I've talked about VeggieTales before, you'll recall, but in that post I didn't talk much about MY personal history with the franchise. I mentioned that I saw Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie in theaters, but that's about it.
My parents introduced my older sister and me to VeggieTales when we were very little. We had the CDs - I distinctively remember having one of those personalized CDs where the characters say your name, that was pretty exciting. We still have two ornaments featuring Bob and Larry on our Christmas tree. And of course, we had at least some of the episodes on... I want to say VHS. So, yeah, we were fans of the show... at least for a few years. I didn't exactly stop being a VeggieTales fan, for some reason we just stopped buying the episodes when they came out. It wasn't until the 2010s that I found out about the post-Jonah VeggieTales stuff like Sumo of the Opera, Lord of the Beans, and Gideon: Tuba Warrior. And it wasn't until the 2020s that I actually found these episodes online and watched them! Well, sort of - in 2017 I was on a bit of a VeggieTales kick and found the "countertop" segments of these episodes on YouTube.
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| Here's one of the two Christmas ornaments featuring Bob and Larry that we hang on our Christmas tree every year. |
I don't know how many of the episodes we had on VHS. I think we had Where's God When I'm S-Scared?, Madame Blueberry, and one of the Larry-Boy ones. The only one I know for sure that we had was the 2001 Ultimate Silly Song Countdown. Yeah, I remember having a CD but I don't remember which of the episodes we owned. Maybe if the characters in the episodes had said my name, too...
Considering what big VeggieTales fans we were, it's odd that we didn't also get into Big Idea Productions' OTHER series, 3-2-1 Penguins!.
It wasn't for a lack of trying - we had ONE 3-2-1 Penguins! DVD, but that's it. Apparently, everyone else in the world felt the same way - 3-2-1 Penguins! never became a huge phenomenon like VeggieTales. Its biggest claim to fame is being the only thing Big Idea made that wasn't a VeggieTales production.
Much like VeggieTales, this show - created by Jeff Parker, Nathan Carlson, and Phil Lollar - was originally a direct-to-video series, with the first episode released on November 14th, 2000. Eventually, it started airing on TV as part of NBC's Qubo block (which you'll recall also aired VeggieTales during the 2000s as well). In total, twenty-seven episodes were produced, six direct-to-video and twenty-one made for TV.
Each episode had one of two kids going on a fantastic adventure with the four wacky penguins: vain and arrogant Captain Zidgel, Australian-accented First Officer Midgel, incredibly smart Doctor Fidgel, and the kindhearted if dimwitted Kevin. These adventures involved them going to some far-off planet and solving a problem for its inhabitants - a problem that always, ALWAYS had to do with whatever lesson the kid who the episode focuses on has to learn: don't complain about what you don't have, don't be a lying liar from Liarsburg, don't be impatient, that sort of thing.
3-2-1 Penguins! was never able to step out of VeggieTales' shadow. Perhaps the show was merely in the right place at the wrong time. It wasn't until halfway through the 2000s that people became obsessed with penguins. March of the Penguins, Happy Feet, Surf's Up, Club Penguin... people just couldn't get enough of penguins. I remember even Nickelodeon Magazine made a joke about it: "Doesn't anyone care about seals anymore? How about polar bears? It's time for penguins to chill out for a while." I dunno, I don't know how good the ratings on Qubo were, and the direct-to-video episodes apparently sold pretty well, but that really just makes the show's obscurity more of a headscratcher. Nowadays, it seems to be a cult classic of sorts, if nothing else...
So, today, we're going to watch one of the direct-to-video 3-2-1 Penguins! episodes - the very first one to be released, in fact. This is 3-2-1 Penguins!: Trouble on the Planet Wait-Your-Turn.
The episode starts off with the kids, twin siblings Jason (voiced by Mark Marten) and Michelle (Melissa Peterson), being driven to their grandmother's cottage. They're going to be staying with their grandma (Kymberly Mellen) while their faceless parents (Pamela Thomas and Ron Wells) are... I don't think it's specified where they're going, but wherever it is, it's going to be for twenty-seven episodes.
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| Hey, Jason, Doug Funnie called. He wants his outfit back. |
Michelle is very happy to be at Grandma's house. Jason, not so much. He's rather be at Space Camp. So, to lift their son's spirits, the parents give him a video game console and the best game in the world, Bonsai Master 3: Pruner of Destiny (an entire video game about pruning hedges? Sounds exciting. Sort of), before they head off to the airport. Hooking it up to Grandma's TV, which is one of those old-timey pre-rabbit ears sets, takes some difficulty, but Jason manages to pull it off. Wow, how old are these kids? Seven? When I was seven, I had no idea how to hook up a video game console to a TV. Then again, I didn't play much in the way of video games anyway...
Problem number two rears its ugly head after that: Jason and Michelle both want to play the game first. Fortunately, Grandma steps in before they can start "fighting like frogs and dogs" as she puts it. "I'm glad you got a new widget there, but you need to learn to wait your turn!" she claims. "To let someone else go first every now and then! It's called PATIENCE, and it's a virtue!"
