Veggietales S1E4: "Rach, Shack, and Benny"

This review was fast lane commissioned by @ArlequineLunaire.


Veggietales is known for being an American-made Christian children's series that - inexplicably - isn't terrible. It's also longrunning, having had multiple relaunches and spinoffs more or less continuously from the mid 1990's up through the present. This timeline also makes it one of the first-ever computer animated series, and its earliest episodes have the N64 look to prove it.

This is one of those earliest episodes I'm watching today. "Rach, Shack, and Benny" is the fourth episode of the show's original indie run. It's structured in what I assume is the early show's standard format, beginning with our crude CGI vegetable friends having a zany slice-of-life-y mishap in their home kitchen, and then telling a biblical (or traditional apocryphal, at least) story with a message that relates to their situation that recasts the veggie boys as the bible characters. And then a flash back to the kitchen at the end for them to explain what we're supposed to have learned and finish off with a deadpan gag or three.

Again, I assume that that's how most of the episodes are structured. "Rach, Shack, and Benny" definitely feels like it's leaning on a structural template.

Anyway, I can see why this show has a better reputation outside of the evangelical media silo than other American-made Christian kids' shows. It's mostly matter-of-fact and unobtrusive about its religiosity, with direct references to God and religious practice being few and far between and the message of the episode having universal appeal. Interestingly, it also reframes the bible story of the week in a way that makes its biblical origins not immediately obvious, and I don't think they ever say the name (let alone verses or even book) of the original story, though it's probably written in the credits somewhere.

The initial, slice-of-life-y setup that the child audience is meant to relate to is one involving peer pressure. Cucumber boy has been peer-pressured into walking around with an oven mitt on his head like all the cool kids are doing, even though he can't see where he's going with it on and keeps bumping into things.

His tomato friend tries to get him to see reason, but when rational argument fails (and there are some nice gags here, I will say) he resorts to biblical instruction. This time, it's one of the lesser-known stories from Writings, featuring the prophet Daniel's companions Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (the titular "Rach, Shack, and Benny" of the episode) and their confrontation with the final boss of the biblical era, King Nebuchadnezzar II. Well, mostly. They incorporate some elements from other biblical stories into it, most notably Esther.

The reframing of the story has the Neo-Babylonian Empire portrayed as a candy company specializing in the production of chocolate bunnies, run by the egotistical CEO Nezzy. They have the milk and cocoa beans delivered to their sprawling desert facility by flying car, which is pretty badass ngl.

The way the story unfolds ends up going surprisingly hard in some respects, while disappointingly soft in others. For instance, in a detail imported from Esther, Nezzy gives his overworked employees a special break in which they can eat as much free chocolate as they want, and then makes the surprised pikachu face when his workers are all sick to their stomachs and can't work for the rest of the day. The only workers who don't overeat and incapacitate themselves are Rach, Shack, and Benny, who remember the importance of temperance and eating healthy that their mothers taught to them long ago in their far-away homeland. The result of which being that Nezzy sees the three of them getting back to work when everyone else is knocked out, and decides to promote these exemplary workers to middle management.

The ostensible message is about resisting peer pressure and not caving in to obviously unhealthy social norms, but like...this is such a great sendup of self-defeating corporate practices that I have trouble believing that it isn't intentional.

Likewise, the casting of the stand-ins-for-Babylonian-Exile-era-Jews as migrant laborers who put up with a greedy, incompetent boss in order to send money back home to their families is another example of the show going way harder than I expected it to. Once again, it feels intentional, even if it needs to hide in the subtext rather than being acknowledged as a textual message by the narrator(s). Ditto the lessons their mothers taught them serving as a stand-in for First Temple era Jewish tradition (which comes straight from God in the biblical worldview. Interesting that we're getting God the mother rather than God the father, for once!) faced with Babylonian oppression *and also* for any and every minority culture put under pressure to assimilate to vapid global consumerism (and also, on a literal level, good personal advice that your mother might give you and that you should listen to).

