“A Noble Experiment in Human Values”: The Children’s Television Series Vegetable Soup and Its Initiative to Change the Environment for Racism in 1970s America

By Jeffrey S. Reznick

This article explores the creation, production, and reception of the unique, popular, and publicly-funded mid-1970s children’s television series Vegetable Soup, arguing that it constitutes a specific and intriguing chapter in the history of efforts in the United States to change “the environment for racism.”

With their respective contributions, Link, Simon, and Korty joined a large, diverse, and unprecedented group of writers and producers who came together under Yanna Brandt’s direction to craft and curate the multi-ethnic focus of Vegetable Soup.

The opening sequence welcomed viewers with a score by the award-winning composer Peter Link, then best known for his work on the rock-opera Salvation, and vibrant animation by the acclaimed artist James A. Simon, president and creative director of Wantu Animation, the first fully African-American animation studio. The lyrics to the score invited viewers to enjoy the multi-colored, music-playing figures and singing faces and, in so doing, to appreciate and embrace the allegory that “it takes all kinds of vegetables [individuals] to make vegetable soup [our world]”

Vegetable Soup

Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

Come on along and join us

Come on along

We’re gonna have some fun

Come on along and join us

In a little bowl of Vegetable Soup

Come on along and join us

Come on along

We’re gonna have some fun

Come on along and join us

In a little bowl of Vegetable Soup

It takes all kinds of vegetables

All kinds of vegetables

All kinds of vegetables

To make a Vegetable Soup

It takes all kinds of vegetables

All kinds of vegetables

All kinds of vegetables

To make a Vegetable Soup

Come on along and join us

Come on along

We’re gonna have some fun

Come on along and join us

In a little bowl of Vegetable Soup

Ideas abound in every collaborative creative process, and in many cases the precise origins of one or more ideas can be challenging to identify. To a certain degree, this was the circumstance surrounding the very name “Vegetable Soup.” Yanna Brandt, Producer, fundamentally conceived the concept of cultural differences being recognized not in terms of cultural absorption but rather cultural distinction. However, the precise name of the series evolved and emerged through a creative process involving Link and Brandt, as Brandt had been turning to Link regularly to write music for her productions.

As Link recalled in a 2017 interview:

“Yanna told me that she was working on a new children’s series to help counter racism, and that she needed an appropriate title, a title song, and several ‘connectives’ which would serve as transitions between individual segments of each episode in the series. She had a working title of about five words, and we discussed a number of ideas based on her fundamental idea, as she conveyed it to me, that it takes all kinds of people to make the diverse world in which we live. From this—and please keep in mind that crazy music titles were in vogue at this time—the idea occurred to me that it takes a variety of vegetables to make vegetable soup.

“I took this idea to Yanna, and she selected ‘Vegetable Soup’ from the ten or so ideas I presented to her. During this same period, Brandt had engaged James Simon in creating animations for the title sequence, as well as the envisioned segues between the various “genres” of the series—as Brandt and her production team called the individual productions—all of which made up the magazine-style format of each episode, encompassing animation, live-action, comedy, drama, and documentaries, all as means to address and celebrate the importance of multicultural diversity in America.”

Link met with Simon to see his visualizations as one guide to proceed with his scoring. As Link recalled: “Jim’s animation process was the most powerful thing in our effort together to conceive the title sequence. I was struck by the whimsy of his work, and especially his use of a variety of vivid colors.”

Vegetable Soup went on to win numerous awards during its approximately three-year lifespan. For their collaborative contributions to Vegetable Soup, Simon and Link won seven of the top awards at the 1975 International Animated Film Association-East Festival.

Perhaps the history of Vegetable Soup, and the persistent relevance of its themes and content can help to inspire new ways to change this environment, and to fulfill the promise of the series being a “noble experiment in human values”

As of June 2018, a majority of the episodes of the first season of Vegetable Soup are available on a YouTube channel called “Classic Educational TV.”