The Jewish Roots of The Christian Faith
Author and Scholar Dr Craig A. Evans joins Michael to discuss his book, A Handbook on The Jewish Roots of The Christian Faith.
As co-creator of VeggieTales and voice of beloved Larry The Cucumber, Mike Nawrocki has been part of the pulse of Big Idea since its inception in 1993. Mike has created, written and directed most of the extremely popular “Silly Songs with Larry” segments, including fan favorites “His Cheeseburger” and “I Love My Lips.” He has also lent his screenwriting and directing talents to several VeggieTales episodes such as Madame Blueberry, and both of the properties’ theatrical release films, Jonah and The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.
For more than 25 years, Mike has been in a production environment, landing his first job in video post-production in 1987 while in college. Along with fellow co-worker and friend Phil Vischer, he turned an idea for telling stories, using the then new technology of 3D computer animation, into the phenomenon of VeggieTales. Establishing a homespun business dubbed Big Idea, the two launched the first ever CGI (computer-generated imagery) video series to the consumer market. Mike is involved with every facet of VeggieTales production including editing, animation, sound, story development, writing, directing and character voicing.
“Well you know, I’ve been in the video post industry about twenty five years, but really with VeggieTales, we’re just celebrating our twentieth anniversary, but Phil Vischer and I were in the video post production industry in Chicago in the late 80’s early 90’s and we had previously met at a Bible college and had done some writing and performing together in Crown College up in Minneapolis.
I was in pre-med in the University of Illinois and Phil was working in post production. Phil was working on his way to becoming a filmmaker; I was on my way to becoming a doctor. I was working my way through college by working at the post production house that Phil was also working in and we had worked before, as I mentioned, doing student ministry doing writing and performing, and kind of translated those things into the world of video post production that we were in.”
“We were roommates and we’d take the camera home over the weekend and do these little crazy videos and Phil was very entrepreneurial and was like, “Let’s do a show. The Phil and Mike Show, it’ll be great.” I was kind of passing through and was like, “Ok, well this is really fun. I’m paying my way through school. I’m going to be a medical missionary. That’s what I’m going to do.”
And so, we’re working on these things and we’re learning how to edit, and do audio, and all these different aspects of production; and computer animation comes along and compositing and nonlinear editing; all these new technologies that are just emerging at this time and we’re kind of these computer guys. We’re starting to wonder, “How can we kind of use this stuff to tell these stories that we told in Bible College?” That’s when the idea started to formulate around doing a computer animated show with simplistic characters that were easy to animate.”
“We love to start with-there’s two notions that we start every show with. One is kind of the overall message of VeggieTales, and it’s that truth that God made you special and He loves you very much and so it’s kind of at the basis of what we feel is important for a child to understand. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You have a loving Heavenly Father who made you special.
Back in the early days as we were setting up the show, Phil’s mom, Scotty Mae, who’s now a professor at Wheaton College, was very helpful in setting up that key lesson. If VeggieTales is going to say that one thing, it should say this: Because it speaks to the heart of a child, and it’s something a child can grasp because they get that from their parents; “I’m loved by my parents, my earthly parents, so I can understand to love from my Heavenly Father.”
So that’s sort of our key message, and then from there with every episode, we tell a story that deals with a specific topic, whether it be thankfulness or sharing, or loving your neighbor and from there we try to highlight a key verse, a key Biblical principle, and develop that into a nugget of truth; basically in language that is memorable that a child can understand and from that build a story that represents that truth in the way that a child can relate to and have fun with.”
“The necessity was the mother of invention really. You know computer animation in the early 90’s was so basic and to be able to tell a half hour of animation we just needed really simple characters, with no arms and with no limbs and no clothes. So to able to tell the story, and so in fact, one of the early ideas was Phil was actually modeling a candybar on his little work station and Lisa who’s also his wife, the voice of junior asparagus walked by and she said, “You know what, mom’s are not going to appreciate these stories coming from candy bars.” Well how about vegetables then? So vegetables became the next choice.
