A parody of Schoolhouse Rock! The song itself is mediocre, but the costume Larry wears in this episode is doing him a lot of favors. Nawrocki: I was a big Schoolhouse Rock! Just really catchy, really fun, super-fun to sing. Larry wants to adopt the perfect puppy but finds an excuse to reject every breed that Bob suggests.
At the adoption center, however, Larry falls in love with a dog that looks like the spitting image of him, only orange and sporting a shaggy haircut. Bob is teetering on the verge of an enormous sneeze. Seeking release, he pays a visit to Larry the Sneeze Doctor, who employs a variety of methods — pepper, feathers, potpourri — to get him to clear the hurdle.
For example, did you know that the photic sneeze reflex, or sneezing when exposed to bright light, is a condition found in 25 percent of the population?
So those guys were at bat with the idea of trying to suppress a sneeze and what that means, and it was fun to come in and sing as Larry. Nevertheless, the show must go on! Bob makes a pretty good go of it, and, honestly, he does a very respectable job until the fan accidentally shreds his lyrics. Nawrocki: Phil was very excited to have his own Silly Song for Bob. That was one of the things over the years we wanted to do: highlighting different characters coming forward and being able to sing in that space.
Larry has accidentally kicked his ball into a gated community. The residents gather around and boast-sing about how lovely the community is: Their lawns are green, their clothes are clean, and their lives are made perfect by the hefty entrance fee. This Silly Song is a good primer for children in class consciousness and how smugly irritating rich people are. Nawrocki: I moved to the Nashville area in I had spent the previous 17 years in Chicago.
I was like, Why are there all these gated communities? Why do people need to live behind a fence? It was a bit of social commentary, sneaking that into VeggieTales. Archibald, Larry, Mr. There were a couple episodes of VeggieTales done while I was up there. Disorganized and unprepared, however, his presentation ends up going spectacularly off the rails.
Nawrocki: Lord of the Rings was huge at that time — this was the early s. We based the whole thing on the bad pun of elvish sounding like Elvis. Larry plays a Swiss veterinarian who believes he can cure animals by yodeling to them, while his nurse, Pa Grape, slips customers the real remedies under the table. When Larry refuses to give Pa Grape a pay raise, however, Pa Grape leaves him to his own devices, resulting in sweet revenge from a thoroughly cross grizzly bear. Let this song be a lesson to pay your staff fair wages!
Nawrocki: I was a big fan growing up of comedy songs. My dad had an album of a group called the Chad Mitchell Trio, who did a number of funny songs, and that was my inspiration for the quartet, where they were narrating the song on the side with a four-part harmony about this veterinarian.
Larry, Junior, and Jimmy are galaxy gauchos who ride around on rocket horsies and wrangle stray asteroids that have escaped their space corral. Nawrocki: This is one of my favorites. I had it written for Larry initially, then thought, Man, Mr. Lunt would pull this one off so much better because of its attitude.
It was sort of Meat Loaf-inspired, if you remember the artist Meat Loaf, in the early days of rock. Dressed in a striped poncho and oversize sombrero, Larry sings a traditional Argentine ballad in Spanish while Bob translates. What happens in Argentina stays in Argentina! She was translating the lyrics for me, and I was thinking, Oh my gosh, what a funny dynamic, her translating a song that was basically making fun of me.
So I wrote the song in English, then worked with my wife to translate it into Spanish that would rhyme, then called in one of our friends, Manuel, who sang it for reference for me, and I just tried my best to copy his accent. The graphics are crude; the premise is simplistic; it has none of the trimmings and trappings of later songs.
Now whaddaya think of that! Nawrocki: Marc Vulcano, who was an animator who worked with us, brought this one, and Marc came from an Italian heritage. It was around the time Forrest Gump came out, so we combined the visual ideas of Forrest Gump , of sitting on a park bench, with this high-silk-hat idea, combining seemingly disparate ideas into one composition. Listening to this Silly Song in just hits different. They loll around their pirate ship, drink coconut juice, and watch TV, and they most emphatically do not go anywhere.
Nawrocki: This one got its start for me way before VeggieTales. They toured all over the United States and Europe over a full summer, and we were looking at the itinerary, and at the end of the summer, we were going to be in Boston. So I came up with this little ditty about never being to Boston in the fall. That stayed in my head for a number of years, and I just thought it would be fun to combine that idea with pirates, who are supposed to be ransacking and doing all these things.
