VEGGIE TALES SHOWDOWN

The first clue that something was wrong came from a preschooler's answer: "Veggie. Tales."

A father had been picking up his son from daycare a few months earlier when he learned the child had watched a show about cartoon vegetables. That set off a chain of questions that would bounce from the classroom to the administration office, then straight through the daycare's walls.

The next day, he asked the teacher whether they were watching VeggieTales. According to him, she said, "They didn't show the kids anything inappropriate." He asked again, and says she still would not give a straight answer. He made his own position clear: "I don't want him to watch veggie tales." The teacher's reply was blunt in its own way: "He wasn't going to be allowed to watch anything inappropriate."

So he went to his son.

That afternoon, he asked the boy directly. The answer came back simple and certain: "Yep."

He emailed the daycare administration. They told him no VeggieTales was being shown, insisting it was not approved media and had never and would never be shown. The next week, he asked his son again. The answer was still yes. When he contacted the daycare again, he was told, in effect, that "maybe my son is confused."

That was when he decided to check for himself.

He asked his boss if he could leave work early, then showed up at the daycare and pushed past the receptionist after being told to stop. He walked into the main room and saw VeggieTales on the screen. He took a picture.

He got a warning for barging in, but the administration said the problem would be fixed. The teacher was told to take all the tapes home and would not be able to bring tapes in again.

For one week, the answer from his son changed to no.

Then, the following week, it changed back to yes.

He emailed again, and this time he brought in more parents, including what he called "The anti-veggie tales coalition." Some Christian parents were annoyed too. One woman said she watched it at home with her daughter, but did not want it watched at daycare because "if her daughter has questions she wants to be asked, not the teacher."

The daycare eventually fired the teacher.

After that came the backlash. People told the father they felt bad and guilty. Others said he had made too much of "just animated vegetables." Even his wife said he had pulled a "me" and "went on the warpath."