Sing Yourself Silly was the Fifth VeggieTales Live! show. It was produced in 2010 tour year as well.
Plot
“And now it’s time for silly songs with Larry, the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song.” This line is in every VeggieTales movie at one time or another, sometimes multiple times, breaking up the animated storyline into segments giving the audience a good laugh. What happens when you take all of these short songs from an animated medium and put them into one live stage performance? You get a larger than life spectacular with people singing and dancing in the aisles. In VeggieTales Live! Sing Yourself Silly, Big Idea Productions does exactly that. Available on DVD, veggies take to the stage along with live actors, singers, and dancers to countdown their top ten silly songs. With an average song time of three minutes, you’d think this show would be over in about a half hour, right? Wrong. It’s VeggieTales. There has to be a conflict, some conversation, an interruption or two, and, of course, a message reached through the resolution. The conflict comes when some veggies rather do their own songs instead of the silly songs. This adds an additional eight songs to the mix, bringing the show to just over an hour, not to mention the DVD bonus features. The additional songs include songs about food, lesson songs, and even a couple of songs from the ‘80’s. Conversations between the veggies and Suzy, the only speaking human being, ensue about what to do about the dilemma. Suzy gets concerned that her top ten silly song countdown might not be completed in time due to all the interruptions made by non-silly songs, and therefore goes over-the-top silly herself. By the end of the show, Suzy recovers and all of the characters learn a lesson by sharing the stage and song selections. In a typical animated VeggieTales movie, the number of different veggie characters reaches into the teens, but in this feature, the producers limit the number of characters to the most seen, Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber, Archibald and Junior Asparagus, Pa Grape, Jimmy and Jerry Gourd, and Mr. Lunt. This leaves out some of the other prominent characters from the animated movies such as the ever involved peas, Madam Blueberry, Petunia Rhubarb, Mr. Nezzer, Khalil the caterpillar and Laura Carrot. During the song, “The Rumor Weed,” the song is sung by one of the stage actors, Marissa Martinez as Suzie, instead of the actual weed character from the animated movie "LarryBoy and the Rumor Weed". This change in expectation breaks up the continuity between the animated movies and the live show more than once. To compensate, the costumed characters take up a lot of stage space where there would be very little room to add the others. As a whole, audiences will see a direct correlation between the live show and the animated features, as both meet the expectations of catchy songs and a positive message for both children and adults alike. If you’ve heard any of the songs from the animated features at least once, you can pick it up from the start in the live show. Some of the songs may trip you up as they did me, when available characters stepped in to do parts originally done by other characters. The biggest example for me was during the number one silly song titled “The Hairbrush Song,” where Junior Asparagus tells Larry he gave his hairbrush to Apollo Gourd, whereas the first time I saw the hairbrush song in "Are You My Neighbor?", it was Bob that gave the hairbrush to the peach. They even followed the song by doing the chorus in another language in the stage show. The costumes also broke up some of my expectations with the number ten song in the countdown, “The Water Buffalo Song,” where Larry did not wear his cowboy hat, even though they spoke of it onstage as if his head was stuck in it offstage. Another example is during the number five song, “The Pirates That Don’t Do Anything,” where Pa Grape does not wear his pirate captain’s hat that plays a major part in the song where Mr. Lunt claims he looks like cereal superstar Captain Crunch. The one part they make up for these inconsistencies is that since their stage is only for singing and dancing they project the animated accompaniment to each song on the stage backdrop. Some of the adults in the audience seem like they are there just in support for their children or grandchildren’s love of VeggieTales. Others look like they might like VeggieTales more than their children. I commend the parents and grandparents who took their little ones to the live show in person as I'm sure they were at times restless during wait times and an intermission during the one hour show. The producers of the show even threw in a couple of VeggieTales versions of two 80’s songs, “Gourds Just Wanna Have Fun” and “Footloose.” While