It starts with Veggie Tales:
Veggie Tales is a Christian children’s show. It’s a cgi rendered show that was launched sometime in the mid to early 90’s. At the start, the visuals were very primitive, and making a show where the main characters are vegetables was a smart move at the time. Veggies are made of very simple shapes and were easy to render, even for the low-budget show. In stark contrast to just about every other Christian-produced show out there, Veggie Tales is clever, witty, full of sly pop-culture references, and avoids being overly preachy without compromising its Christian roots. It’s a lot of fun, and even as an adult I enjoy watching the show. Pretty cool.
Bob the tomato and Larry the cucumber.
Over the years the show has grown in popularity and budget, culminating in a marginally successful movie back in 2002. With the enhanced budget, they are now able to come up with visuals that are far more compelling than in the early days. It’s not quite Shrek quality, but it’s close.
The half-hour shows feature skits and funny songs. In the middle of most episodes they have a section called “Silly Songs With Larry”. Larry (who is a real goof) comes out and sings a silly song. Each time the song is in a different style. One of the most popular is “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.”
We don’t do anything.
I never hoist the mainstay
and I never swabbed a poopdeck
and I never veer to starboard ‘cuz I never sail at all!
And I’ve never walked the gangplank
and I’ve never owned a parrot
and I’ve never been to Boston in the fall!
The joke here is that the only thing that makes them pirates is the stuff they say they don’t do.
(Which then Larry messes up, by singing about stuff he’s never done which has nothing to do with being a pirate.)
Then the group Reliant K covered the song as part of some humorous re-mix effort.
Then some lunatic took that Reliant K song and some Cowboy Bebop footage and made a one of the best music videos I’ve ever seen. (Ok, I haven’t seen that many. But still.)
And finally, Pixy Misa added the video to his clip library so you can download it.
UPDATE: Drat. Looks like Pixy’s server caught fire, was hit by a meteror, was struck by lighning, or (worst of all) is having software problems. You can get the vid from %Anime Music Videos (who also has the full lyics) or you can get it from me.
UPDATE Part II: Ok, so Pixy’s server is working, which means all of the links above are working. Knock yourself out.
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Patreon!
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My server isn’t dead, it’s just pining (as one reader pointed out) for the fnords.
Pirates here, charmingly randomised AMV page here.
Regarding pirates, I don’t get the reference to Boston. (I used to live there, too.)
“I never hoist the mainstay
and I never swabbed a poopdeck”
WTH? Who decided on those lyrics?
P.S. The “some lunatic” who created the video is twin teenaged girls. One of them also did the amazing Elvis vs. Anime. That’s some talent there.
What I didn’t realise before is that shortly after I stopped fiddling with my AMV download page last night, the munu servers did get rebooted. Not sure why. Then one of them came back with screwed-up DNS settings and the other one had the wrong time. Bah!
Hank: I transcribed it wrong. It should read:
And I’ve never hoist the main sail
And I’ve never swabbed the poop deck
Steven: In the first verse they list all the places they’ve never been, and the last one is Boston. For whatever reason (it IS a Silly Song) it becomes a hook and every verse ends with not going to Boston in the fall.
I lived in Boston as well, and I never saw any theiving pirates, politicians notwithstanding.
Further elaboration on the original joke: There are three pirates, Pa Grape, Mr. Lunt, and Larry the cucumber. Pa grape sings about all the places they have never sailed. Then in the next verse Mr. Lunt sings about all the sailing-type stuff they’ve never done.
Then Larry comes in and (true to form) goes totally nuts and sings about all sorts of unrelated stuff he’s never done. Then there is an instrumental section while Pa Grape and Mr. Lunt point out that they are SUPPOSED to sing about piratey things. This results in an argument about whether Pa Grape looks like Captain Crunch. Then Larry jumps in with another manic verse about crazy nonsensical stuff he’s never done.
I think “some lunatic” amply covers the matter – wasn’t Elvis vs. Anime done wholly in Photoshop?
Yeppers.
“Boston in the Fall” is a Bostonian in-joke.
So is a bridge measured in Smoots.
Growing up in a christian home, I grew up with these guys. Your right, it was the ONLY clever christian kids entertainment. Everything else was Ned ‘Doodily-Oodily’ Flanders, Veggie Tales was. . .FUNNY. We pretty much had every video, watched them to death, and waited expectantly for the next video. Toy Story it wasn’t, it was something else, thats all I can say.
Bonus points: the band Reliant K is named after a model of Plymouth station wagon.
Actually, the band’s name is spelled R-e-l-i-e-n-t K. I would know, I bought most of their albums. And, I loved the heck out of Veggie Tales. Especially the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.