VeggieTales: God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?!

While this was the second veggietales made. It had to many creepy closeups and had no silly song with larry but the moral is nice and the voice for Larry is a lot better

I got this one recently (2002) because it was one of the few Veggie Tale videos we hadn't seen and it is nowhere as good as the current ones on the market. The stories are not as funny. I think the other comments are a little harsh. Sure they spoof Gilligans Island and the Grapes of Wrath, but I don't see that as a negative. I just think they could have done a better job doing it.

Of all the Veggie Tales shows out there(about 50 if you don't count their compilations like God Made You Special), this is one of the weakest. It's not bad, but it's disappointing once you have seen an episode like Rack, Shack, and Benny. I'll dig into that into a moment.

God Wants Me to Forgive Them? tells 2 stories about forgiveness-the first being The Grapes of Wrath. No, not the John Steinbeck novel/1940 movie, though the characters share similar names.

No, this story is about 4 grapes who tease Junior, a 5 year old for how he looks and then for his name. With the help of Junior's dad and the narrator, they find out that no one should be mean to others, and we should forgive each other countless times since God never stops forgiving us.

Veggie Tales videos usually have a "Silly Song", but this one actually has a mini-segment about a product that supposedly can forgive sins, called the Forgive-O-Matic.

The last story-Larry's Lagoon-is a parody of Gilligan's Island. Bob and Larry in this story take a millionaire and his wife and a professor on a 3 hour tour, but Larry daydreams and crashes the boat. Will the others forgive him for this blunder? Why should they?

All of this is fun that is worth your time. However, like I said in the opening of my review, this episode is a disappointment compared to other episodes. Why? 2 main reasons:

1. It's not as fun. Watch Rack Shack and Benny, Josh and the Big Wall, or even it's predecessor, Where's God When I'm S-Scared,the first show, and this will be a minor disappointment.

2. It teaches the lesson without explaining what it is. "Forgive, Forgive, Forgive" you hear for a half hour, but never "Forgiveness is when you..." If you are watching this with a child, make sure you explain what forgiveness is before you play it for them.

For entertainment value, this is a 10/10. But For it's comparative blandness and poor lesson teaching it drops to an 8. 10/10 + 8/10 = 18/20 which =9/10.

PS, The animation is poor too but fair for a small company using CGI a year before Toy Story's release.

While this episode may have low quality, this show will stay good for its tales of grumpy grapes, forgive-o-matics, and a cucumber Gillian on the island. I like this episode as it teaches a very important lesson, and tells it through a pretty hilarious Gillian's Island parody. I recommend this episode to families that need to teach their children to forgive each other.

Veggietales are a Christian video series whose characters are all vegetables or fruit (I say this because the main characters are Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber, which are both technically fruit).

The animation get a little sharper and more fluid with each new video, and the basic children's morality message is intertwined with adult-level cultural references and humor - adults will want to watch the episode away from the kids, so they can see what they're missing over the giggling!

The best part about these videos is that while they are undoubtedly Christian in nature, the actual Christianity is not very blatant. They never suggest that Christianity is the only true path. Except for the Christmas video and the occasional New-Testament quote at the end, the values and stories are common to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

"God Wants Me to Forgive THEM?!" is the weakest of the series for several reasons. This was the second video in the series; the first, "Where's God When I'm Scared," had a "Silly Song" in the middle, and ended with "tune in next time..." but there wasn't a "Silly Song" in this one. The format of two fifteen-minute episodes rather than half an hour with an intermission gives less time to develop plot. And this particular episode is dripping with potential copyright infringement: the first half is entitled "The Grapes of Wrath," the second half is a "Gilligan's Island" spoof that introduces all the characters in a spoken version of the 1960's theme song (except the "movie star and that other girl" canceled). The intermission scene, the funny "Forgive-O-Matic," mentions infomercial classics Ronco, Ginsu, and Chia Pet by name.

If you're building a collection, though - this is the one to get. It is the only one I have not seen in the series' current release on light green videocassettes.