's time for Silly Songs with Larry, the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song."
  • She's a Man in Japan: The Slovenian and Indonesian dubs make the Silly Song announcer female.
    • The Slovenian dub also makes the singers in What Have We Learned and the Rumor Weed male, although the latter looks the exact same.
      • The Croatian dub also does the same thing, but only the Rumor Weed has been affected like this.
  • Shout-Out: See page.
  • Show Within a Show:
    • Cavis and Millward's "Princess and the Plumber" in ''Star of Christmas.
    • Marlee's "Up with Bunnies" in 'Twas the Night Before Easter.
  • Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: Big time! That's the feel of this show.
  • Small Town Rivalry: In "The Story of Flibber-O-Loo" (a re-telling of the Good Samaritan story), the towns of Flibber-O-Loo and Jibberty-Lot have a heated rivalry, where they launch shoes and pots at each other with catapults and other devices.
  • Snowball Lie: Happens in Larry-Boy! And the Fib from Outer Space! Junior lies to avoid getting in trouble for breaking a plate, the lie keeps getting bigger as the people around Junior figure out he's not telling the truth....and then the lie has gotten so big that it is literally destroying Bumblyburg.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Heavily idealistic.
  • Sneeze Interruption: Inverted in "Sneeze if You Want To" when Larry says, "Spain!", interrupting Bob from sneezing.
  • The Song Remains the Same: The Albanian dub does this to all of its songs with subtitles.
    • The Cantonese dub mostly does the same thing, but apparently dubs some of Sven's unnecessary singing lines from Lyle the Kindly Viking. The Croatian dub also did the latter.
    • The Croatian dub normally averts this, but plays this trope straight in An Easter Carol and Lyle the Kindly Viking.
      • "Boids" starts off horribly dubbing the song, with the voice actors not even paying attention to the rhythm. The rest is in English, but the final portion is strangely silent.
  • Space Whale Aesop: Don't lie, or an extra-terrestrial beast will feed off of your lies and hold you hostage.
  • Species Surname: Most of the characters' last names are the type of vegetable they are. Sometimes this leads to characters who don't seem to be relatives having the same last name, like Junior Asparagus and Archibald Asparagus. Some of the characters, like Mr. Nezzer or Mr. Lunt, avert this.
  • Spit Take: When Dave announces his plan to fight Goliath, King Saul spits out his drink.
  • Spoof Aesop: One of the Silly Songs gives us the following;
    Quartet: The moral of our story it's the point we hope we've made...when you go a little loopy better keep your nurse well paid!
  • Spotlight-Stealing Title: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything for the Russian, Czech, and Polish dubs of Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, but there's another Russian title that more adapted to the original.
  • Staircase Tumble: In The Toy that Saved Christmas, Louie's first step out of the factory leads to him falling down the stairs, which then leads to him getting stuck in snow. Junior pulls him out later.
  • Stealth Pun: The antagonist in Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple is an apple who dabbles in dealing with temptation. In other words, she's the Forbidden Fruit.
  • Stepford Snarker: Hope in An Easter Carol. Her character bio mentions that part of the reason for her snarky attitude is that she is aware her time is short.
  • The Stinger:
    • From the late 90s to the early 2000s, the credits were typically followed by an animation of the Big Idea logo where the letters started out small, then would "explode" to their proper font, scaring Bob and Larry. After they recovered and posed for the logo, the "A" in "Idea" would pop out once more with a sound typically related to the episode accompanying it (for instance, King George and the Ducky used a rubber duck squeak). There was also a standard version of this logo that used a suction sound effect for the A. Usually this logo was timed so the font explosion would occur on the last note of the song that played over the credits.
    • The original VHS print of Rack, Shack, and Benny (with the original Bunny Song) had Bob, still left in the sink, saying "I'd like to get out now." This was strangely removed in later prints and replaced with the typical Big Idea stinger described above.
  • Story Arc: In Josh and the Big Wall, technical difficulties prevented Larry from properly ending The Song of the Cebu, that video's "Silly Songs With Larry" segment. Archibald became so disappointed with Larry's lack of preparation, he announced the cancellation of "Silly Songs" in the next video (Madame Blueberry)'s segment. The Framing Device of the video after that (The End of Silliness?) showed Larry desperately trying to recover from the loss, until Archibald announces that a fan petition prompted him to uncancel "Silly Songs."
  • Stylistic Suck: When Jimmy and Jerry sub in for the beginning of King George and the Ducky, their story is The Englishman Who Went up a Hill (and came down with all the bananas). It has to be seen to be believed.
  • Suck E. Cheese's: Cheese E. Rodent in Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler.
