When Mike Nawrocki and Phil Vischer took their puppet show on the road, children weren’t the only ones laughing.
The two students from St. Paul Bible College, a small denominational school outside Minneapolis, spent two years performing at area churches as part of their student ministry. Drawing upon common comedic influences, such as Jim Henson and Mel Brooks, the two struck up a friendship and creative collaboration.
“We infused a lot of that humor into the puppets that we did and ended up entertaining the adult Sunday School classes along with the kids,” Nawrocki said.
And they’re still at it. For 18 years, Nawrocki, known by most as Larry the Cucumber, and Vischer, aka Bob the Tomato, have been getting laughs with computer-animated vegetables. Their characters have worn shoes on their heads, sung about manatees and been pirates who don’t do anything.
But more importantly, “Veggie Tales” has conveyed a message that is rare in modern media.
“We want to tell stories from a biblical world view, a world view that assumes that there is a God who made us, who loves us and wants a relationship with us,” Nawrocki said. “Every story that we tell is told from that perspective.”
That’s the big idea at Big Idea Entertainment, founded by Nawrocki and Vischer in 1993. Its mission statement, which is on every desk at the studios in Nashville, Tenn., is “to enhance the spiritual and moral fabric of society through creative media.”
“That’s really behind why we do what we do,” Nawrocki said. “That gets to the core of why we come into work every day.”
“Veggie Tales” was grown at a video post-production house in Illinois. The creative duo had reunited there after attending St. Paul Bible College, with Vischer working on a filmmaking career and Nawrocki trying to earn money for pre-med studies.
One of their projects was to tell a half-hour animated story with a positive message for children. But with computer animation still in its infancy, a production of that length required the characters to be simple — no limbs, clothes or hair.
Vischer’s original model was actually a candy bar — that was, until his wife saw it and remarked, “I don’t think moms would appreciate their kids getting lessons from candy bars.”
“Vegetables just turned out to be a great character to have,” said Nawrocki, calling the decision “completely pragmatic.”
Thus, Bob and Larry were born, two complementary but contrasting characters. The tall, green Larry is fun-loving and goofy, while the round, red Bob is much more serious — exaggerations of the creators’ own personalities, Nawrocki says.
“Phil is very much Bob, and I’m very much Larry,” he said.
Since that time, Big Idea has released 42 DVDs, 27 CDs and two theatrical films. The latest DVD (“’Twas the Night Before Easter”) and CD (“Hosanna!”) are in stores this week.
Like the vegetables themselves, the “Veggie Tales” formula for storytelling is simple. The creators first identify a biblical message that would be “pertinent to preschoolers” — such as sharing, loving your neighbor or forgiveness — then craft an interesting story to relay it through.
Nawrocki says they avoid situational formats in favor of a three-act structure. There is always a hero with a flaw who needs to learn a lesson, and does so by going through different obstacles.
“We kind of take our hero through a complete journey as they learn the lesson,” Nawrocki said. “At the end, that character flaw that they started out with is answered by the lesson that we’re trying to teach.”
While the message is inherently religious, the end result is anything but stuffy or pious.
“Once we get a clear way to communicate that message, we just like to have a lot of fun around that and love to make ourselves laugh,” Nawrocki said.
That leads to some creative versions of biblical characters, beyond the fact they are represented by vegetables. For instance, King Nebuchadnezzar’s role is filled by a zucchini who owns a chocolate factory and wants his employees to sing praises to a chocolate bunny. The feuding parties in the Good Samaritan story are at odds because one side wears shoes on their heads, the other cooking pots. And the sailors who take the prophet Jonah out to sea are called the “Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything,” who “just stay home and lay around.”
There are also pop culture references adults can appreciate. The newest DVD incorporates the “American Idol” phenomenon into its story line.
But on occasion, the creators diverge from the story completely. The recurring “Silly Songs With Larry” features the cucumber singing about his lost hairbrush, his stuffed manatee “Barbara” and having to kiss his great Aunt Ruth (“She had a beard, and it felt weird,” he sings).
“It’s just an opportunity to be silly and be fun,” Nawrocki said. “We want to … make sure there’s something that we’re proud of as well and that we think is fun or funny, and hopefully stories that can endure more than one viewing.”
In his own family, Nawrocki, doesn’t shield his two children, ages 9 and 12, from the media their peers are consuming, but he does watch along with them to make sure it doesn’t contradict the family’s values. Not everything has to be “spiritually substantial,” he says. Nawrocki himself is a fan of shows that simply have “good funny writing,” such as “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
“I definitely think that there’s room for that,” he said.
Still, most of the media kids consume is secularist, in that it assumes “we exist on our own without a loving creator,” Nawrocki says.
“To be able to tell stories with that assumption — that there is a god who made us and who loves us — is so important because 95 percent of the media that kids take in from the culture are completely devoid of that world view.”