Veggie Tales :: Big River Rescue and 321 Penguins DVD Reviews

The Veggie Tales’ Bob and Larry do some river rafting to help a friend while the 321 Penguins save not one, not two, but three planets! Kidzworld checks out the newest DVDs from the Big Idea universe.

Veggie Tales :: Tomato Sawyer & Huckleberry Larry’s Big River Rescue

When an innocent squash escapes his wrongful imprisonment, he hits the Mississippi River to try and get away. Now that he’s free, he wants to get back to his mama in St. Louis, so he asks the help of Tomato Sawyer (Bob the Tomato) and Huckleberry Larry (Larry the Cucumber), two settlers who are at first reluctant to help. But soon Bob and Larry learn the value of helping others on their journey down the river.

DVD Features

There are some fun games, and a behind the scenes feature about how they adapted the Huckleberry Finn story, with questions asked by kids who have just seen the movie. You can also learn how the Veggie Tales crew writes their silly songs, like this movie’s The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo.

The Bottom Line

The Big River Rescue is full of classic Veggie Tales comedy and a good lesson about taking care of the people around you, but all in all it’s not as fun and fast as previous movies (specifically The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything). But there are still plenty of laughs and some great Bob and Larry moments.

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321 Penguins :: Save the Planets

The newest Veggies are…penguins? Yep, that’s right—the folks behind the Veggie Tales series have created all new adventures featuring a team of space-traveling penguins who help people (and aliens, and sheep) solve their problems. In these three stories, they try to save three planets—first by stopping the green-eyed monsters of envy from eating up Planet Picket, then by helping the people of Planet Gutt to get over their sugar addiction, and then by teaching the lawn ornaments of Planet Sharealike to dole out their water supplies equally.

DVD Features

There’s a feature called Pearls of Wisdom that explains the Biblical origins of the lessons in the stories, trivia and a how to draw the characters section. But the coolest part is the Make Your Own Planet art project—try it!

The Bottom Line

These are cool, different new characters for the Veggie universe, and if you like space adventures, you’ll probably like the penguins. The episodes are pretty predictable from start to finish, though, in that the creatures on the different planets always learn their lessons. But it can be entertaining to get there. If they focused less on getting to the moral and a more on letting kids figure it out on their own, 321 Penguins might be more space-tacular.

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Read more: At The Movies