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Dustin: welcome to another Woodfox Talks & Rants Character Study before we move onto today's character i'm giving Blake a few minutes to talk about adding female characters to an all male cast or as it's often called on TV Tropes The Smurfette Principle go ahead Blake
Blake: For those that don't know, The Smurfette Principle is adding a female character to a predominantly male cast, but the female character has traits similar to the male characters with a major difference. Named after the first female introduced into the Smurfs, "Smurfette" she was created by Gargamel to infiltrate the Smurfs. She was okay with it at first, until she felt guilty and asked Papa Smurf to make her into a real Smurf
Dustin: of course this influence from The Smurfs would later been seen among other shows that have a mostly male cast the most infamous that wouldn't have any female engines until much later in the show's timeline was Thomas the Tank Engine with characters like Daisy or Emily but that will be for another time today's subject we're going into a classic early CG franchise predating Toy Story and ReBoot and that is VeggieTales
Dustin: VeggieTales is well known as a classic CG franchise back when computer animation was still in it's infancy Toy Story had yet to exist and the only computer animation would be used for shorts like Luxo Jr., Tin Toy and many more as well as a few special effects in movies like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park VeggieTales started out as a small selection of videos you can get from Christian stores or by mail order but as the years passed it got bigger and better even down to the point of making movie parodies like Lord of the Rings & The Wizard of Oz despite the fact of how bad the show went during the 2000's some time after the movie i was into this show for some time now but after the Netflix changeup and redesign around 2015 i just stopped but i still like the older stuff and VeggieTales was recently revived in 2020 with the old designs with The VeggieTales Show what do you have to say about VeggieTales Blake?
Blake: Well, it's a pretty intersting series; considering the series was almost going to be about an anthropomorphic candy bar that would have changed a lot :) Phil Vischer's wife suggested that parents would prefer a hero that promoted healthier eating habits, so they based characters off of fruits and vegetables. In fact, Pixar even called Vischer at one point to ask how they did the cheek puffing animation. It's a series I loved growing up, and while I do watch the classics from time to time, I don't delve too deep, you know what I mean?
Dustin: yeah but there's one thing you should know about VeggieTales... there's not a lot of female vegetables on the countertop honestly, now i'm not saying the female cast lineup is barren meaning there isn't any female characters at all what i mean is there isn't a lot of female characters that are the main characters for example there's Junior Asparagus' mother who only appears from time to time, Ma and Rosie Grape who only appeared once, Laura Carrot who does have a prominent appearance alongside Junior and of course Madame Blueberry who is the closest thing to having a main female character but out of all of these characters there was one that only made her appearance in one episode the character and video in question is the 14th episode from 2000 Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen
Blake: For those that don't know this VeggieTales story, Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen is about how after Nezzer (playing as the King) kicks out his wife for disobeying him, he must find a new queen. So he holds auditions, and one among them, Esther, becomes queen, mostly for her beauty. However, when Esther hears of Haman (Mr. Lunt) plans to banish the king, she must find the courage to do what's right
Dustin: this episode was the second to be made using their new animation software Autodesk Maya the first before this one being King George & the Ducky before working on their first movie Jonah and it looks pretty nice the episode itself has this Godfather like feel maybe it's the saxophone music i really like it :)
Blake: Onto the main topic, Esther herself; in VeggieTales, she's presented as a leek. She is beautiful both outside and in, as she's very kind and courageous
Dustin: indeed you basically feel bad for her throughout this episode like all throughout her cousin Mordecai [played by Pa Grape] tells her that God may have a plan on why she was chosen to be queen and you can see that it's pretty much what she does to help like she saved the king from being smashed by a piano caused by two troublesome peas and later on she gains the courage to tell the king that Haman plans to ship her family including Mordecai to the Island of Perpetual Tickling
Blake: I love her character design; though her animation proved to be difficult, considering her loose flowing hair, especially her longer bangs
Dustin: indeed and remember this was before Monsters, Inc. came out which has that special animation tool to animate hair right of course because of this Esther never made another appearance in another VeggieTales episode since but then in 2005 we got what i consider Esther's "Spiritual Successor" in the form of Petunia Rhubarb in the episode Duke and the Great Pie War and has been a regular character ever since
Blake: And as far as I know, Esther's one of the only VeggieTales characters to have both a speaking voice and a singing voice. Still, even if Esther never made an appearance after this short, we'll always remember the lesson her story teaches us.
Dustin: yeah indeed she may not have lasted very long but she is still a wonderful character so what would you like to tease for another Character Study Blake? :)
Blake: How about we do... (sniffs) Uh, Dustin, do you smell something?
