Shortly after Dreamworks bought Big Idea, Beauty and the Beet was the last VeggieTales video we got, in 2014. 4 days later, we got VeggieTales in the House, a freaky new series created by Doug TenNapel loosely based on the VeggieTales characters. The scariest part is, Dreamworks planned on shutting down Big Idea Studios after their 78-episode run! Fortunately, NBCUniversal bought Dreamworks before that happened, and allowed Phil Vischer to make a new VeggieTales series for TBN. 5 years and 1 day after Beauty and the Beet, The VeggieTales Show is a nice new monthly series where Phil Vischer gets to enhance his VeggieTales stories for a new generation, and his wife Lisa Vischer is back to give Junior his cute girly voice that he did not have with Tress MacNeille in VeggieTales in the House. Phil got to teach kids more about Christianity, and not just how to behave Christianly. Much like The Muppet Show, one of Phil Vischer's most favorite shows from his childhood, The VeggieTales Show is a variety show where the VeggieTales veggies put on stage plays. Like the original series, kids send in letters asking Bob and Larry about a certain topic, and they perform plays based on Bible stories which not only help to answer that kids' question, but also to solve the personal conflict that the veggies have before their plays begin. Some episodes even have a Silly Song With Larry between plays! :)
That's not all. I really liked how LarryBoy and the Cape-Coat Caper was an episode of The VeggieTales Show about Callie Flower, a new addition to the supporting VeggieTales cast who originally appeared in VeggieTales in the House, and was one of the few new things about the show with positive reception. It was interesting to see an episode of The VeggieTales Show that was not confined to Mr. Nezzer's theater as usual. The VeggieTales Show is a return to form to VeggieTales which brings us back to the prime VeggieTales-verse, away from VeggieTales in the City. David Mann is the new voice for Mr. Nezzer since Phil Vischer did not like impersonating the voice of a black actor from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and The VeggieTales Show has better voice direction with more suitable replacements for characters not voiced by Lisa, Mike or Phil, welcoming Kira Buckland and Stephanie Southerland. Well, there is one notable exception. I miss having Cydney Trent voice Petunia, since she was a unique vocal and singing talent because she teaches Theatre Youth Choir from Arizona, and if Lisa Vischer gets to reprise Lisa Junior in The VeggieTales Show with Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki, then she deserves to have Cydney Trent with her as well. They are buddies who are only 22 days apart in age like Phil and Mike, but more importantly, Petunia is the most appearing female character in VeggieTales who did not keep getting new voice actors in pre-In The House years like Laura Carrot and Madame Blueberry did. It is interesting that The VeggieTales Show got Kira Buckland, and other new voice actors from California who are much less known than her, to voice some old and new characters since Big Idea headquarters relocated again to California, after the first time it relocated from Illinois to Tennessee before Petunia's first appearance, but Kira Buckland's voice doesn't do much for me. Ironically, I think Tress MacNeille's Petunia was a tad closer to the original Cydney Trent voice than Kira Buckland was. Kira works a lot more than the other new VT actors, and if she only voiced Laura in less episodes, that gives her more time for other cartoons and video games to voice characters.
Perhaps I can write to Big Idea and convince them to fix that error, and get Cydney Trent and John Trent back in before Season 2. If you pay for Yippee very late into the first season's run, The VeggieTales Show is a great new show with plays more faithful to biblical adaptations than the original video series. I still wish we could soon have another VeggieTales video hosted on the countertop that was animated like The VeggieTales Show, since Noah's Ark was animated like VeggieTales in the House and I always hoped for Lisa Vischer to write or direct her own VeggieTale someday, and possibly even write another female-performed Silly Song after the first one we got from The Penniless Princess. Writing might not be Lisa's forte, but I know it is for Megan Murphy (the most recent Madame Blueberry voice before Stephanie Southerland) since she writes plays for her Nashville Theater Troupe. It must be possible since The VeggieTales Show once actually used the countertop again for the 2020 Census song. I liked when some newer VeggieTales videos did parodies of films that were current when those VeggieTales films about them were being produced, like their spoof of Lord of the Rings about using our gifts and their spoof of The Avengers about handling fear, and The Good Place is a show by NBC Universal that started 2 years after Beauty and the Beet, which might be perfect for VeggieTales to take on (if one came up with a kid-friendlier equivalent of it, like King George and the Ducky was for King David and Bathsheba) to teach children why they should be good people without expecting a reward in return.