  • Super Cell Reception: Subverted in Larry-Boy! And the Rumor Weed, where Larry-Boy and Alfred try to keep communicating after Larry-Boy goes into the sewer system to find the Mother Weed...and find that the sewer walls are too thick and reception is shot.
  • Surveillance Station Slacker: Jimmy and Jerry Gourd, as seen in the episode "Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space!"
  • Take That!:
    • In the Oh, Santa! Silly Song, Larry gives cookies to both a bank robber and a Viking "because it's Christmas." And then the next person comes to the door.
      "I'm from the IRS! And I've come to tax your—" (SLAM)
    • During The Asparagus of La Mancha, there's a potshot towards Starbucks when Don and Pancho are trying to compete with the Food Factory and decide to open a coffee shop:
      "Why pay a little for coffee when you can pay a lot?"
  • Those Two Guys: Bob and Larry.
    • And Jimmy and Jerry Gourd. And maybe the French Peas.
  • Title Sequence Replacement: Whenever the show got a new montage for the opening, it would retroactively replace the previous montage for every earlier episode's future VHS and DVD prints. In fact, this practice has pervaded the series pretty much since its inception:
    • The original Where's God When I'm S-Scared? print (which had a very limited 500 copy print run and was only sold through a magazine) had no "broccoli, celery, gotta be" interludes, just the backing. The later mass market release sold in Christian bookstores altered this, though kept the same clip show (which only featured clips from this episode proper), up until the 1998 reprints.
    • The theme song montage that was included on all of the VHS releases from 1994 to 1997 featured clips only from the first two episodes, and is the theme that most early fans of the show are familiar with.
    • Beginning with 1998 reprints and all shows released up until the early 2000s, a new montage was created and the opening banter was re-voiced so it no longer contained Larry's dopey Early-Installment Weirdness voice over. For the most part, this was the last time the early episodes had their openings changed; even after new montages came about, the older episodes still retained theirs. Until...
    • ...2010, where a completely re-done opening that cut out everything except the first verse was introduced. Once again, every prior episode had its opening replaced with this one.
  • Toilet Humor: A ton of it can be found in The League of Incredible Vegetables.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Larry in The Toy that Saved Christmas. He probably shouldn't have mentioned Puggslyville's bridge being out to Mr. Nezzer.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Ebeneezer Nezzer in An Easter Carol when he starts changing for the better. Hope does this too; in her early interactions with Ebeneezer she is rather snarky and occasionally harsh, but around the point where Ebeneezer is very upset when he learns Edmund is probably going to die, Hope softens up considerably and is a lot more careful in how she interacts with him.
  • Top Ten List
    • The Ultimate Silly Song Countdown was the result of a viewer poll to determine the silliest of the first ten Silly Songs with Larry (not counting Oh, Santa!). The winner was The Hairbrush Song.
    • Also "VeggieTales Live: Sing Yourself Silly!"
  • Translate the Loanwords, Too: The Indonesian dub of Rack, Shack & Benny turns Mr. Nezzer's "Bon appétit!" into "Selamat makan!"
  • Treacherous Advisor: The Elders of the Razzberry Forest.
    • Haman/Mr. Lunt in Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen.
  • Unhand Them, Villain!: Towards the end of Sweetpea Beauty, the mirror grabs Sweetpea and carries her to the top of a tower. When the queen demands he let her go, he obliges.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Louie in The Toy that Saved Christmas. The first people he comes across after he escapes the factory don't even blink at the fact that they're talking to a living toy, and later on Mr. Nezzer is a lot more concerned about there being intruders in his studio than he is about the fact that one of his own toys came to life.
  • Uriah Gambit: In King George and the Ducky (a retelling of the trope-naming bible story), King George has Thomas sent to the front lines of the Pie War because he wants his ducky. However, unlike the original story where this resulted in the character's death, (couldn't have that obviously, since this is a kids show) Thomas singlehandedly wins the entire war, but loses his sanity in the process.
  • Valley Girl: Only Big Idea would go so far as to turn the Princess of Egypt in their retelling of the story of Moses in the Bulrushes into this - hilariously.
  • Vengeful Vending Machine: Larry has gotten his candy stuck. In a vending machine.
    • This makes up most of the jokes in Lunch: A Parable. First, the dollar the unnamed protagonist puts in keeps getting rejected. Then, when it accepts his money, the button that dispenses the Grav-ee Crisp bar won't do anything. Finally, when the protagonist tips the machine, it falls onto him, forcing him to prop it up. Cue the Grav-ee Crisp bar finally coming out, the guy reaching for it and getting squashed by the vending machine.
  • Villain Song:
    • Mr. Nezzer's reprise of "The Bunny Song."
