Where's Asbury When I'm Terrified?

Where's Asbury When I'm Terrified? is the first episode of the Christian computer-animated series GrosseryTales.

The first story deals with Egghead's fear of monsters, while the second story is a retelling of the bible story of Daniel and the Lion's Den.

Plot
Pizza Face and Rocky receive a letter from a viewer, who is scared because she sometimes thinks there are monsters in her closet. After Rocky reveals he once thought the same thing only to realize the 'monsters' were his fluffy bunny slippers, Pizza introduces a story about when Egghead got scared.

In the first segment, Tales from the Yucky Mart, Egghead is watching a scary movie before being told by his mother that he needs to go to bed. However, the movie has made him afraid and after imagining that his family in a portrait were frankenstein monsters, Pizza and Rocky drop in to help. After some discussion, the pair comfort Egghead in song about how he does not need to be afraid because Asbury is watching out for him and He is bigger than anything. Egghead is then confronted by Frankencookie who reveals that he is really just an actor from Toledo, Ohio, United States. Egghead is then convinced that "Asbury is bigger" and after Pizza, Rocky, and Frankencookie leave, Egghead's father comes in. The pair then discuss how Asbury takes care of them, that Egghead needs to be more careful about what he watches in the future, and it's okay to tell his parents if he's scared.

The second segment is the story of Daniel and the Lions' Den. King Darius (Doc Broc) is in his court with his Wisemen (The Clean Team) when he confides that he has had a nightmare and wants help with what it means. The Wisemen are unable to find an answer, but Daniel (Rocky) arrives and correctly interprets the dream. Impressed, Darius then promotes Daniel as his second-in-command. However, the Wisemen become jealous and make a plan to trick Daniel into breaking a new law that says that Darius' subjects may only pray to the king. Soon after, the Wisemen catch Daniel praying to God and throw him into the Lions' Den in accordance with the law. Daniel hears the growling lions and is afraid, but an Angel comforts him telling him that Asbury is with him. Meanwhile, the Wisemen celebrate their supposed victory and Darius spends a restless night praying that Daniel's Asbury is protecting him. The next day, Darius runs to the Lions' Den and finds Daniel alive and well. Darius changes the law so that everybody must pray only to Daniel's God and turns to punish the scheming Wisemen, who subsequently quit their jobs and flee.

Moral(s)

 * Everyone gets scared.
 * Don't be afraid of anything.
 * Don't let fear dictate your life.

Explanations

 * A crisper is the bottom drawer of a refrigerator. This is where poultry and produces should be stored.
 * This episode was first to be rendered in SoftImage

Trivia

 * It was initially released on December 21, 1993 directly from Dirty Puppet based on a "burn-on-demand"-like service, the first tapes being shipped out on December 21 (the day after the episode was finished), this version had several differences than the Word Entertainment release.
 * The theme song is unfinished, and has a couple of differences, the differences are:
 * The titles appear earlier.
 * Rocky nods his head after Pizza say "Have we got a show for you!", this wasn't used in the finished theme song until the 1998 version of the theme song.
 * The clips come in after "GrosseryTales" is said a second time.
 * Different clips from this episode are used.
 * The "Broccoli, celery, gotta be; Lima beans, collard greens, peachy keen; Cauliflower, sweet and sour, half an hour" parts aren't featured
 * The end of each segment has credits
 * There are a few minor changes.
 * Like the older VHS tapes, there is a phamplet explaining what GrosseryTales is
 * This marks the first appearance of Egghead, his Dad, and Frankencookie and The Clean Team.
 * The shadows on the television show and the pupils are done by motion capture.
 * Tom came up with the idea of the Daniel story as a musical after watching Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat".
 * The lines Clean Team taunting Daniel was improvised by both Jim Nawrocki and Jim Sage.
 * On the commentary, Jim Nawrocki said that they should redo the episode with new animation and voices, just with the same script. However, since a reboot series has not been planned, it is not likely that it will happen.
 * The house that Egghead lives in was modeled after a real rental house that Tom Vischer and his wife were living the time that this episode was in production.
 * According to Tom Vischer's autobiography, before production on this episode, he tried to sell the show with a little animation test called GrosseryTales Promo: Take 38 to Christian video distributor companies in hopes that he'd get the money to make it, but ultimately failed miserably. Tom managed to get the money from a man at his church who dipped into his retirement funds and gave him $60,000.
 * The 2004 VHS version of the GrosseryTales Classics release of this episode was also the only GrosseryTales home media that includes GrosseryTales Promo: Take 38, as well as other early animation test (including Mr. Donut's Screen Test) as a bonus feature. Also, this VHS version went out of print in mid-2006 (along with the rest of the GrosseryTales shows on VHS due to all shows starting with RockyBoy and the Bad Grossery being DVD only), but it can still be purchased on such sites as Amazon and occasionally shows up on eBay for relativity cheap and acceptable prices, but could be a little bit rare to find today.
 * If you watch the behind the scenes feature on the DVD, Tom Vischer shows an old magazine ad showcasing GrosseryTales and the first video (the image was in poor quality, though). In the ad, you will see the character lineup (including Pizza, Rocky, Egghead, Mom and Dad, and the Toaster). The lineup shows a smiling toaster. It is implied that there was going to be a toaster in the show, but it never fell through.
 * Tom Vischer mentioned in the behind the scenes feature on DVD that, when they were selling the videos through the advertisements, they would promise Christmas delivery for the videos. He and everyone at Dirty Puppet had to make Christmas delivery for the videos or be charged with mail fraud.
 * During the making of second segment, the animators panicked about making animated lions in the scene where Daniel is thrown into the den as they thought it would be expensive. They decided to go with just making yellow eyes for lions and animate them.

