Two Truths And A Pie
I was born with six fingers on my left hand. When I was nine years old I stole an entire basket of muffins from a local diner. I’m allergic to paprika. What do these statements have in common?
They’re all L I E S.
Deceptions. Falsehoods. Untruths. And you believed me, without question. What a fool you are.
In case you hadn’t guessed, this week we are revisiting "Larry-Boy! And the Fib from Outer Space!", a morality play about the importance of always telling the truth, under the guise of a superhero pastiche.
And it’s fantastic.
Before getting into the plot - and there’s a lot of plot, relative to Veggietales - I feel it’s important that I discuss a joke from the opening sequence. I haven’t talked much about the structure of the countertop openings, but if you haven’t been watching along - and why wouldn’t you be? - almost every episode begins with Bob and Larry on a kitchen countertop reading a letter from a viewer, and the episode proper is thematically tied to the letter. In this episode, Larry says that they received an e-mail from a viewer. Bob proceeds to ask what that is, and Larry says, verbatim, “You know, Bob. E-Mail. Aren’t you wired? Online? Surfin’ the web? HTML, good buddy.” It’s a fantastic bit because it’s the kind of joke that can only be made during a specific 18-month period in the late 90’s. A joke like that will never be made again, unless it’s heavily steeped in irony.
It also reminds me of the iconic clip from the PBS show Ghostwriters, which, trust me. Just watch it. Trust me.
Anyway, the episode itself is the first of the recurring Larry-Boy series. Larry-Boy, for those that don’t know, is the VeggieTales equivalent of Batman.
It opens with a meteor crashing into the earth. Two astronomers, portrayed by the Gourd brothers, alert Larry-Boy, the city’s protector, who proceeds to investigate. At the crash site, we see a small creature emerge from the crater. It looks like a tiny blue koosh ball.
Meanwhile, at the Asparagus household, Junior Asparagus and LauraCarrot are having a tea party, but they find they’re one plate short. Junior gets the bright idea to use his dad’s prized possession, a collectible commemorative plate of the bowler Art Bigotti. While Junior is climbing the bookshelf where the it’s displayed, the plate falls to the ground and breaks into several pieces. Laura makes the right decision and leaves. Junior is then visited by the alien, who introduces himself as Fibrillus Minimus, Fib for short. Fib tells Junior to lie to his dad about the plate. Fib hides when Junior’s dad - who let’s not forget is named Mike - enters the room and asks about the plate. Junior throws his best friend Laura under the bus and blames her for breaking the plate. Mike leaves and Fib reemerges, having grown larger. Curious.
Larry-Boy continues his search for the alien, while driving around in a very cool car that I remember liking a lot when I was a kid, but is fruitless in his attempts. Junior is confronted by his friends, who tell him Laura got in trouble for breaking Mike’s plate, even though she said Junior did it. Junior doubles down on his lies and Fib is now enormous. He grabs Junior and carries him to the top of a water tower, King Kong style. Fan favorite character Scooter witnesses this and calls for Larry-Boy’s help.
We then go to a very nice scene where Larry is playing Candy Land with his butler, Alfred. We’ll get back to the plot in a second, but I want to address Alfred for a second.
We all know the trope of the millionaire vigilante whose closest confidante is his butler, as popularized by the Batman comic books. Many other pieces of media have used this trope, whether in earnest or in parody, but what strikes me as odd here is that Batman’s butler is also named Alfred. They just used the same name from Batman. It seems like the slightest bit of work could’ve been done there. Alvin, Alan, Albert. Anything else. Actually, in a way I kind of appreciate that they’re just going for it. They’re not trying to hide what they’re riffing on, they’re owning it. I’ve changed my mind, I like that he’s named Alfred.
Anyway, back to the plot.
Larry goes to giant Fib and tries to save Junior but is unable to. Alfred tells him that the only way to defeat Fib is for Junior to tell the truth. He apologizes, Fib goes back to being small and everything is fine and everyone is happy. I’ve spent far too long on this already, I went into a lot of unnecessary details early on, it’s late, and I’m tired.
But before we go to credits, we see another meteor crash. Out of this crater we see another Fib, but this one… is red. Cliffhanger.
I, personally, am looking forward to the Larry-Boy reboot directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson. I’m sure it’s gonna be great.
Folks, it is June. The sun is out (sometimes). And summer is here. And I wanted to make a key lime pie, so I did.
Here’s how I’m justifying it.
Fib. Lie. Pie. Lime. Nailed it. Also, aliens are traditionally green and limes are also green. No, this specific alien wasn’t green, but hey, I’m only human.
I bought a very nice pie dish in order to make a veggie pot pie a few weeks ago, and I was finally able to put it to a second use.
For a first attempt, it wasn’t too bad. My graham cracker crust was a bit crumbly, I don’t think I used enough butter. The filling was good, but it didn’t fully set. It maintained it’s shape enough to cut into slices, and, to quote Cyndi Lauper, that’s good enough for me.
The recipe I used included a section for homemade whipped topping, but even I have my limits.
Overall I was very pleased with it, and I’ll definitely be attempting this again at some point.
What I’m learning from this project is that I’m much better at making desserts than I am food. I already knew this, but I feel like I’m getting worse at making regular food from doing this. Mostly just because of the parameters I’ve set for myself for the purposes of this strange, strange experiment. I promise I’ve made better foods than the things I’ve made for this blog. You’re going to have to trust me on this.