    • Played for Laughs with "Oh No!" from "Daniel and the Lions' Den" of "Where's God When I'm S-Scared?".
    • Played for Drama with "Haman's Song" from "Esther".
    • "The Rumor Weed Song" in Larryboy and the Rumor Weed.
    • Bad Apple's "The Temptation Song" from Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple.
  • Visual Pun: One of the books Archibald pulls out in the "Modern Major General" song from The Wonderful World of Auto-tainment! has a picture of Larry in a robe and crown. Larry King!
  • Vocal Evolution
    • Scallion #1 (the tall one), Archibald, and the narrator for "Silly Songs with Larry" used to sound different. Archibald's delivery was more hammy, and Scallion's lacked the faux British accent the others had. This gradually blended together until it's pretty much all the same voice. Larry eventually hung a lampshade on this at the end of The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo by acting surprised that Archibald and the narrator were not the same character. Archibald was surprised, too. In fact, now the creators attempt to place Scallion #1 and Archibald in the same scenes at times, just to prove that they're not the same character.
    • Just as noticeable is Jerry Gourd, who started out sounding like an impression of Jimmy Gourd's voice (enough to mark them as a matched pair of characters but with a subtle enough difference to be clearly a different actor — Phil and Mike use this approach extensively) but now sounds almost exactly like Larry.
    • As the series progressed, many characters sounded less like they were on helium.
  • Water Hose Rodeo: In Larry Boy and the Bad Apple, one character attempts to hose off a statue that's been covered in cobwebs. It turns out that the fire hose is too strong for him, and he gets flung all over.
  • Waxing Lyrical: Mr. Lunt's character in "St. Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving" slips into this several times.
  • Wax On, Wax Off: Mikey, in "Sumo of the Opera," teaches sumo to the Italian Scallion by mopping the floor and climbing the down escalator.
  • We Sell Everything: The Stuff-Mart.
  • Wham Line: In Lord of the Beans, Toto thinks he's figured out why he was sent to the Land of Woe... until Scaryman comes out and reveals the real reason:
    Scaryman: The elders sent you here because I told them to.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: King George sees someone bathing on a roof and he wanted his duck, despite having tons of his own, which leads to a Uriah Gambit (it's based on the original). Then he gets called out on it by the castle's wise man.
  • What Song Was This Again?: Both Brazilian dubs of The Toy That Saved Christmas heavily change the lyrics of "Can't Believe it's Christmas" so that a full stanza about the kids hoping to get toys (which is also heard at the beginning of the song) is repeated for almost the entirety of the second half of the song. This means that ALL THEY WANT TO DO IS TO GET TOYS FOR CHRISTMAS AND NOT MUCH ELSE.
  • White Void Room: This is where Larry plays the theme song. Also featured in "The Wonderful World of Auto-Tainment!".
  • Whole-Plot Reference: Happens all the time, including quite a few of the sub-tropes:
  • A Wild Rapper Appears!: Khalil's appearance in the Boyz in the Sink song "Belly Button".
  • With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: A major theme in Lord of the Beans. Billboy (Archibald) and Ahem (Mr. Lunt) both used the bean irresponsibly and Scaryman (Scallion 1) wanted the bean for selfish reasons, but when Toto (Junior) is given it he refuses to use it for frivolous things, and instead searches for a way to use it that would be meaningful.
  • World of Funny Animals: A rare plant example.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Mr. Nezzer in some of his more villainous roles has tried to kill Junior (or a character played by him) on at least three different occasions. Junior's five.
  • Worm in an Apple: The villain of "LarryBoy and the Bad Apple" is Temptation Apply, an apple who seeks to control people by making them lose themselves to temptation. Her one henchman is Curly the Worm, who spies on her prospective victims to figure out what they're sensitive to. Curly gets captured by LarryBoy and arrested, but Temptation escapes.
  • The X of Y: Almost every single title of the episodes in the German DVD line Bob & Larrys Bibelgeschichten (which consisted of dubbed versions of the Biblical episodes) is turned into "Das Abenteuer von X". The only episode that averts this trope is Rack, Shack and Benny (which became Drei Männer im Feuerofen).
  • Yet Another Christmas Carol: Though their version was about Easter.
  • Youthful Freckles: Both Tom and Rosie Grape have them, as do many of the pea characters, no matter their age. However, the French Peas' trickster nature is highlighted through these.

Waldorf: This show makes me nervous about what we do.
Statler: Got anything to be ashamed of?
Waldorf: No, I'm just worried that one of the tomatoes we throw might say "Ow!"
Both: Do-ho-ho-ho-hoh!

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Captain Larry Robinov

Larry imagines himself as an ice-breaker pilot.

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5 (2 votes)

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