Mr. Jaw, meet Mr. Floor.

NBC, you suck. Not only have you done something stupid, but in doing so, you've put me on the same side of an argument as Brent Bozell, a guy whom I find precisely as unpalatable as I do Ann Coulter. Thanks a lot.

Basically, NBC has decided to put VeggieTales on its Saturday morning lineup, but has required that the show's overt Christian content be removed before each episode airs. Now, it's true that the show can be appreciated on plenty of levels besides the Christian one -- unlike Bozell, I think VT is successful not because it's Christian but because it's good -- but it's still a show that's mainly centered on a certain set of premises, and NBC has basically cut most of that loose. Ugh.

And to think that just twenty years ago NBC was the network of Little House on the Prairie. Boy, we've come a long way. I don't think that we need more Christianity on network TV, or less Christianity on network TV. I'd just like to have more quality stuff on TV, and less attention paid to who's going to be offended by what.

I learned this via Shamus, whose take on this I pretty much completely agree with. Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, has his own blog, and looking it over, he seems perfectly happy to have his creation neutered just so it reaches a bigger audience ("Kids are going to be meeting Bob and Larry on network TV! Yay!"). This seems kind of sad, but it's worth remembering that as wonderful a creation as VT is, Vischer himself has a history of apparent cluelessness. Just read his version of how Big Idea Productions ran into trouble, and you'll see a frightening blend of naivete combined with a lack of business sense. Go here and read the series of posts entitled "What happened to Big Idea?"