There's Never Been a Show Like Veggie Tales: Sacred Messages in a Secular Market

by Hillary Warren

Overview

Singing animated vegetables with Christian messages, The Veggie Tales children’s video series might seem strange to newcomers. But with their combination of media savvy, fun plots, and Biblical messages, Veggie Tales videos became standard viewing in millions of evangelical homes in the 1990s. Then in 1998, Veggie Tales videos began to appear in Wal-Mart and Target stores, a feat unprecedented for an avowedly Christian media company. In telling the story of Veggie Tales, communication professor Hillary Warren tells the history of religious communication in America, the story of a Christian company’s tension between selling God and selling out, the story of Christians struggling between the sacred and the secular in their media choices. Read it and you’ll see indeed why there’s never been a show like Veggie Tales.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780759105690
Publisher:	AltaMira Press
Publication date:	11/01/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	7.74(w) x 8.86(h) x 0.36(d)

About the Author

Hillary Warren is Assistant Professor of Communication at Otterbein College. Her research considers how religious families maintain distinctive cultures within a mediated society. Her earlier work on religious media, child-rearing, and markets has been published in the Journal of Media and Religion, Religion and Popular Culture: Studies on the Interaction of Worldviews (Stout and Buddenbaum, eds./Iowa State) and Religion, Media and Marketplace (Clark, ed./Rutgers). She has also served as head of the Religion and Media Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and as consulting editor of the Encyclopedia of Religion, Communication and Media (Routledge).

Table of Contents

1 Before "The Passion," there was "Jonah-A Veggie Tales Movie" 2 "There's never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, been a show like Veggie Tales!" 3 From the computer in the spare bedroom to the big box store 4 "The stuff I learned in church doesn't seem like very much fun." 5 Keeping kids safe and close to God: responses from the Veggie Tale audience 6 Looking for values in all sorts of places 7 Selling the gospel with enthusiasm-or just selling?

Editorial Reviews

Hillary Warren's fascinating look at Veggie Tales brings the insights of a scholar, journalist, and parent to bear on a phenomenon that has broad and provocative implications for the nature of religion in today's media-saturated culture.

Stewart M. Hoover

Warren's work opens the eyes of the readers to see the inherent complexities with communicating sacred messages in a secular culture through free-market enterprise. The book is a worthwhile read for those concerned with this issue.

Musicology

This is a timely, fascinating study that fills an important gap in the literature. Written in an engaging, accessible style, this book is chock full of valuable information about the emergence and development of Veggie Tales. But Warren also provides a wealth of valuable insights about the rapid evolution of Christian popular culture and its interplay with the broader marketplace. This is a book that deserves attention from anyone interested in contemporary evangelicalism, or in the nexus of religion, media, and cultural production.

Christopher Ellison

An impressive book—full of detail, nuanced and sophisticated, about the evolution of, and revolution in, contemporary Christian media. A solid contribution to media studies and the understanding of American religious life.

Charles Whitney

H-Net reviews / H-Amstdy, September, 2012:
Overall, the book is well organized, transitions smoothly from chapter to chapter, and covers a lot of important ground. It will be useful for anyone interested in the sociology of religion and popular culture. It is a welcome addition to my bookshelf and should be given a close read by those interested in these subfields.

Charles Brown