VeggieTales’ cucumber star LarryBoy to get his own feature film

By Leah MarieAnn Klett, Assistant Editor Tuesday, February 06, 2024

LarryBoy, the singing cucumber that shot to fame in the hit faith-based kids’ series “VeggieTales” in the early ’90s, is slated to star in his own feature film hitting theaters in 2026.

This week, Big Idea Content Group and Kingstone Studios announced the collaboration to bring the suction cup-eared, crime-fighting vegetable superhero to the big screen for the first time, though details of the film are being kept under wraps.

“VeggieTales is the absolute gold standard for faith-based children’s animation. We couldn’t imagine a better brand in providing a big screen treatment for kids than to bring LarryBoy and the cast of memorable VeggieTales characters back into theaters,” said Art Ayris, CEO of Kingstone Studios. “Kingstone focuses on epic content and Big Idea is the perfect partner for launching a new LarryBoy feature into theaters for families to enjoy worldwide.”

The upcoming “Larry Boy” film will reportedly continue the tradition of faith-friendly storytelling, zany humor and catchy tunes that have defined the VeggieTales brand.

Previous Big Idea theatrical releases, “Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie” (2002) and “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything” (2008), collectively grossed over $39 million at the box office. The new project reportedly aims to build upon this success and engage longtime fans and new audiences.

“LarryBoy is a fan favorite — who doesn’t love a superhero that has plungers on the side of his head?! The fans are always asking to see more of him,” said Leslie Ferrell, senior vice president of Big Idea, Content Group Universal Pictures. “With LarryBoy in the lead role, we know we can deliver an entertaining movie for the whole family.”

First launched three decades ago, the “VeggieTales” franchise has been a monumental success in the realm of faith-based children’s content, generating over $1.7 billion in retail sales and establishing a lasting legacy among its audience.

“Bringing the Bible to life never goes out of style,” creator Phil Vischer told The Christian Post in a 2019 interview when asked about “Veggie Tales”‘ enduring popularity.

But he explained that a larger, more “unfortunate” reason for the show’s continued success is that nothing else has taken its place.

“It’s so expensive to produce content like that, and it’s getting harder and harder,” Vischer said.

“The things I produce today have a fraction of the budget I had with ‘Veggie Tales.’ No one is able to spend that kind of money to produce that kind of Christian content today.”

“I’d love if something better came along because that would mean there was a vibrant industry,” he continued. “The fact that 26 years later, ‘Veggie Tales’ is still the crowning achievement of Christian kids media isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

Vischer said he hopes his work encourages children to not just live out their faith on Sunday morning, but every day of the week.

“The thing that concerns me about the volume of kids programs out there is that it’s mostly secular, and in all those thousands of hours of TV that our kids are consuming, they’ll never see someone step foot in a church or bow their head in prayer,” he said.

“There’s the world where you go to church on Sunday and God exists, and then there’s the world of all your media where He’s gone completely missing,” Vischer said. “That has to have an impact of bifurcating kids’ worlds into the sacred, which is Sunday only, and the secular, which is the whole rest of the week.”

“The goal with these shows is to take kids deeper into the Bible and also be a resource for parents,” he added.

Still, in recent years, faith-based media has seen increasing success in mainstream markets, indicating a growing interest and availability of such content.

Recently, Minno, Slingshot Productions, Sunrise Animation Studios and Angel Studios rolled out the original animated episodic five-part series “Young David.” The series aims to give viewers a glimpse into King David’s early years and explores the many facets that made him a man after God’s own heart.

Last year, The Daily Wire’s new children’s show app Bentkey released “A Wonderful Day with Mabel Maclay,” which follows Mabel, a cheerful redhead, as she helps children create, explore and think critically about the world around them.

Creators Katy and Ryan Chase, devout Christians, told CP they were inspired to develop the show after becoming discouraged by the media options available for young children.

“We felt really inspired to find a solution to this problem,” Katy, who plays Mabel, said.

“We’ll turn off a show in the limited amount of time our kids have seen modern kids’ content, and they truly have flushed cheeks, dilated eyes, and crazy behavior; they don’t want to turn it off. They’ve obviously been so hyperstimulated by the content. But when we show them older things, the ways shows used to feel, they don’t have that reaction. We thought, let’s make a modern take on that stuff; it’s so good. That’s what we’ve set out to do.”

Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com