Posted in: streaming, TV, YouTube | Tagged: animation, bible man, christian, conservative, evangelical, kids shows, veggie tales

Veggie Tales, Bible Man & More Christian Kids TV Possessing My Youth

While the other children of the 1990s and early 2000s were watching kids' tv shows like Spongebob Squarepants and Animaniacs, I was confined to the materials found in a Christian book store or whatever was on PBS instead. Eventually, I would find my way to Nickelodeon and Disney shows, but Kim Possible would have to have me questioning my sexuality another day. A kid who didn't realize they had a lot of neurodivergent activity going on in the brain, I didn't realize until later why I'd hyper-fixate on some of these titles.

Veggie Tales: Of course, as a child, I would listen to colorful dancing and singing vegetables (and fruit) on a TV screen with absolute bangers like "His Cheeseburger" and "Endangered Love (Barbara Manatee)," keeping me glued to the content in front of me. Sadly not everything was made up of iconic melodies, and a lot of the content involved Bible stories that reinforced some early and unnecessary guilt from toddler me.

Bible Man: Nothing like an intro showing a man screaming in the rain about his unfulfilled life to start a "kids show," but I ate that shit up because I didn't have access to Batman: The Animated Series like I should likely have. The entirety of the armor sequence will be alarmingly cringey to me every time now. It taught me some incredibly unrealistic lessons, which is saying a lot for a show involving superheroes and powers.

McGee and Me: Looking at that kid's face nowadays freaks me out. While creativity and innovation were a good selling point for any kid for this show, it had some extra evangelical layers that made it get weird eventually. Great, now I can't get that kid's creepy stare out of my head.

Bible Break: A very niche corner of the Christian world, this was something I had on VHS and would continually play, rewind, and play again. Looking back at it now, I'm pretty sure that was a particular hyper fixation of mine during that time. I became obsessed with memorizing the entire song, it wasn't about knowing it, but the accomplishment was what felt important as a kid who didn't understand it all.

3 2 1 Penguins: Kevin was the best part of this show, I won't take any other opinions on this. While some moments of this kids' show were hilarious, especially watching it now, not everything was simply fun and games when underneath it all was some subtle evangelical messaging.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!