Bob and Larry were kind of common names; so we wanted to do common vegetables with common names. So Bob and Larry and a tomato, cucumber, were complimentary in color and shape and had very common names.”
“It’s interesting because trying to raise money with the pitch line, “We want to tell Bible stories with vegetables,” it didn’t get too far. It was one of those things, where if you build it they will come and so we were able to create the first show with a handful of people and some seed money to make that first episode, Where’s God and I’m Scared.
We took out ads in Christian Parenting magazines to advertise and we had no distribution, it was just all self distribution, so we actually had one work station and three animators, and they would work on three different shifts, and we had a phone with a credit card machine. So whenever somebody saw one of the ads the animator would pick up the phone and write down the information, and when we finished a show we sent out the five hundred VHS tapes that had been ordered.
One of those came from a record executive here in Nashville, actually. Word Records had opened up a new kids’ label. It was called Everland Entertainment and Wayne, Wayne Zeitner, who had seen that ad was intrigued by it and ordered a copy and loved it and then from there we had a distribution deal with Word.”
“That we can continue to bring that message to kids. God made you special; He loves you very much; You have a loving Heavenly Father who cares for you; who wants a relationship with you; then really to continue to be a resource for parents to pass on Biblical values to their kids. I think story plays such a powerful role in our culture for conveying messages, and conveying truth, so we just want to be a part of God being able to use our stories to convey His truth to kids.”
“One of the fun things about the format of VeggieTales, the way that the show’s set up, is that most of the shows, ninety percent, have a countertop so Bob and Larry greet the kids on the countertop and say, “Hello kids, I’m Bob the Tomato; I’m Larry the cucumber, welcome to VeggieTales.” Typically, they’ll get a letter from a child who’s having a problem, and then they answer that letter in the form of the story.
They answer the question in the letter in the form of a story. Then at the end they come back and they wrap it up. That’s when we say, “This is the story that we told; this is the truth that was conveyed and this is what the Bible has to say about it.” Then Qwerty, who is the computer on the countertop, comes up with a verse, and then Bob and Larry explain the story in the context of that verse.”
“A lot of them, particularly in the early days, before we talk to focus groups, came from our own experience as parents. Where’s God When I’m Scared is the very first episode. Phil’s daughter, Shelby, had problems being afraid of the dark and nightmares.
The first episode that I wrote, Madame Blueberry Thankfulness, I modeled that after, not after my kids, but after my mother. So it’s sort of that life experience that you sort of bring to it; you know having grown up in the church and being Christian parents and having certain things that you want to convey to your own kids and then later as years went on we looked to our fans and said, “What types of lessons are important that you feel that would be valuable to you?”
First time we did that was with Lyle, the kindly Viking, was about sharing. Parent’s said we’d love a show about sharing and so we did that. The impetus for the lessons come from a lot of different places and sometimes we have a story that we really want to tell and then we’ll figure out what’s the most appropriate lesson to attach to it and that sort of thing, from a number of different places.”
“You know the one’s that are the most meaningful to me, are ones where you can truly see that God has used His Word through our story in a way that’s really made a difference in somebodies life. From there it’s just inspiring to know that you know, ok, we’re doing the right thing here; we’re telling stories that are conveying principles from the Bible; God’s truth and God’s using that to reach into somebodies life to help them and to change them.
Those are the letters that I love getting the most and then letters that particularly with kids that are autistic; we get a lot of letters from parents of autistic children who say, “VeggieTales has really connected with our kids and thank you so much, they can really keep engaged and they’re really learning from the stories,” and I just love, love getting those letters.”
“Well, we love to make the shows kind of a family affair, to where the kids love watching them, but their parents also enjoy watching the show. In the early days, we were writing shows that made us laugh, and that we enjoyed making. I remember when we first started getting word back of VeggieTales viewing parties happening on college campuses, it sort of shocked us like, ‘What? really?” Then we thought, “Well that’s kind of cool.’
