By CarolM <carolmfolc@gmail.com>
Rated: G
Submitted: January 2003
Summary: What happens when Superman meets another, more unconventional, superhero? A VeggieTales Crossover.
Okay — I know the audience for this will be limited, but what the hey?
Missy helped with this as did a former lurker, Amber, who I haven't "seen" in a while.
For those of you who don't know, Veggies is a children's video series that is usually hilarious (but occasionally dumb — depends on the video). The basic premise is a group of talking vegetables including: Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber, Junior Asparagus, Laura and Lenny Carrot, Jimmy and Jerry Gourd, the Grape family (From the infamous video "The Grapes of Wrath"), the French peas and so on. They spend 1/2 hour trying to teach kids values like forgiveness, kindness, etc. using fables, Bible stories, etc.
The beginning segment (until Supes lands on the counter) is from "Dave and the Giant Pickle" when the Veggie superhero Larry-boy first appears on the scene. The big idea folks deserve the credit there, not me, and I have no desire to take that away from them. Go to www.bigidea.com for more information on VeggieTales. Superman, of course, isn't mine either. He also belongs to people with lots more money than me.
***
The big city cutout on top of the kitchen counter looked mysteriously like something from a comic book. A voice was heard. "Danger lurks in the big city — disaster in every dark ally, peril behind every park bench." Between the buildings, an electrical outlet and the yellow tiles of the kitchen wall are visible. "The world needs a hero, but not just an ordinary hero. No a special hero, a super hero." The child-like voice got louder and cracked just a bit. "*I AM THAT HERO!*"
A cucumber dressed in spandex came into sight. He was wearing purple bottoms with a white belt and a yellow and white jacket. His tooth was the most prominent feature on his face. His belt buckle featured a large "L" and "B". There was a purple mask on his head with what looked like… plungers? "They call me *LARRY BOY*! Wherever there is trouble I'll be there. Whenever a helpless vegetable calls out — I will answer. Evil doers beware! You are no match for Larry-boy and his supersuction ears!" He looked at his imaginary audience with one eyebrow raised. "You doubt? A demonstration." Larry, since he had no legs, hopped towards an imaginary building. With one great leap, he used his supersuction ears to hold himself to the cardboard facsimile.
Suddenly, a tomato entered the scene. "Hi, kids. I'm Bob the Tomato and…" He looked quizzically at the 'superhero' hanging above his head. "I think that's Larry the Cucumber."
A voice came from the purple and yellow clad cucumber. "I'm Larry-boy. Who are you?"
Bob rolled his eyes. "Larry, it's me, Bob."
A mysterious window opened above the cardboard cutout. Suddenly, a man in red, yellow and blue tumbled through the opening, grabbing onto the top of one of the imaginary buildings while he reoriented himself, trying to decide where he was.
The voice again came from out of view. "Bob? Bob? I know no Bob. Say there citizen, would you give me a hand with my supersuction ears? They seem to have malfunctioned."
"Oh, okay. What do I do?"
"Well, it's just that I'm afraid they're about to let…" Suddenly the ear was no longer connected to the wall. "Gooooooooo."
The red-caped super hero was now being held up under his own power, hovering to see what was going to happen below. The man shook his head and rubbed his eyes. It wasn't his imagination. He was flying above a kitchen counter doubling as a city backdrop and there was a talking tomato and what looked like a cucumber or maybe a pickle.
Bob looked at his friend lying on the ground. "Wow! I didn't know being a superhero could be so painful! Maybe you should just go back to being plain old Larry."
Larry-boy sat up. "But I don't want to go back to being plain old Larry."
"Why not?"
"Well, there's nothing special about plain old Larry. He can't do anything special like fly or save people or anything. He's just plain old boring."
The man was starting to understand why he was there.
"Oh." Bob nodded in understanding. "Not feeling very special, huh?" He got an idea. "Oh I know…" Larry shook his head and suddenly Bob's nose was attached to one of the suction ears.
"OW!" came the nasally voice of the tomato. "You've got my nose. Well, what I was going to say…"
Suddenly Larry-boy sneezed, propelling himself away from the tomoto's nose.
"OW! That smarts!"
