The Princess and the Pea

The Princess and the Pea (later known as The Princess and the Prophet Pea) is the pilot episode of VeggieTales, produced by Big Idea in 1992.

This episode, along with a VeggieTales promo "Take 38", was made to showcase VeggieTales to Christian bookstores.

Plot[]

Based on The Book of Exodus, “The Princess and the Pea” is set in a place called Rephidim, where the pea who lived there wanted to ask the king to marry the princess, but the Celery Guards refused to let him in and orders him to get out of the palace. The pea tried to come up with a solution to sneak in and visit the princess who wanted to marry him for years, but the Celery Guards keep pushing him off. One night, the angel came to the pea and the angel told him that God wants you to listen to his plans carefully so you wind up in the situation as you are in. God's plan for the pea was to go to the king and asks to marry the princess, while putting the guards somewhere far away have them in jail for pushing him too far.

Characters[]

Bob
Larry
Tim the Snow Pea (as The Prophet Pea)
Gerald Eggplant (as the King)
Carla the Fairy Tale Eggplant (as the Princess)
Celery Guards
Ted the Cucumber (as the Cucumber God)
Archibald Asparagus (cameo)
Lovey (cameo)
Grape Kids (debut; cameo)
Benny the Banana (debut; cameo)
Freddy the Apple (debut; cameo)
Coucho the Toaster (debut)

Songs[]

VeggieTales Theme
He Has A Plan

Fun Facts[]

Trivia[]

In real life, the only VeggieTales pilots prior to the series were "Mr. Cuke's Screen Test" and "VeggieTales Promo: Take 38", and "The Princess and the Pea" was never a real finished Big Idea product but only a proposed puppet show that Phil wrote in the perspective of a pea. However, sketches of it (drawn by Phil and Mike) were used to sell the show to distributors at the time.
- Additionally, in real life, Big Idea Studios' only VeggieTales products were "Mr. Cuke's Screen Test" and "VeggieTales Promo: Take 38".
The pilot was completed October of 1992, about a few months before production of “Where’s God When I’m S-Scared?” which started production in April or May 1993.
The pilot was sent to Christian bookstores to see if VeggieTales would be made into an actual series. Like the VeggieTales promo “Take 38” that was made around the same time, it also failed.
An entirely different opening sequence intro was featured in this episode. The theme song heard here is shortened, with music and vocal arrangements also done at a different rate. The same instrumental can be heard, albeit with some very minor instrumentation and percussion done in a swing style. Starting with “Where’s God When I’m S-Scared?”, the opening sequence was entirely redone, and the theme song was rearranged with newly-written lyrics added.
As the show’s pilot short, this episode has no Silly Song segment (or any other funny skit of any kind) in the middle of the show, and contains only one story “The Princess and the Pea” without a second story segment.
- In addition, the What Have We Learned song is not present in this pilot, due to Qwerty (who plays the song whenever Bob says "It's time to talk about what we've learned today!") not being introduced (or at least used) in the show at the time.
The pink, blue and purple kitchen jars/canisters keep their labels from the two prior screen tests from the last two years.
Larry keeps his voice from the “Take 38” promo in this pilot. In the first real video, "Where's God When I'm S-Scared?", his voice changed and became deeper.
Coucho the Toaster was present in place of Qwerty the Computer during the closing countertop. He would be replaced by Qwerty in the first real episode, “Where’s God When I’m S-Scared?”, despite a 1993 magazine ad for the show claiming he would appear with Qwerty in the show.
All the characters in this episode (except Bob, Larry, Archibald and Lisa Asparagus) are exclusive to this episode, were seen in some early concept art, and do not appear in the actual series.
- Despite this, Coucho was also present in a group render along with Bob, Larry, Junior, and Mom and Dad Asparagus in a 1993 promotional magazine for the show’s first official video “Where’s God When I’m S-Scared?”.
Like “Daniel and the Lions’ Den”, there is no music in most parts of the episode, other than in the song and the opening/ending scenes of the story itself.
The characters exclusive to this episode have voices that would later be used for other VeggieTales characters that would be introduced in the series (all from the first four episodes) as follows:
- Gerald Eggplant having Mr. Nezzer’s voice from Rack, Shack and Benny
- Carla the Fairy Tale Eggplant having Lovey Asparagus’ voice from God Wants Me To Forgive Them?
- Tim the Snow Pea having Jimmy Gourd's voice from Are You My Neighbor?
- Celery Guard #1 having Archibald's voice from Where's God When I'm S-scared?
- Celery Guard #2 having Scallion 1’s voice from Where's God When I'm S-scared? (Later 1998. Scallion 1's voice from "What's the Best Decision, God?")
- Ted the Cucumber having Soupy’s voice (a Bible puppet that Mike used for a puppet show at St. Paul Bible College; would later refit into Larry's voice change in the first real episode)
The voice that was used for Coucho, however uncredited, was a text-to-speech voice called “Sydney”, taken from an old Lernout & Hauspie Microsoft Speech API 4.0 package. This voice later became known for being used for the infamous BonziBuddy adware desktop virtual assistant in 1999.
In 1994, this episode was re-released with the following changes (In real life, a mockup 1994 version was uploaded sometime after the original version):
- The episode was retitled to The Princess and the Prophet Pea.
- The 1994-1997 theme song (specifically the version from the 1994 reprint of Where's God When I'm S-Scared?) was featured in place of the 1992 theme song.
- The lighting in the countertop segments has changed, as it now resembles that from Where's God When I'm S-Scared?
  - Another notable lighting change was spotted during the closeup of Ted the Cucumber, as his mouth is slightly more visible here.
- Hopping sound effects were added.
- The title cards are now different, with the GRAFx Studios logo replaced with "Big Idea Productions Presents".
  - On that note, the closing GRAFx Studios logo is replaced with the Big Idea Productions logo from the end of God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?!
- The opening narration plays a few seconds later.
- Celery Guard #2 gained a different voice.
- Some scenes fade to and from black.
- Tim's singing during He Has a Plan is redone.
- A fade effect was added between the shot of Tim sleeping on his bed and the closeup of the palace at night before it starts raining.
- Gerald Eggplant's lines "I must say, you're looking great today" and "Sure. Why not?' were re-recorded.
  - He also gains an extra line at the end of the episode: "You may know kiss the bride". The music here was played earlier to accommodate this, as well as a kissing sound effect for when Tim and Carla kiss.
- The credits are re-done with a scene from the episode instead of a black background, as well as an instrumental version of He Has a Plan being added in place of the theme song.
However, the 1998, 2001, and 2004 mockup versions made by Clama264 keeps the original version of the episode unedited, except for the theme song and the Big Idea logos.

