VeggieTales Review: The Star of Christmas

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Overall, a good story.

Cons: Slow at times.

The Bottom Line:

Second Christmas tale

It's slower than the first one

But enjoyable

Another Christmas Episode from Everyone's Favorite Vegetables

The people at Big Idea decided to present another Christmas episode with The Star Of Christmas. This one is set in Victorian England.

Calvin Appythart (Bob the Tomato) wants to teach London how to love while gaining fame writing musicals. Working with his partner, Millward Phelps (Larry the Cucumber), they are getting ready to release "The Princess and the Plumber." It promises to be a huge extravaganza, with a famous star and the use of electric lights to set it apart from other stages productions.

Meanwhile across town, Edmond Gilbert (Jr. Asparagus) and his friends are planning a simple Christmas pageant. Everyone is talking about it, however, because they plan to use the Star of Christmas, which no one has seen in years. Will Calvin and Millward resort to desperate measures to ensure they get an audience?

Any fan of these Veggies will enjoy this new Christmas story. It's filled with the usual humor and good story telling we've come to expect over the years. Produced at the same time as Jonah, it does seem to suffer from the divided focus of the staff a little. This was also the first of the 45 minute episodes. Between the two, the story seems a little sluggish at times. I don't think they quite had the longer format down yet. Also, they don't have the kitchen counter wrap around or a silly song, so it seems a little odd to the fans of the series.

The DVD includes some great extras for kids and interesting tidbits for the adult fans as well. Be sure to check out the audio commentary for information on the companion video to this one, The Easter Carol. The commentary itself is good, but does loose its way a few times when Phil Vischer and Tim Hodge can't think of anything to say at the moment.

Even though The Star Of Christmas isn't the best episode in the series, there's no reason to fear we'll loose this fun series anytime soon; they don't seem to be running out of steam yet.