Even people who've never seen Veggie Tales know what Veggie Tales is - that's what an impact it's had!

NBC has decided to capitalize on the Christian series' popularity by running it in their Saturday morning lineup.  Only there's a hitch... of course there's a hitch. 

From AFA:

"NBC anti-Christian bigotry continues. This time NBC censored Bible verses and expressions of Christian love from the children's cartoon Veggie Tales being shown Saturday mornings on NBC.

NBC says comments such as "God made you special and He loves you very much" were offensive and censored them from the show.

In response to the outrage over the allegations that NBC was ordering the removal of any references to God and the Bible from the animated series, the network first issued a flat denial. As reported in Broadcasting & Cable, NBC said they had to "clip off the beginning and ending tags, which are Bible verses, but they were also arguably the easiest cut to make."

The creator of Veggie Tales, Phil Vischer, said NBC's excuse for censoring the Bible verses was not true. Vischer said, "Well, that's kinda funny, because as the guy required to do all the editing, I know that statement is false...The show wasn't too long, it was too Christian. The show was already cut down to the proper length, so timing had nothing to do with it."

NBC then backpeddled: "NBC is committed to the positive messages and universal values of Veggie Tales. Our goal is to reach as broad an audience as possible with these positive messages while being careful not to advocate any one religious point of view." Evidently NBC considers not being truthful as one of their "universal values."

Vischer said had he known how much censorship NBC would exercise, he would not have signed on for the network deal.

Censored were comments such as: "Calm down. The Bible says we should love our enemies." And "the Bible says Samson got his strength from God. And God can give us strength, too."

NBC says using Bible verses or referring to God is offensive to some non-Christians. But NBC doesn't hesitate to offend Christians by showing Madonna mocking the crucifixion of Christ. Neither do not mind offending Christians in their new program Studio 60 with a segment called Crazy Christians. (Please read the review.)

This will seem a strong statement, and it is: The real reason the religious content is being censored is that the networks are run by people who have an anti-Christian bias. I noticed this anti-Christian bigotry and spoke out against it over 25 years ago. I'm sorry if someone thinks that is too harsh, but I must speak the truth as God leads me to see the truth. (Please click here to read excerpts from a speech I gave to a group of TV officials in September, 1981—25 years ago.)"

I don't know the ins and outs of contracts but if I were Vischer I'd tell NBC to take the program as it is or don't air it at all.