Movie Review: VeggieTales - If I Sang a Silly Song

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Many very funny songs

Cons: I disagree with a few of the songs included here

The Bottom Line:

Silly, silly songs

That will make you smile and laugh

Sit back and enjoy

20 Classics and One New Silly Song Equal Over an Hour of Silliness

It had been a while since VeggieTales released a compilation of their silly songs.  But that’s just what they’ve done with If I Sang A Silly Song.  It collects what are considered the best silly songs as voted on by fans.  While there are many classics here, obviously my tastes don’t agree with the vast majority of fans.

The “plot,” and I use the term loosely, involves a telethon were people are voting in with suggestions for a brand new silly song.  While we wait for the results to be tallied, we are treated to the top 10 silly songs of the last decade.  Basically, they play back to back with a brief stop to check in with the phone banks about half way through.  We get such fun songs as “Pants,” “Goodnight, Junior,” “Monkey,” and “The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo.”  And this is where my bias comes into play the most.  I’m not a fan of “Sport Utility Vehicle” or “Gated Community,” both of which make the list.  I can think of two or three that should have replaced them.  On the other hand, we do get the very funny “Sippy Cup.”

But when those initial 10 songs have played, the votes aren’t all in yet, so they run the top ten silly songs from the first decade.  There were fewer videos back then, so these are most of the songs we all know and love.  And they are true classics.  We’ve got songs like “The Hairbrush Song,” “His Cheeseburger,” “The Song of the Cebu,” and the very first silly song ever, “The Water Buffalo Song.”  There are really only two songs from that first decade I don’t care for, and one of them is missing.  The other makes it way too high up the list, but it’s not number one.  And speaking of which, the results this time are different from the initial time they let the fans rate the silly songs – 10 years ago.

Finally, all the calls have been totaled and tallied and we get a new silly song.  The subject?  Well, I’ll leave that for you to discover.  They really did have a fan poll on the internet to create this silly song, and it’s fun.  I’d actually heard some people reference it recently, so I was glad to be able to see it.

Most fans already have the majority of these songs in their collection from their initial DVD releases.  Still, for kids who love the music, it’s nice to have a place to just pop it in and see all the songs with very little else.  The video is 72 minutes long, and it’s mostly the songs.

Unlike other VeggieTales entries, this one doesn’t have a message or a moral.  It’s just silliness for silliness sake.

And they are plain fun.  I stuck this in to watch while my roommate was home.  He wound up watching all of them with me even though he intended to go do some stuff in the other room.  That’s just how much fun they are for adults.  Kids, the intended audience, love them just as much.

But watching songs done over 20 years makes one thing very obvious - man have computer graphics changed.  The modern songs look good and sharp.  It’s not quite Pixar quality, but it’s still very good.  However, when you get to the older songs, the rough edges and the jerky movement becomes very obvious – more obvious since they are side by side.  But considering that animation was done 20 years ago, it’s pretty understandable why they look that way, and kids won’t really notice.  They’ll be having too much fun.

And I will give the voice cast credit.  They can sing without breaking character.  In fact, at times their singing adds to the fun of the song.

So if you want a collection of silliness, be sure to check out If I Sang A Silly Song.  The silliness is infection, and that’s all of the fun.