Larry is dipping his toes into blues music, accompanied by the masterful stylings of Blind Lemon Lincoln on guitar and harmonica. Nawrocki: This was written with Tim Hodge, a storyboard artist and director with us for a number of years.
This song is made doubly funny by the fact that Larry has no discernible lips. We were going in, talking to the marriage therapist, so that whole scenario made its way into the song. I was thinking, What would it feel like for Larry to have abandonment issues about his lips leaving him? But Larry has an, er, messy history, and the server declares the jig is up — he must use a sippy cup.
The busboy brings a glass of grape juice, the room grows quiet, all eyes are on him … and Larry fumbles it, spilling juice all over the patrons. Truly a tragicomedy of Shakespearean proportions. Nawrocki: This was a collaboration with a good friend of mine, Steve Taylor. Steve came in with this absurd operetta, the issue of a sippy cup in a restaurant and Larry not being able to hold his water, as they say. Turns out his door number was broken, and the pizza-delivery gourd got so hungry looking for him that he ate the pizza.
This was another collaboration with Tim Hodge. The two are here to teach us the latest dance craze, the Hopperena, which, as it turns out, is merely hopping from side to side. Archibald in bunny ears and slippers! Archibald acting silly!
Oh, Bill! Nawrocki: Bill and Barbara were two folks who worked with us. Bill was somebody who worked in our marketing department, and Barbara was one of the animators. Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription. Account Profile. Sign Out. Larry the Cucumber in various Silly Songs. Phillipe then also yells that they're so selfish, and that they're not so bright, before the story then concludes after that.
After the show ends, Jimmy comments that that was something, saying that it's not good to be selfish, which Jerry agrees with. The two Gourd brothers then go to consult Qwerty for a verse, while Bob and Larry look at each other with looks on their faces that read "Are they kidding?
Jimmy tries pushing random buttons on Qwerty's keyboard to turn him on, to no avail, while Jerry hops off, then comes back while holding a piece of cardboard with "Don't be selfish" scrawled onto it.
When Jimmy notices the so-called verse, he compliments Jerry for it, but when they try to end the show, Bob and Larry stop them, with Bob telling the Gourds that their show was way too short and there wasn't even a verse.
Bob then apologizes to the viewers and tells them that they're going to give it another go-around. Bob then tells Jimmy and Jerry to "take off those ridiculous costumes" and that they have a real story to tell, which saddens the Gourd brothers, but they comply as they hop off afterwards.
Bob then asks Larry if he remembers the letter that they got from Lucy Thomas from Bismarck, North Dakota, which Larry says that he does, asking if Lucy was the one who said that she didn't want to play with her sister because she wanted to keep all her toys to herself. Bob confirms this before saying that it's time to teach Lucy a thing or two about being selfish, which Larry agrees with.
Bob then states that it's good to be back, before he yells, "Action! Bob then narrates the story of King George played by Larry the Cucumber , a king who loves rubber duckies and taking baths more than anything else. The king's adviser Louis played by Bob the Tomato asks King George if he has enough time to talk with him about an important matter, but King George replies that he and his ducky are not finished with their bath.
Bob then narrates even further that the kingdom was at war, the pie war to be exact, and that usually when the kingdom was at war, the king would help. While King George continues bathing, he starts singing about how some kings love horses and that some kings love cattle, as well as leading their troops into battle, but as for him, he'd rather spend time with his ducky. King George then sings about how much he loves his duck, with Louis trying to tell him that there are some things that they need to discuss.
After getting dressed, King George tells Louis to sing with him, which Louis does rather reluctantly. King George then sings that unlike his father, he finds the particulars of war a bore, before he then hops out on the balcony while still singing about loving his duck.
However, King George stops singing when he notices something just a little ways off. After acquiring a quarter from Louis to look through his binoculars, King George sees a young boy named Thomas played by Junior Asparagus taking a bath with his own rubber ducky. Thomas also sings about how much he loves his duck and that it's his favorite toy. King George then throws his own ducky aside before deciding that he wants Thomas's ducky, with Louis trying to talk him out of it because he already has a duck.
King George then becomes angry, singing to Louis that he must have the duck. Louis then tells King George that he already has quite a few duckies, revealing a whole cabinet full of rubber duckies, but King George rejects them, saying that they're yesterday's duckies.