Remarks[]

In real life, the voices of Bob, Larry, Tim the Snow Pea and Gerald Eggplant were not provided by Phil and Mike themselves, but generated into AI text-to-speech models using voice samples from the following episodes:
- Bob's voice samples from Take 38 and Where's God When I'm S-Scared?
- Larry's voice samples from Take 38 as well as a combination of Scallion 2 and Jean-Claude Pea's voice samples from all the Softimage episodes and Jerry Gourd's original voice samples from Are You My Neighbor?
- Tim's voice being Jimmy Gourd's voice samples from Are You My Neighbor?, Dave and the Giant Pickle, A Very Veggie Christmas, Very Silly Songs! and Larry-Boy! and the Fib from Outer Space!
- Gerald Eggplant's voice being Mr. Nezzer's voice samples from Rack, Shack and Benny and The Toy That Saved Christmas
In real life, Tim's Italian and Mexican accents were voiced by JoeDavisEggy.
In real life, the singing voices of Ted and Tim were provided by The Life of Abraham Benson for the former and JoeDavisEggy for the latter.
There are not very many windows modeled into the palace.
In the YouTube upload of this short, there is a credits sequence at the very end after the mockup credits, listing the real people who worked on the short. This is not present on the mockup 1994 version of this short.

Goofs[]

The characters' mouths disappear on some frames (one frame in one scene at a time, however), as does Larry's tooth.
The inner of the characters' mouths clip through the ground in some scenes.
The shading of the characters flickers at times.
The raindrops fall at a slow rate.
The thunder and lightning clips through the walls of the palace. The raindrops also shed shadows into the inside of the palace as well.
If one were to look very closely, the toast doesn't plop down into Coucho's toast holes when Bob pushes down Coucho's nose (which is a handle).
The toast that Coucho pops out is not darkened and also has no texture, despite its Bible verse text being toasted dark onto the bread.

Inside References[]

The background music that plays in the opening scene of the story is a rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", which the previous pilot "VeggieTales Promo: Take 38" also had a similar tune to.
Benny the Banana, Freddy the Apple and the Grape Kids appear again in "What's the Best Decision, God?".
The sombrero the Prophet Pea wears would later be worn by Larry in Dance of the Cucumber.
The tune of He Has a Plan would later be used for The Ballad of the Pie War from Duke and the Great Pie War.