NBC editing Veggie Tales Cartoons

[MarcB]

Veggie Tales a cartoon, which starts airing this morning on NBC and Telemundo (and this coming Friday on the "i" network is editing out parts of the cartoon that have "insensitive references to god and the bible".

View the whole story from IRN News - http://irnnews.com/news.asp?action=detail&article=13901&category=

IRN airs 5 minutes newscasts at the top of each hour on affiliates of the Business Talk and Lifestyle Talk Radio Network affiliates including: WLIE 540 Islip NY, WXCT 990 Southington CT, WGCH 1490 Greenwich CT, and WMSX 1410 Brockton MA. (1490 and 1410 are Business Talk O&O stations. 540 is an LMA)

 

[azumanga]

I always expected VeggieToons (and other Big Idea shows) to have religious sequences edited out on the "qubo" block, since it is playing to a general secular audience.

But I thought the show's producers have some input in the editing process, since they knew that qubo is secular.

By the way, how many of you knew that another Christian kiddie program, "Gerbert", was also re-edited for secular audiences, when it appered on PBS in the mid-1990s?

 

[toby]

Does anyone know how much of the "Christian" content has been excised from the program?
My understanding was that the "Christian" content was fairly integral to the shows.

 

[RadioMan203]

Sadly they've been editing cartoons for years - some for stupid reasons!

They're editing Warner Brothers cartoons like Bugs Bunny because of scenes that contain smoking. Others are edited due to "violence" or "acts of stupidity" such as jumping off a roof with a sheet and sailing to the ground. I can't say I've ever tried to blow up another neighborhood kid or jump off the roof like Superman.

It just irritates me when I happen to see a cartoon I remember from childhood and see a jump edit eliminating a scene I remember.

Religion will always be a touchy subject, even in cartoons. Kudos to those who have pointed out the shows which have have been editied. I know there's one I wasn't aware of (Gerbert).


Bill

 

[gr8oldies]

Then again, the producerscould have just not sold the rights in the first place.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Phil Vischer had a couple of articles in his blog about the editing at: http://www.philvischer.com/index.php/?p=18 and http://www.philvischer.com/index.php/?p=36 .

I'm really not surprised at the Christian content being edited. I'd tend to agree with Phil though that if the TV show causes kids to want to see the videos, they'll still be getting the message, and God can still use it.

 

[dampier]

Veggie Tales a cartoon, which starts airing this morning on NBC and Telemundo (and this coming Friday on the "i" network is editing out parts of the cartoon that have "insensitive references to god and the bible".

Keep in mind this "news piece" is by Brent Bozell, whose histrionics and paranoia that secular American media is out to kill all references to God and family values are quite well known. Trust me, taking his word for it at face value is sure not enough to consider this story to be a done deal.

To me, the concept of teaching Christian Bible concepts with a stick of celery that talks is bizarre enough, but is it really surprising that a mainstream television network that serves audiences that are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, etc., might want to tone down the Bible prophecy a tad, particularly in areas where it suggests that only good vegetables will go to heaven and if your kid isn't in the right salad bowel, well... eternal garbage disposal for you!

A better question might be why NBC and Telemundo need to repurpose a religious-oriented cartoon in the first place. They must know that by editing even one leaf lettuce out, they're going to hear from the Hidden Valley Ranch.

 

[genius]

Keep in mind this "news piece" is by Brent Bozell, whose histrionics and paranoia that secular American media is out to kill all references to God and family values are quite well known. Trust me, taking his word for it at face value is sure not enough to consider this story to be a done deal.

Well in another thread I broke a rule of mine and stated my disgust of Bozell's self-acclaimed work and the hypocrisy of the PTC. But no worries, Bozell is leaving at the end of the year.

 

[Ultimajock]

...the editing of cartoons by CN/Boomerang for tobacco use is fairly new, and AFAIK only in their European service to satisfy a British government agency. A short while back, they announced they were deep-sixing the Speedy Gonzales cartoons (by Ted Turner's request) for reasons of ethnic sensitivity, and have been clipping "blackface" scenes out of classic Warner Brothers and M-G-M cartoons since day one for the same reason...

 

[ixnay]

I can't say I've ever tried to blow up another neighborhood kid or jump off the roof like Superman.

Neither have I. But when I was 6 years old I climbed into one of those rectangular bags for hanging coats in, and zipped myself in, pretending to be Clark Kent in a phone booth, doing you know what. Next thing I know, I feel a hard whack on my *ss, the zipper unzips, and there's my very perturbed father thinking I was going to suffocate. I'm now 45 and I still can't sit down because of that! ;D

And the funny thing, I've been more of a fan of Batman and Spider-Man than the Man of Steel for some reason.

ixnay

 

[Riley_dfwm]

Veggie Tales w/o God references is nothing more than closing credits. NBC can't possibly have anything worth airing if they cut out the Biblical parts. And what they do edit will simply make the cartoon too disjointed to follow.

My kids have a huge collection of the Veggie Tales and they are pretty good

 

[RobynWattsV2.0]

I'm surprised that Big Idea had awarded NBC broadcast rights for their show in the first place considering that another NBC show, "Saturday Night Live", did a parody of "Veggie Tales" about 4 years ago called "The Religetables".

http://homepage.mac.com/straytoaster/iMovieTheater12.html

But all of this is a win-win situation for both parties: NBC would be able to use the show under "educational programming" and Big Idea can sell more videos by having them exposed to a wider audience.

Robyn

 

[BDBopper]

editing the cassic cartoons is dunb especially since many young kids don't relate to the classic cartoons anymore. I can see why they want to edit them for content but I think the main reason this is going on is so that the companies can package the unedited cartoons onto DVD's and sell them for 50-100 bucks a pop and make a fortune from animation fans and collectors.

Or of course they could be like Disney and refuse to show their cartoons on any of its networks. Related to this is a rumor that the Walt Disney Company is going to try to put up its entire film and TV archieve on a I-tunes type site and charge people each time they view content.