Larry-boy was now lying on his side, spinning around on of his super suction ears. Ever the easily amused cucumber, he couldn't help but comment, "Hey, look! I'm a Larry-go- round!"
"Um, Larry…"
With a sudden whoosh, there was another figure on the counter. This was a man — something that had never actually been seen on the Veggie Tales set.
Bob looked him up and down. "Excuse me, you are interrupting our video."
"I'm terribly sorry, but I can see you're friend here is having some difficulty. He seems to be in a bit of a pickle."
"I am *not* a pickle. I'm a cucumber. Besides, superheroes don't have a handbook, you know. It's a very risky profession." Larry had stopped spinning, and tried to right himself.
As he reached down to help the ailing superhero, the man replied, "I know. It would be so much easier if there was one." He set the cucumber on his… feet? He couldn't believe that he was actually a smidgen shorter than the cucumber. "Let me introduce myself. I'm Superman." He stuck out his hand only to find it encompassed in a suction cup.
"Sorry, I don't have hands you know."
Superman looked mildly puzzled but nodded his understanding. "I see that now."
"I'm Larry-boy, the superhero with the SUPERSUCTION EARS!"
Bob rolled his eyes. "He's Larry trying to prove that he's special. I'm Bob the Tomato and I don't have any hands either."
"Well, that must be why I'm here. I'm a superhero, too, you know."
Bob looked him up and down with something of a sneer on his face. "Well, I didn't figure you wore spandex for your health."
Superman laughed. "No, this is my superhero costume."
Larry's face brightened. "Costume? You mean you wear something else most of the time?"
"Of course. I can't just walk around like this. I get mobbed when I do."
"Oh. Well, no one really knows about me yet, so I don't have that problem."
Bob felt the need to cut in. "Well, if you two don't mind, I was about to tell a story that would help Larry understand that he *is* special."
Superman looked at Bob. "Do you mind if I try?"
The tomato moved up and down in a move that Superman took to be a shrug. "I suppose."
"Come on, Larry-boy. Let's sit down." One superhero walked while the other one hopped to the edge of the sink. They sat with Superman's legs hanging over the edge. Larry didn't have any legs, but his head was hanging far enough to make up for it.
"I'm going to tell you a story, okay?"
Larry nodded. "I don't see how any story can make me feel more special without the Larry-boy costume on."
"Oh, but you can. See, I have a…" Superman lowered his voice, "secret identity."
Larry looked up. "You do?"
Superman nodded seriously. "In fact, only three other people in the world know my secret. My parents and my wife."
"You're married?" Larry asked incredulously. Superman nodded. "Isn't that against superhero rules?"
Superman laughed. "There is no handbook, remember?"
"Oh, right."
"Now, before I became Superman, I wanted to be just a regular guy. I had special powers, but I didn't want anyone to know that I did. One day I met this incredible lady and I knew that I wanted to stay in Metropolis forever. I couldn't do that if everyone knew the ordinary guy was really different."
"But it's nice to be different, for people to need you."
"Oh, I agree. I wanted to help people, but I didn't want anyone to find out that I was different because my dad had always told me if anyone ever found out, they would dissect me like a frog."
"EW! GROSS!"
Superman laughed. "That's what I thought. So I was always very careful to only use my powers when people couldn't see me. And when someone did, I just moved to another town, or another country."
"Wow. Didn't it take you a long time to pack?"
Superman grinned. "No, I didn't have much, and I could pack at super speed."
"Oh, I don't have super speed."
"That's okay, though, Larry-boy. When I met this lady, I knew I wanted to stay in Metropolis forever, so I had my mom make me a costume that I could wear when I helped people. That way no one would know that I had a secret identity, and I could still have a normal life."
"Oh. Right. Did it work?"
"It did."
"And this lady fell in love with you?"
"Kind of. She fell in love with the superhero, not the man I really was."
"Oh. How sad."
"That's how I felt. But we became friends and soon I thought that she might love the real me instead of the me in the costume. That was very important to me, because I always felt that being Superman was what I could do, but this other identity is who I was."
"I'm confused."
"I wanted her to love the man, not the superhero. And she did. But I made a big mistake."
"Superheroes don't make mistakes."
