Hey y'all… I just got back from two days in Nashville recording voices for the next VeggieTales video.  Fun times with my friends at Big Idea.  Interestingly, Nicole Kidman was working in the same studio, replacing dialogue for an upcoming film.  We tried come up with a way to record her as a voice for the new veggie video without her actually knowing – ask her random questions and secretly record the answers – then someone pointed out that would probably be illegal.  Party pooper.

Well, last night Tim was up late Skyping with a guy in Russia.  No, he isn't entering into the illegal arms business.  He was talking to the developer of the module that will allow us to manage subscriptions for JellyTelly.  They were having technical difficulties, and resolving them required late-night Skyping with Russia.

If Tim can get that final piece working correctly, we should be able to start taking subscriptions to JellyTelly as soon as the end of the day tomorrow!  Whee!

It won't be the final site design, since that piece couldn't go to the developers until our funding was in hand.  But Tim has whipped up a temporary site that gives most of the functionality (watch videos, play games, rinse, repeat) and looks pretty good.  It will allow folks like yourselves to go ahead and sign up and start giving us feedback on the "JellyTelly experience."  That feedback will help us tweak the final site and content before we start the big subscriber drive in another month or so.

So come back later tomorrow and see if we've got something.  It's so close… kinda like when you've got cookies in the oven and you smell them, and you're just waiting for the timer to 'ding' and tell you they're done.

So close… waiting for the 'ding'… 

 

ps… Answers for a few questions asked after the last post:  JellyTelly will be a daily block of programming, viewable "on demand," meaning, whenever your kids want to watch it.  They can watch it first thing in the morning, last thing at night, or both.  It can be an after-homework reward (plus some games to play) or an after school break.  If you've missed a day or two, you can go back up to 6 days and watch the shows.

It will be a mix of our own original segments, plus short programs created by other Christian producers.  (Probably 50/50 in the beginning.)  So it's a little big Sesame Street, a little big Nickelodeon.  Whenever you want to watch it, available 24 hours a day and different every day.  Like television, segments will repeat a certain number of times each year so your favorites will pop up every now and then.  Just like SpongeBob.

It's gonna be fun.