Louis then tells King George that most of his loyal subjects would love to have one ducky as nice as the ones he has, before King George resumes singing, saying that he doesn't want these duckies any more, before throwing them all over the floor.
During the song, King George used the word "wronger", which Louis tries to correct as "more wrong", but King George angrily says that it had to rhyme then angrily tells Louis not to question the king's grammar before telling him to go get that duck. Louis then tells King George that they can't just barge in and take Thomas's duck because if they did, he'll tell people and everyone will think that he'll come and take their stuff.
King George then concludes that they'll have to do something about Thomas. The door then knocks, as Cedric played by Scallion 1 , the General of the Pie War, hops into the room, explaining to King George that the Pie War has gotten ferocious, before telling him that they need more men at the front. King George is confused, saying that Louis didn't tell him that, while Louis tells Cedric that he was trying to tell King George, but he wouldn't give him a chance to explain.
This gives King George an idea as he tells Cedric that Thomas would be glad to help out. King George also requests that Thomas be placed at the front of the battle while everyone else steps back, to which Cedric fearfully replies, "But he'll be After Cedric leaves, King George then tells Louis to meet him at the East Gate at dusk, for they have a little job to do.
Bob then narrates that Louis didn't want Thomas to get sent to the Pie War and that he didn't want to take Thomas's duck, but he also did not want to get sent to the Pie War too, so he does as the king asks as he leaves. Larry is watching a soap opera on TV called "Endangered Love", before he starts dancing and singing with a plush toy of a manatee named Barbara Manatee.
On the TV, Barbara and her boyfriend, Bill, who are both manatees, are both conversing, with Bill saying that he must "go into the world and do noble things for the good of all", and that Barbara can't come because she doesn't speak French. Barbara then says that she wants Bill to take her to the ball, and wonders, "who will take me to the ball?
Larry then starts dancing and singing with her Barbara Manatee plush once again. Barbara then tells Bill that she learned French, which Bill is overjoyed at, asking Barbara to "go into the world and do noble things for the good of all".
Barbara accepts, then asks Bill if he'll take her to the ball. Bill then says that he can't dance , which surprises Barbara. Once again, Larry then dances and sings with Barbara, but then Bob comes in, asking Larry what he's doing. When Larry sheepishly answers that he was just watching a little TV, Bob then tells Larry that he should just read a book. Before the segment ends, Bill tells Barbara that he learned to dance. That night, King George then meets up with Louis while wearing a pair of funny glasses so that no one will recognize him, before telling Louis to follow him and to try and act inconspicuous.
Soon, King George and Larry then enter the village, before they enter Thomas's house, to which King George then nets Thomas's rubber ducky. After returning to the castle, King George is happy that he has finally gained possession of Thomas's ducky. The ducky is then placed on a pedestal at the same time that King George's funny glass fall off.
When Louis tells King George that it looks like all his other duckies, King George retorts with, "Hold your tongue, infidel! This is the most perfect ducky the world has ever known! The door then opens up to reveal Cedric with Thomas, who has been covered with pies. Cedric then explains that even in spite of being outnumbered, Thomas was able to stop the advancing hordes and is therefore labelled a war hero. However, it turns out that Thomas has developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder due to what Cedric describes as "the trauma of war".
Cedric then leaves to take Thomas to his room, with King George proclaiming that he can finally take that bath now. However, Louis feels terrible about what happened to Thomas, with King George telling him that now that Thomas has lost his marbles he won't be needing the duck, to which Louis angrily asks King George if he's the only one who he thinks about.
King George answers that he's been thinking about the ducky for quite some time now, before asking Louis to help him with his bath.
However, the door then knocks once again, before a wiseman named Melvin played by Pa Grape shows up, telling King George that he has come to tell him a story. King George tries to tell Melvin to come back another time because he has a bath to take, but Melvin tells him that it's important. By use of a flannelgraph, Melvin tells, in song, the story of a rich man who had a lot of sheep and a poor man who only had one sheep.
Melvin then sings that one day, the rich man had a guest and asks King George what the rich man did to feed the guest. King George then guesses that the man had plenty of sheep so he could share one of his sheep, but Melvin answers that the rich man took the lamb of the poor man in order to feed his guest.
After this story, King George is enraged, asking Melvin if this is a true story, before Melvin confirms that his story is true.
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