Cheap VeggieTales - Larry's World Auto-tainment (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of VeggieTales - Larry's World Auto-tainment

One of Veggietales cutest efforts.
This one we borrowed from the library and I'm going to have to buy it since we've played it so much within a week! This really is a very, very cute video. Larry thinks the way of the future is to go automated in the entertainment industry so two robot friends narrate most of the songs. It's pretty cute and some of the highlights are "Modern Major General" sung by Archibald Asparagus. Okay, for those non-music majors out there, this song is a Gilbert & Sullivan song and incredibly difficult to sing. Phil Vischer does a fantastic job as Archibald and if you don't know it, it's horrifically hard to sing it in your regular voice, let alone try to sing it as someone else. Great job, hands down there. I really appreciate the exposure they're giving kids to classical music in these videos. Great stuff. I think my next favorite song in this video is the next one - Larry is singing "You Are My Sunshine" to cheer up the robots. However, he's playing a grand piano in the back of a crayon-rendered pickup truck. Oh, is this one cute! All the scenes as he drives by are crayon renderings and show all the seasons, different activities, etc. It's just very well done.

All day all I hear is "Mom, can I watch my new robot cucumber?" (Larry, in other words.) I don't know what I'm going to say when we have to return it to the library - sure hope my order gets here before that happens! Grab this one - it really is great entertainment for your children and they're also getting exposed to some great music.

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Nice songs, but no plot
This DVD reminds me a lot of the Ultimate Silly Songs DVD -- there are a lot of great songs (and this time they're NEW), but not much in the way of a plot or a message. It starts with a silly (of course) view of the future, where Larry is convinced that randomly-generated programming is the wave of the future. So we get a randomly-selected Veggie singing a randomly-selected song topic in a randomly-selected genre. The results are...well...random, with some hits and some misses.

The song list includes:
There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea (French Peas)
Zacchaeus (Pa Grape)
Modern Major General (Archie)
You are My Sunshine (Larry)
Erie Canal (Pa Grape)
My Day (Junior)

Some of these aren't original...well, other than My Day, none of them are original (and My Day was on a VeggieTales CD last year -- Junior's Bedtime Songs). But they're well-executed, with visual and aural humor throughout. The between-songs shtick is a little annoying, but delights our girls (ages 3 and 1.5).

There aren't any Bible stories (though the Zacchaeus song is itself a short one), and not a huge message (My Day is what passes for that -- God loves us even when things go bad), and not even all the traditional trappings of a VeggieTale (no visit to QWERTY at the end). Still, it's cute -- and it's a lot better entertainment for kids than some of what's out there! The songs are memorable and fun to sing(though Modern Major General may be more for listening to than singing...but the tune is stuck in my head after hearing it just a couple times).

Not a bad purchase, all considered, but I wish they'd let themselves stick with the formula that worked. I'm sure they get bored with it, but the kids don't seem to!

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As Pa Grape might say...
"Eh, it coulda been woise." "Larry's World of Auto-tainment" is a different sort of a veggie-tales video. It doesn't present a story, but rather an over-plot of Larry's view of the future, where humor is generated randomly for maximum suprise value (and minimum logic). Being Larry's vision, it naturally goes screwy, with humorous results.

The main thrust of the show is songs done by "randomly selected" characters on "randomly selected" topics. As a result, we get to hear the French peas singing "There's a hole in the Bottom of the Sea," and Pa Grape singing, "Erie Canal" among others. One gets the sense that the video was made purely for entertainment purposes. Now, a veggie tales that just tries to entertain isn't necessarily a bad thing (my family has practically worn out our copy of "Ultimate Silly Songs Countdown.")

Unfortunately, the writers try to stick in lessons that just don't work. For example there is a short called "Lunch" that illustrates a lesson against greed in a way kids can relate to. They also include a quote from "John," the only scripture in the episode. Unfortunately, "Lunch" is a silent short with non-veggie characters. It seems so out of place it is jarring rather than enlightening.

At the end, Junior Asparagas sings a song about God loving him no matter what. This is a good lesson, one that deserves to be the subject of a full video. As it is in "Auto-tainment," it feels tacked on as an afterthought.

In short, buy this video expecting to be entertained with a good presentation of kid songs. There may not be a proper lesson to discuss with your kids, but hey, there are lots of veggie-tales videos that provide that.