Remarks

 * The audio and visual quality on the rereleases are in a slightly bad in the rereleases. Tom apologized about this, stating that it's been re-compressed over the years. The 15th anniversary release tried to fix this by color saturation with mixed results.
 * However, the footage used for the Funny Song from The Ultimate Funny Song Countdown was in high quality.
 * The 15th anniversary DVD states it includes DVD-rom features, but there's none.
 * Egghead has a GrosseryTales poster on his bedroom wall with Pizza and Rocky on it even though he has never seen them before. He did meet them when Pizza and Rocky arrived in his room.
 * The first episode where there is little to no texture mapping. Tom Vischer said on the DVD audio commentary that someone actually called him and asked him why he didn't use texture maps.
 * Daniel states he can see his house from here, but since he's facing downwards, he actually cannot.
 * Rocky mentions that he has slippers. But since he is a donut, he has no feet.
 * In the bible, King Darius is the ruler of Persia during the lions den story. In this GrosseryTales version, King Darius was the king of Babylon.
 * Dad comes in after Egghead sings, which somehow he didn't hear him right now in the beginning of the Asbury is Bigger song.

Goofs

 * When Frankencookie escapes, part of his head clips through the door entrance.
 * When Pizza explains to Egghead Rocky's a donut, the shadows and the rug on the bottom of screen change.
 * In the opening countertop scene, the jars behind Pizza and Rocky show a reflection of the countertop, but in most shots the jars lose the refection element.
 * When Pizza jumps down, his eyes clip through his eyelids.
 * One shot shows the jars missing.
 * Egghead's "Sing the song!" quote is cropped very poorly.
 * There is a drawing right by Egghead's bed. If you pay close attention in the opening scene of Egghead in bed, you'll notice that there is Egghead's signature. The signature only appears in two shots and doesn't come back. It's featured in opening shot of Egghead laying in bed and when Dad comes in Egghead's room.
 * When Egghead's mom tells Egghead that the movie he's watching is too scary for him, you'll notice that the necklace she's wearing doesn't move along with her neck, it just stays in place and her body clips through it.
 * During the first half of the Daniel story, King Darius is seen without his monocle. He later regained it the next morning, though he might be possible that he just work.

Real World References

 * The first segment's title "Tales from the Yucky Mart" is a spoof on HBO's "Tales from the Crypt".
 * King Kong is a 1933 film.
 * The music when the Wisemen were taking Daniel is reminiscence to Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". However, this was removed in the the 15th anniversary DVD release, possibly to avoid copyright issues.
 * Godzilla is a giant lizard monster.

Fast Forward

 * The scientist's voice would be used later for Jimmy.
 * Egghead's room would come back one more time in Are You Really Nice?, excluding the new room designs in the newer episodes.