I guess we could sort of still do that. We would enjoy watching these if we were on the other side, so at first it was a bit of surprising to us. But of over the years, we realized, “You know what, if you can tell a story and have characters that are engaging and use humor, it’ll engage the parents.” I look back at bugs bunny and loving it as a kid, and then seeing it as adults and think, “Wow, you know what that is still think it’s really clever on another level as an adult and it just really works that way.”
So that’s what we try to do with VeggieTales, is just to have focus our teaching lesson in language that kids get, that young kids get; just have fun with the story and have fun with the humor and realize that kids may not get some jokes, and that’s ok, but their parents will get them and think it’s funny and the kids will get them eventually.”
“Just to say, ‘Hey, I know you know what VeggieTales is. Guess what my dad does?’ But it’s neat, my daughter who’s in high school now, I’ll meet one of her friends and a couple times it’s happened where they’ll say,”Oh, VeggieTales that’s my childhood. I just grew up on this.” It’s amazing to me, first of all I feel very old when something like that happens.
But then to know that God has used it to touch somebody’s life in that way and to have been a part of them growing up is really powerful and meaningful to me. Then just with my own kids, it’s just what it is; it’s been a part of their life and for them their dad has always been Larry the Cucumber and in the early days, they did not distinguish between dad the human, well I could speak to them as Larry, the Cucumber and it would be somebody else talking to them.
Well I’d get like a little plush Larry and speak to them as Larry and they’d be talking to Larry, they wouldn’t be talking to dad, but then they grew a little wiser on that.”
“It’s interesting, because there’s the script phase where you script something out and you feel like, “Ok, this is going to be great.” and then you storyboard it and we do what’s we call a story reel where you do an audio track and you attach the storyboards to it so you have story reel and then the flaws come out in your story.
Once you get a story reel that works, then you know your story is going to work. The script is one phase and then the story reel is another phase, but that story reel is really what you count on for locking down what’s going to be your eventual animation.”
You know that’s the thing. A lot of it is working with a group of people who you trust in VeggieTales since there’s folks that obviously have a good head for story, but then also a real heart for message and lesson. We have to have both of those things combined in telling our stories, but any creative when they’ve put a lot of time and energy into creating something is in love with anything they’ve created and it’s hard to have someone criticize it.”
“It’s that simple and profound, and powerful message, that God made you special and He loves you very much. If we can have characters that kids can identify with, that kids can think of as their friends, then they’ll care about what they have to say, and if Bob and Larry bring them a story that teaches a lesson in sharing or thankfulness, or about loving your neighbor, that they’ll care about that message because their friend told them that, and I think that’s what we want to continue doing with VeggieTales.”
One of the reasons we bring interviews onto inContext, is because we want to show how different people in the body of Christ with their gifting, their talents, their abilities are taking the message of Christ into a context where perhaps, you, nor I could go. The body of Christ is a wonderful thing and when you hear a guy like Mike Nawrocki talk about what he’s doing to express the love of Christ to children, the question for you and for me, what are we doing with the gifts, talents, abilities that we have, that we possess, in the body of Christ.
You know, you are unique, you are special in God’s eyes. He lived, He died, and was buried, and He came back from the grave, overcoming sin, to provide eternal life for you and me with Him. In the mean time, on this planet, you and I have work to do. What are your skills? How are you using them in context, in the Kingdom of God? You know, He will use you uniquely in a way that He can use no one else.
Listen to more inContext interviews here.
Author and Scholar Dr Craig A. Evans joins Michael to discuss his book, A Handbook on The Jewish Roots of The Christian Faith.
Dr. Erwin Lutzer joins Michael to discuss his most recent book, The Eclipse of God, and the need to return to the Lord.
Dr. Dave Gibson joins Michael to reflect on a lifetime of lessons and to discuss his most recent book, Treasures Along The Road.