"Sure we do. I make mistakes all the time. And this was one of them. I asked her to marry me without telling her I was also the superhero."
"I bet she was excited when she found out."
Superman laughed again. "No, not really. She was mad. She thought I had been lying to her for two years. And she was right. I had been."
"Lying is wrong."
"I know, but I thought I had to so that I could be a regular guy *and* a superhero. See, she's a reporter and I thought if she knew, she would tell everyone."
"Oh. You must not have trusted her very much."
"No, I trusted her, but by then it was hard to tell the truth. It's that way with lies, you know. They start out as little fibs, but the longer you try to keep fibbing, the more difficult it is and the harder it is to tell the truth. The fibs take on a life of their own." it up, the more difficult it is and the harder it is to tell the truth. It takes on a life of it's own."
"Wow! So what did she say when you asked her to marry you?"
"She said no."
"Ouch! That had to hurt."
"It did. Very badly. But the only reason she said no was because I had been lying to her. She wanted some time to think."
"And then what did she say?"
Superman scratched his head. "Well, somehow, my powers were transferred to her and she was the superhero for a while."
"That had to be weird."
"It was because suddenly I was the normal guy I had always wanted to be, and I didn't like it."
Larry was incredulous. "You didn't?!"
Superman shook his head. "No, I didn't. I couldn't help people anymore and when some bad ladies tied me up, I had to call her for help."
"Oh."
"It's hard to ask for help when you're used to doing things yourself."
"I know. There was this one time when I was coloring and I couldn't decide what color to make the fish. It was this really cool looking fish and I wanted it to look really nice, but I had always picked out my own crayons. Finally, I asked Bob and he helped me decide. He was really great."
Superman tried to hide his feelings. He wasn't sure it was a totally accurate analogy. "Um, right. Well, anyway, after it was all over, she turned around and asked me to marry her."
"What did you say?"
"I said yes, of course."
"Oh, good."
"Do you know what it made me see?"
"What?"
"That whether I had superpowers or not, she still loved me and my parents still loved me, no matter what."
Suddenly, Bob interrupted. "That's what I've been trying to tell you, Larry. You're special. God made you special, and He loves you very much."
"He's right, Larry."
"You say that every show, Bob."
"That's because it's true.
"So you mean, I really don't have to wear spandex and have super suction ears for people to love me?"
Superman stood back and let the tomato answer that one. "No, Larry. We all love you just the way you are."
"Oh. Well, can I still pretend to be Larry-boy sometimes?"
"Sure. As long as you know that we love Larry, not the costume."
"Okay."
Superman floated up. "Well, it looks like I'm done here. Would you like to fly with me, Larry?"
Larry's eyes grew wide. "You mean it?! You'd take me flying?!"
"Sure." Superman picked up the cucumber and took off, soaring over the counter top and around the kitchen.
"WOW! I didn't know there was a table in here!"
"You didn't?"
"No. I never get off the counter." He mumbled under his breath. "Except for that one time I fell in the sink."
"There's a whole world out there."
"But I like it on the counter. I'm safe there."
"Well, I'll take you back then."
"Hey, Bob!" Larry called as Superman flew him towards the counter.
"What, Larry?"
"What's green, purple and yellow and flies?"
Bob rolled his eyes. "I don't know. What?"
"ME!!"
"That's great, Larry."
Superman set him down softly on the yellow countertop.
"Thanks," Larry said.
Superman stood with his hands on his hips. "Now, is there anything else I can do for you before I go?"
Larry-boy looked at him. "Um, well, isn't that underwear restrictive?"
Superman shrugged. "You get used to it. What's with the supersuction ears anyway?"
Larry tried to shrug which was difficult with no arms. "When you don't have any hands…"
Superman laughed. "Lois is never going to believe this!" A window opened. "That's my cue to go. It was nice to meet you, and I'll think of you every time I eat a salad." He stepped into the window and the whole thing disappeared with a poof.
Larry looked at Bob. "Um, what's a salad?"
"I'm not sure. But it doesn't sound good."
"Oh."
"We've got to get ready for the next show. Go change, okay?"
"Okay, but I'm going to be Larry-boy again later.
"That's fine, but remember you only need to be Larry for us to love you."
"I will, Bob. I will."
THE END