by Rating:
[rate 3.5]
Now, today we have a comment from Mary, author behind Home-Steeped Hope. Mary writes,
Dear Peter Plum,
Someday, I’d love to hear your take on what on earth the cheeseburger song is trying to get across. That song bothers me.
Mary
Well Mary, how can we say it– this was a silly song that the writers say changed as they went. According to Mike Nawrocki (the voice of Larry the Cucumber) they wanted to do a ballad song and it started out as a song to drive thru girl. However, when they started to compose the song, it sounded like Larry might be stalking the drive-thru girl, and that just wasn’t acceptable, so they looked for a character that could play that part with kind of a seedy background.
Along came Mr. Lunt who, as you know, has been a henchman for virtually his whole cartoon existance. But it still seemed rather creepy, so they changed the song to be a song about Jerry loving his cheeseburger.
Now the history of Jerry is one of love for food. The very first VeggieTales movie he shows up in is Episode 2, Are You My Neighbor? In this episode, Jimmy and Jerry (the brothers) save the Starship Apple Pies by consuming a popcorn meteor by eating it. (There’s some banter back and forth about who can eat more between the two of them.) VeggieTales is known for running gags, so in Dave and the Giant Pickle you have this throw-away line where Jimmy says that he can eat a spaceship– even though he doesn’t know what that is.
So, now you have the reason for the two people. The rest is just plain gags and the fact that Archibald is expecting some kind of serious love song, and he gets Mr. Lunt singing about food. Incidentally, it looks like the Big Idea guys forgot the song was about Jimmy, because in later CDs it’s always implied that Mr. Lunt has a thing for cheeseburgers.
It’s just plain silliness.
Just plain silliness. And here I thought it had a hidden moral agenda. You know, the veggie is willing to wait for a cheeseburger, even though bacon and eggs across the street are half price. (Purity or cheapness? I mean, Veggie Tales are usually allegorical, right?) But, no. In the end, he compromises…he eats at Denny’s and tells Burger Bell that he’ll be back for a cheeseburger at lunch! (Pretty cocky!)
I must admit, I’m glad it is just plain silliness.
Is it just me, or is this song intended to sound like Meatloaf?
I believe that the composer of this silly song said that they were looking like for a power ballad for this song, and spent a lot of time listening to bands like Meatloaf to get the right sound.
VeggieTales has been known to try to do parodies of different styles of music with their silly songs.
“Where is my hairbrush” is classical. “Belly Button” is pop. “His Cheeseburger” is a power ballad.
Good catch!
this song is definitely about grooming a teenage girl tho