Nathalie

So there you are, an ambitious evangelical Christian, that wants to preach the Word to the youth. What do you do? You could create an animated series. That is difficult though, because you must first learn to understand the idiom and the technique, which doesn't always work out that well. But what other options are there? Well why not just buy the rights to some cheap Japanese cartoon series and dub it over in the native language of your country cramming it full of Jesus? That is what the local Evangelical Broadcasting Network here seems to have done with the Japanese series Katri, Girl of the Meadows, that they renamed Nathalie. This story is strange anyway and somehow very modern and international. The 1980s series is Japanese and based on a Finnish book set in Finland during the First World War. So already the series is culturally somewhat of a stretch. But then the Evangelical Broadcasting Network here in the Netherlands bought up the rights and made it into a Dutch series with a strong Christian message. This is not on a Golden Rule do-unto-others level, Jesus was invoked himself. It was quite explicit. I am amazed now (although perhaps a bit naively) that the series wasn't evangelical at all to begin with. In a way, just buying some secular series and then dubbing it into sanctity is quite cunning. If you can't beat them, rob them blind?

 Katri, a.k.a. Nathalie.

Dutch DVD front.

Dutch intro song.

Veggie Tales

So in line with my recent entries on Christian kid's shows (like SuperBook and Davey & Goliath) today let's talk about the one to end all others: Veggie Tales. This is one of the few crossover success examples of evangelical popular cultural products being picked up in the secular market too, not just remaining in the evangelical subculture, according to Heather Hendershot. It's pretty much your cutesy series about anthropomorphic vegetables (a divergence from the usual animals) that go out on adventures. Subtle certainly for evangelical Christian standards is the embedded message that doesn't focus on Jesus but focuses more on proper behavior and interpersonal (intervegetable?) contact.

 Okay maybe they aren't always that subtle.

Website: http://veggietales.com/
Source: Hendershot, Heather. Shaking the World for Jesus: Media and Conservative Evangelical Culture. London: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

SuperBook

So this is an old pre-animé type Christian animation series. I remember this kind of series, they always looked rather cheaply produced (probably because they were). Endless shots of heads of two altering frames to cut costs, that sort of thing. Brought home probably by the Pokémon series. But I know it more from the old eighties series like Nils Holgersson and the Wizard of Oz animated renditions (oeh and that terrible one where they wanted to teach you about the human body. It was awful. No matter how young you are, you automatically react allergically to educational-purposes animated series). It wasn't very good but hey I was ten, it moved, that's all that mattered, I was happy with it. Even though the Evangelical Broadcast Network did have some series of its own, I don't really remember this one. Only vaguely perhaps but given that I was hardly even in my double digits of age my mind is likely to play tricks on me and fill in blind gaps with lies. Anyway, since there were secular animated series, of course there were also evangelical counterparts. This one seems, given the standard that it emulates, not bad though. The premise seems to be your average computer-gone-bad because of which some kids are sucked into another reality type model. Of course in this case they end up in the many stories of the Bible. Probably this series isn't so bad because the Bible stories do beg to be turned into an animated series... well okay perhaps not all books and stories but still quite a few of them.

Spank Me Jesus

Post #150. Some say things start to get interesting only after so many. We'll see. I'll at least try to make this post interesting. Been a naughty boy or girl? Then what you need is a good ol' spankin' by Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews himself!

In The Beginning

Some days I don't like myself. Like on the days where you read "in the beginning" as a note you made months ago and now you can't remember for the life of you what that refers to anymore. Okay, let me rephrase my first statement, some days I don't like my former self. He's such a mindless jerk. Anyway, I think I was talking about this pre-animé super cheaply produced animation series that I now found bearing this title. It takes me back to watching sucky animated TV series. It was cheap, stupid, whatever, it moved (even if barely) and it was on my screen, that's pretty much all it takes to satisfy an eight year old.