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| Don't worry, Grandma, they're not really fighting. They're just practicing their interpretive dance moves. |
To remind everyone that this is a Big Idea production, Grandma quotes the Good Book: "A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly." The kids don't get the point. Weird thing is, there are two controllers, so clearly Bonsai Master 3 isn't a one-player game... so what's the problem? Why are they arguing over who gets to go first at all?
Y'know what else is weird? Why does the grandmother has a British accent but Jason, Michelle, and their parents are American?
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| I mean, Jason argues that only one of the controllers is plugged in, but can't they just plug in the other one too? |
Alas, Grandma's primitive television set just can't handle the new-fangled video game technology or whatever, and it blows a fuse. So no Bonsai Master 3 for either of them, and Grandma's making them kidney pie for dinner doesn't do anything to lift their spirits.
After being excused (they claim that they're not really hungry because they stopped at Burger Bell on the way there - a reference to the VeggieTales song "His Cheeseburger"), the kids run up the stairs, and Michelle notices four little penguin figurines on a shelf. In their bedroom, Michelle plays with the penguins and Jason lays on the bed being bored... that is, until he takes notice of the door that leads to the attic. In the attic, Jason finds a bunch of space stuff, and Michelle finds a bunch of framed pictures of their grandfather, who it seems was a scientist of some sort. They even spot his telescope, and once again, they both want to use it first. Long story short, Michelle claims that since she's the oldest by five minutes, she gets to decide who goes first. And she decides that Jason should... nah, I'm just kidding, she decides that SHE should go first. This makes Jason MAD! Or at least rather irked.
While Michelle is peering into the telescope, Jason spots the little penguin figurines sitting next to a toy rocketship, and he gets an idea...
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| "You got your penguins in my science fiction!" "Well, YOU got your science fiction in my penguins!" "Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay..." |
Okay, we're thirteen minutes in. Where are the penguins? The REAL penguins, not the little non-sentient figurines?
While playing with the penguins in the spaceship, Jason stumbles backwards thanks to a toolbox lying on the floor, and the ship goes flying into a box. Seeing as we don't hear a loud smashing sound, I'm going to assume that the ship and penguins DIDN'T shatter into a million pieces. Instead, the ship bounces out of the box and starts flying around on its own. What sort of sorcery IS this?!
Then the... window in front of the ship (what do you call that?) opens up, and Jason is shocked to discover that the penguin figurines are now sentient... and they have snazzy orange spacesuits on now, too! From what I've heard, it's never made clear if the adventures that the kids go on with the penguins are real or if they're just the kids imagining, but I'm going to assume it's the first one because, let's be honest, it's a lot cooler.
"Jason T. Conrad, we need your help!" one of the penguins tells Jason, who's understandably quite shocked by the fact that the penguin figurines are now ALIVE. Obviously Jason isn't going to fit in the tiny spaceship, but Fidgel (Page G. Hearn) has a way to fix that: a shrinking ray! Or at least I'm HOPING that it's a shrinking ray. It probably is... somehow I doubt they're gonna have the penguin blast the kid with a laser gun.
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| I was going to have the caption here be "Say hello to my little friend!", but I decided that it's too overused a pop culture reference. |
Actually, it's not a shrinking ray. When he pulls the trigger, out pops a mechanical hand attached to a long rope that grabs Jason, shrinks him down, and pulls him into the spaceship. And Michelle doesn't hear any of this going on, for some reason.
Once Jason is inside the spaceship, it flies out the window - Michelle, amusingly, STILL not noticing a thing - and Jason is formally introduced to the penguins. Zidgel (also Ron Wells) is the one with the pompadour. Think of him as a penguin version of Captain Kirk.
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| Or a penguin version of Zapp Brannigan, who was ALSO based on William Shatner... |
Fidgel is the rockhopper penguin with the goggles. He's the brains of the outfit - to make a comparison to another group of animated penguins, the Kowalski of the bunch.
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| Is it just me, or does he kind of look like one of the Save-Ums? |
Midgel (Greg Mills) is the pilot and engineer. The most interesting thing about Midgel is that he has an accent that sounds like it's both a Liverpoolian accent and a Brooklyn accent at the same time.
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| In his spare time, Midgel does some freelance work for Linux. |
And Kevin (Ron Smith) is... well, he's pretty much comic relief.
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| He's like a fusion of Rico and Private. |
"We've recieved a report on our fax machine that Planet Wait-Your-Turn is in crisis," Fidgel explains. What's the crisis? They don't know, they were low on toner. And just what IS Planet Wait-Your-Turn? Well, it's a planet that appears to be made out of purple Swiss cheese... populated by sentient vaccuum cleaners.
I'm going to repeat that. A planet that appears to be made out of purple Swiss cheese, populated by sentient vaccuum cleaners.
Yeah, I have no idea what I just typed either.
