Veggietales style rig?

Hello, folks. I want to make a parody of veggietales, but I lack the proper know-how to make the rigs. Could someone tell me how I would go about doing that, with the spline, the squash and stretch, the cartoony eyes, etc? If you can, that would be GREAT. Thanks!

Youtube vids. Learn by practice as well. Squash and stretch can be achieved by stretch to bones. Also helps with other things like facial deformation bones. Cgcookie.com has multiple free tutorials in their archives.