On the other hand...I kind of have to raise my eyebrows and squint at the narrator's assertion that Boss Nezzy "isn't exactly a bad man, just a little too big for his already-big britches." On one hand, I'm fine with softening the biblical story to serve as kid-friendly material. On the other hand, later in the same episode, Boss Nezzy tries to force his new middle managers to promote the literal cult of chocolate bunny worship that he's planning to make mandatory for all employees (I do love the "Let's Love the Bunny" song he tries to make them all sing at this part. I even sang it for my own partner, known online as Bunny, and she really appreciated it). And, when they refuse, he has them thrown in an incinerator, just like in the original story.

If you want to soften Nebuchadnezzar into a less evil character, you have to actually soften Nebuchadnezzar into a less evil character, ya know?

This also makes the already anticlimactic resolution of the conflict even more anticlimactic. When they fall into the furnace, the flames are replaced by a blinding white light and (in one of the show's rare explicit references to God) a divine avatar appears inside the furnace to shield the three vegetables from harm until they've escaped. And then...Nebby profusely and sincerely apologizes, saying he had no idea what even came over him, and they accept it.

-__-

The original story did have Nebuchadnezzar doing an act of repentance, but it was framed less as him randomly growing a conscience and more as him realizing that the Jewish god is too powerful to antagonize and submitting. The framing of the story made it a contest between the biblical God, and the Mesopotamian idol that the king had been trying to force them to worship instead.

...

Incidentally, this story is part of a whole weird little genre of real person fanfiction that came out of the Pharisaic period. Very characteristically so, in fact.

Ever heard about that time when the Roman emperor Nero converted to Judaism? Well, it's in the Talmud.

But, I digress.

...

So, making it a miraculous change of heart rather than a competition between the demonstrated power of the gods feels like it kinda comes out of nowhere. And also makes it seem like Mr. Nezzar goes from being a goofy greedy cartoon boss, to being an Iron Age warlord, to being a goofy greedy cartoon boss again at the flick of a switch. I like the idea of Iron Age Warlord Willy Wonka, don't get me wrong, but there's a lack of consistency here.

Also, getting back onto the political note...on one hand, the analogy to modern day migrant workers being exploited by big capital feels deliberate as I said. On the other, in light of the above, I'm not sure what to make of Mr. Nezzy's enforcers all being ugly Mexican stereotypes (complete with hissing, nasally accents) while the wage slaves under them are white coded.

It's made even weirder by the fact that Mr. Nezzy is given the most stereotypical southern black-sounding voice ever, and his villainous "Love the Bunny" song is old school blues. The voice actor is white, but the voice is very stereotypically black. So yeah. Black-coded factory owner with Mexican-coded legbreakers victimizing their white-coded migrant wage slaves is just really weird.

Speaking of weird and arbitrary, there's also a strange moment in the attempted incineration scene when the lady who drives the flying milk-truck happens to see what's going on and makes a heroic rescue attempt that goes on for a very long time, but ultimately amounts to nothing as the three are still dropped into the incinerator and need divine intervention. It feels filler-y, but also strangely high-effort for filler. Maybe the milk lady is supposed to be the prophet Daniel himself, playing an enlarged role in this version of the story? Perhaps.

However, if you take it as less of a one-to-one adaptation and more a summary of the Babylonian Exile as a whole, then the milk lady - as an outside interloper with force of her own to apply - could also be Cyrus the Great, whose coming heralded the return of god's grace toward te Jewish people and the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem. In which case, the real message of this episode is that while you should worship God faithfully and devoutly, it might still behoof you to pour one out for Aharu-Mazda too once in a while. Yeah, I think I'm going with that.


Anyway, it's a cute show that manages to wear its Christianity on its sleeve without being too alienating for non-Christian (and probably non-Jewish, not that I can know for sure) audiences, with catchy songs and usually-on-point humor throughout. Some of the metaphors are mixed and muddled in an uncomfortable way (hopefully the other episodes are better about this), but on a whole I think it holds up fairly well.