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| Somehow, this STILL isn't as bizarre as Ned's Newt. |
The vaccuum cleaners are all standing in line, for some reason, and they keep cutting in front of others. "Kind of odd behavior for a planet called 'Wait-Your-Turn'," Midgel points out. I do love it when a character in what I'm reviewing makes the funny observations for me. "They're all cutting in line! They're, they're BARBARIANS!" Zidgel declares. When Fidgel asks why everyone is cutting in line, a vaccuum cleaner explains that it all started when President No-I'm-the-President pushed his way into office (and yet, he STILL sounds like a better president than Donald Trump).
Another vaccuum cleaner, who sounds almost exactly like Larry the Cucumber, tells the penguins that they didn't call them about the cutting in line problem. They called about the heat. Why is it so hot, hot, hot? According to the penguins' satellite viewing system, the planet itself is impatient too! It's broken out of its normal orbit and is trying to cut in front of the other planets in its solar system! Fidgel adds that there's some sort of "cutting in line bug" that's infected the entire planet - the same bug that was introduced to their environment by President No-I'm-the-President.
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| "This whole situation really SUCKS!" Get it? 'Cause it's a planet of sentient vaccuum cleaners? |
But wait, there's more! In taking itself out of its normal orbit, the planet is now heading directly towards its sun. "Yeah, but at least we're ahead of all the other planets," a vaccuum cleaner points out. And if Jason and the penguins don't get out of there, the cutting in line bug will infect THEM too! They'll become obsessed with being first for everything... which Jason more or less already was, so...
"People, don't you understand what happens when you get too close to the sun?!" Jason asks. "You'll BURN UP!" In fact, several of the planet's trees have already burst into flame. Everybody makes a run for the ship, but they're all too busy trying to get onto the ship first to actually, y'know, GET ONTO THE SHIP. Jason gives a big speech about how waiting your turn is good. And it is. Especially if it's waiting your turn to do something that isn't fun, like get a shot or clean the sink.
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| Why does a vaccuum cleaner need teeth? Do sentient vaccuum cleaners eat? Do they have digestive tracts? |
"Having to go first all the time only leads to trouble! Like getting burned up by the sun!" Jason says. "Now, the consequences are not always so extreme, but good things come to those who wait." And when he offers to let someone else go first, it destroys the cutting in line bug and causes the planet to return to its normal orbit. I was expecting everything to be resolved by EVERYONE on the planet offering to let whoever it was behind htem go first, but that would probably take a very long time and the planet would likely have made contact with the sun by the time they were finished.
Incidentally, President No-I'm-the-President was at the front of the line when the planet abruptly stopped. He is now slowly hurtling through space and nobody cares. The new president? President After You... who I'm guessing is supposed to be a caricature of somebody. Bill Clinton was the president when this episode came out, so maybe it's him?
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| Was Bill Clinton ever a brunette? |
Everyone thanks Jason and the penguins for saving them all. And what was it that the vaccuum cleaners were waiting in line to see? Why, a telescope, of course! A telescope that allows them to peer at Michelle, who's spying on them through HER telescope! Oh, the irony!
Jason and the penguin take off in their rocket ship, and as they're flying through space we suddenly cut back to Jason playing with the toy rocket back in the attic. Was it real? Was it all in Jason's head? We may never know.
I've gotta ask, though... if it WAS all in Jason's head, why would he imagine a planet full of sentient vaccuum cleaners? Like, earlier we saw the grandma using a vaccuum cleaner, but Jason and Michelle were already upstairs when she was using it so he didn't see her using it. What exactly is going on in Jason's mind?
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| "Hey, Jason, you're not gonna believe this... there's an entire planet full of sentient vaccuum cleaners, and they're all lining up to look through a telescope back at me!" "Oh, I believe it..." |
The episode ends with Jason and Michelle saying their prayers before going to bed - with Jason suggesting that maybe next time Michelle learns something too. Don't worry, Jason, the next episode is indeed focused on her.
We cut to outside the cottage, and as the camera pans up at the moon, the spaceship flies by, further making it ambigious as to whether or not the adventure really occured. If they did, I'd love to see the reaction of the first astronauts to encounter a planet full of sentient vaccuum cleaners.
What's the Verdict?
3-2-1 Penguins! is, in my opinion, pretty good. Not as good as the best VeggieTales episodes, of course, but it's a charming show in its own right. Much like having talking produce re-enact stories from the bible, the idea of what's basically Star Trek with penguins sounds like a really silly premise for a cartoon, but Big Idea pulled it off with their usual brand of good-natured snark and quirkiness. My main complaint about this episode is that it takes forever for the adventure with the penguins to get started - I mean, I know WHY, it's the first episode so they have to set up the plot, but surely you could have at least skipped the kidney pie sequence so we can get to the penguins sooner.
The animation... well, it's typical early 2000s CGI. It certainly doesn't look like PIXAR, but it's still much more appealing on the eyes than something like Arthur's Missing Pal. The characters are fun, and most of the jokes are funny. So yeah, as a whole I'd recommend seeking 3-2-1 Penguins! out. Or at least showing it to your kids, even if they already know that waiting your turn is good.
Speaking of waiting, you'll have to wait another whole week for my next review. And remember, if you're impatient, there's a good chance you'll get burned up by the sun. See you next time!
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