Dustin: [sniffs] Blake! i know you're a skunk but jeez! >_<
Blake: That's not me, I swear X///<
Female French Voice: (giggles)
Dustin: [realizes] oh boy O_O
To Be Continued in the next Character Study
-----------------------------------------
Dustin: welcome to another Woodfox Talks & Rants Character Study before we move onto today's character i'm giving Blake a few minutes to talk about adding female characters to an all male cast or as it's often called on TV Tropes The Smurfette Principle go ahead Blake
Blake: For those that don't know, The Smurfette Principle is adding a female character to a predominantly male cast, but the female character has traits similar to the male characters with a major difference. Named after the first female introduced into the Smurfs, "Smurfette" she was created by Gargamel to infiltrate the Smurfs. She was okay with it at first, until she felt guilty and asked Papa Smurf to make her into a real Smurf
Dustin: of course this influence from The Smurfs would later been seen among other shows that have a mostly male cast the most infamous that wouldn't have any female engines until much later in the show's timeline was Thomas the Tank Engine with characters like Daisy or Emily but that will be for another time today's subject we're going into a classic early CG franchise predating Toy Story and ReBoot and that is VeggieTales
Dustin: VeggieTales is well known as a classic CG franchise back when computer animation was still in it's infancy Toy Story had yet to exist and the only computer animation would be used for shorts like Luxo Jr., Tin Toy and many more as well as a few special effects in movies like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park VeggieTales started out as a small selection of videos you can get from Christian stores or by mail order but as the years passed it got bigger and better even down to the point of making movie parodies like Lord of the Rings & The Wizard of Oz despite the fact of how bad the show went during the 2000's some time after the movie i was into this show for some time now but after the Netflix changeup and redesign around 2015 i just stopped but i still like the older stuff and VeggieTales was recently revived in 2020 with the old designs with The VeggieTales Show what do you have to say about VeggieTales Blake?
Blake: Well, it's a pretty intersting series; considering the series was almost going to be about an anthropomorphic candy bar that would have changed a lot :) Phil Vischer's wife suggested that parents would prefer a hero that promoted healthier eating habits, so they based characters off of fruits and vegetables. In fact, Pixar even called Vischer at one point to ask how they did the cheek puffing animation. It's a series I loved growing up, and while I do watch the classics from time to time, I don't delve too deep, you know what I mean?
Dustin: yeah but there's one thing you should know about VeggieTales... there's not a lot of female vegetables on the countertop honestly, now i'm not saying the female cast lineup is barren meaning there isn't any female characters at all what i mean is there isn't a lot of female characters that are the main characters for example there's Junior Asparagus' mother who only appears from time to time, Ma and Rosie Grape who only appeared once, Laura Carrot who does have a prominent appearance alongside Junior and of course Madame Blueberry who is the closest thing to having a main female character but out of all of these characters there was one that only made her appearance in one episode the character and video in question is the 14th episode from 2000 Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen
Blake: For those that don't know this VeggieTales story, Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen is about how after Nezzer (playing as the King) kicks out his wife for disobeying him, he must find a new queen. So he holds auditions, and one among them, Esther, becomes queen, mostly for her beauty. However, when Esther hears of Haman (Mr. Lunt) plans to banish the king, she must find the courage to do what's right
Dustin: this episode was the second to be made using their new animation software Autodesk Maya the first before this one being King George & the Ducky before working on their first movie Jonah and it looks pretty nice the episode itself has this Godfather like feel maybe it's the saxophone music i really like it :)
Blake: Onto the main topic, Esther herself; in VeggieTales, she's presented as a leek. She is beautiful both outside and in, as she's very kind and courageous
Dustin: indeed you basically feel bad for her throughout this episode like all throughout her cousin Mordecai [played by Pa Grape] tells her that God may have a plan on why she was chosen to be queen and you can see that it's pretty much what she does to help like she saved the king from being smashed by a piano caused by two troublesome peas and later on she gains the courage to tell the king that Haman plans to ship her family including Mordecai to the Island of Perpetual Tickling
Blake: I love her character design; though her animation proved to be difficult, considering her loose flowing hair, especially her longer bangs
Dustin: indeed and remember this was before Monsters, Inc. came out which has that special animation tool to animate hair right of course because of this Esther never made another appearance in another VeggieTales episode since but then in 2005 we got what i consider Esther's "Spiritual Successor" in the form of Petunia Rhubarb in the episode Duke and the Great Pie War and has been a regular character ever since
Blake: And as far as I know, Esther's one of the only VeggieTales characters to have both a speaking voice and a singing voice. Still, even if Esther never made an appearance after this short, we'll always remember the lesson her story teaches us.
Dustin: yeah indeed she may not have lasted very long but she is still a wonderful character so what would you like to tease for another Character Study Blake? :)
Blake: How about we do... (sniffs) Uh, Dustin, do you smell something?
Dustin: [sniffs] Blake! i know you're a skunk but jeez! >_<
Blake: That's not me, I swear X///<
Female French Voice: (giggles)
Dustin: [realizes] oh boy O_O
To Be Continued in the next Character Study
WT&R Textisode 104: CS: Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen
today's Character Study talks about a character only used once in a VeggieTales episode
VeggieTales belongs to Big Idea Productions
Co-Starring FuwaFuwaSkonku397
VeggieTales belongs to Big Idea Productions
Co-Starring FuwaFuwaSkonku397
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Any
Size 109 x 120px
Listed in Folders
adding a female character in a sole male cast is not the worst idea possible, still, most of the times it requires a decent execution in order to work, i want to believe the absolute worst female character inserted in this way was Venus from that weird live action tmnt series
I also learned a bit more about the story of Esther from a song by Mandisa; I found the AMV with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17Eqn6ZgaBM
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