the children in the audience seemed to love the songs and danced with them, the adults in the crowd looked like they enjoyed these pieces more. Having people on the stage with the largely costumed characters can be a little offsetting as there are never real people in the animated features. The dancers, singers, and actors can be distracting as they are at times doing their own thing apart from what the veggies are discussing or singing. The cameras and editing techniques used for making the stage show a DVD did a good job of focusing mostly on the veggies while not letting you forget it was a stage show by showing audience reactions and stage lights. They even throw in some bubble blowers during the pirate song, giving the kids an interactive experience. As this DVD is directed toward children and not adults, I don’t see the differences between the animated features and the live stage production taking away from a child’s ability to enjoy the show. My sixteen-month-old son, Jackson, absolutely loves VeggieTales. My wife and I watch VeggieTales every day with our son, know all the words, and sing along. He’ll occasionally even go to the live show DVD and hand it to me or my wife to play versus the animated features we own. However, we cycle through the available animated features available on Netflix mostly. The other DVD features are for adults and older children that include Larry’s Backstage Pass, Pick-a-Song Singalongs, and the VeggieTales Live Show Trivia Game. I found the behind the scenes feature to be informative as I was interested to see what the tour buses looked like along with the stage set up and tear down. The DVD creators did a good job of not revealing anything about the veggie costumes or the people inside those costumes during this feature too. The sing-alongs were just another way of watching the whole show song by song without the storyline or conversational pieces while putting the lyrics onscreen for a karaoke-type interaction with or without vocals coming from the DVD. My wife and I found the trivia game questions difficult as some of the questions dealt with numbers of how many countries or people had access to VeggieTales. The additional features even throw in a message of how to help others through their World Vision ministry. Overall, I believe anyone with a collection of VeggieTales DVDs should add this one to the collection. Just remember, it’s for the kids. The conflict resolution and the songs used bring a sense of familiarity to the show, while the stage show and DVD bonus features added something new and exciting for audiences young and old. If the inconsistencies of the number of characters used and costumes can be overlooked, both adults and children will enjoy this adaptation whether in person or on DVD. While adults can nick pick differences, likes and dislikes about the difference of animation and live action stage performances, children are more likely to engage in singing and dancing to their favorite songs with their favorite characters regardless of how it is presented.
Songs
Act 1
- VeggieTales Theme Song
- The Water Buffalo Song
- Big Things Too
- Gourds Just Wanna Have Fun
- Song of the Cebu
- Dance of the Cucumber
- God is Bigger
- His Cheeseburger
- Love My Lips
- Walking On Sunshine (Not on the DVD)
Act 2
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything
- Do the Moo Shoo
- Rumor Weed
- Endangered Love (Barbara Manatee)
- Bellybutton
- Footloose
- The Hairbrush Song
- I Can Be Your Friend
- VeggieTales Theme Song (reprise)
Characters
Main Characters
- Bob the Tomato
- Larry the Cucumber
- Suzie
- Mr. Lunt
- Junior Asparagus
- Pa Grape
- Jimmy Gourd
- Jerry Gourd
- Archibald Asparagus
Theme Song Characters
- Mr. Nezzer
- LarryBoy
- Petunia Rhubarb
- Laura Carrot
- Madame Blueberry
- The Ducklings
- Scallion 2
- Scallion 3
- Pea Monks
- Scooter
- Nicky the Pepper
- Cheerleader Peas
- Jean-Claude Pea
- Phillipe Pea
- Zippy the Buffalo
Gallery
Videos
Trivia
- This was the first VeggieTales Live on DVD.
- Although the video was released in 2011 and it says "(C) 2011 Big Idea Entertainment, LLC" at the end of the credits, the video was actually filmed in November 18, 2010 at the World Outreach Church.
- Walking On Sunshine is Not on the VeggieTales Live DVD, it suppose to Be on Website on and On Stage.
- Originally, the silly song "Goodnight Junior " was in this live show when the song was under the title My Bear.
- Some songs like Larry's High Silk Hat, I Love My Duck, Haman's Song, First Big Break, Boids, The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps, My Baby Elf, Share of Friends, The Credits Song, Monkey, A Mess Down in Egypt, The Gated Community, The SUV Song, The Blues with Larry, The Selfish Song, It Cannot Be, Message from the Lord, Pizza Angel and Schoolhouse Polka could've been added.