Good news, bad news. The good news, NBC is showing Veggie Tales. Bad news, they are taking out the references to God and the Bible. Source.

"VeggieTales was originally created for home video and, in most cases, each episode is over 30 minutes long. As it appears …. VeggieTales has been edited down for broadcast without losing any of its core messages about positive values," the network said. Phil Vischer, the co-creator of the characters, said that comment was "interesting." "As a guy deeply involved with the project, I know that statement is false," Vischer wrote on his own weblog. "We sent them our first episode for TV, which was already edited to EXACTLY the right length, and they rejected it because, at the end, Bob the Tomato said, 'Remember kids, God made you special and he loves you very much.' They demanded we remove that line. The show wasn't too long, it was too religious." He said the second also was sent edited for perfect timing. The response from NBC was an e-mail with a list of lines that needed to be removed, "each of them containing either the word 'God' or 'Bible,'" Vischer wrote.

I used to think that NBC stood for 'nothing but commercials' - expecially the Olympic coverage. Then again, during the Olympics it could stand for 'Nitwit Bob Costas'. Now it must mean "Never Broadcast Christian".

"It's like 'Gunsmoke' without the guns, or 'Monday Night Football' without the football," he said. "Think about this corporate mindset. NBC is the network that hired a squad of lawyers to argue that dropping the F-word on the Golden Globe Awards isn't indecent for children, but invoking God is wholly unacceptable. ... "This is one of those moments where you understand networks like NBC are only talking an empty talk and walking an empty walk when it comes to the First Amendment, and 'creative integrity,' and so on," Bozell wrote. "They have told parents concerned about their smutty programs like 'Will and Grace' that if they're offended, they have a remote control as an option. "But when it comes to religious programming – that doesn't even mention Jesus Christ – just watch the hypocrisy. Instead of telling viewers to just change the channel if they don't like it, or put in a V-chip for Bible verses, they demand to producers that all that outdated old-time religion be shredded before broadcast," he said. "It's truly sad this anti-religious hypocrisy would emerge. Today, no one in network TV fears what the children are watching – unless it makes them think about God."

The interesting thing here is that it's not about ratings. The shows are popular just the way they are. NBC is getting great ratings, and it would be just as good - maybe better - if the Bible verses were left in. Deep down, they are just anti-Christian. Let's hope that some of the messages of the Veggie-Tales will sink into some of the NBC executives. After all, in Lord of the Beans, even the sporks eventually see the light.