While brainstorming the other day, Phil Vischer thought up an idea for a wacky late-night show that could also deal with faith issues.<\/p>\n\n
This show would not feature digital vegetables and Vischer playing a big, red, silly tomato named Bob. It would not be a VeggieTales show produced under the Big Idea brand he created a decade ago. It would sink or swim on its own.<\/p>\n\n
This felt exhilarating and terrifying.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThat was the whole thing with VeggieTales,\u201d said Vischer. \u201cIt was wonderful, but everything we did had to end up as a digital-animation video product. We had a studio to protect and everything had to feed that franchise. \u2026<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWhat if you had an idea for a live-action movie? Too bad! How about new characters? Too bad! How about new children\u2019s books? Too bad! Maybe an old-fashioned animated movie? Too bad! What if we went back and did a puppet show? Too bad! We had to stick to Veggies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The good news, said Vischer, is that he is now free \u201cto chase all these creative bubbles\u201d wherever they go. The bad news is that he is free to do so because Big Idea Productions crashed into bankruptcy last year after losing an $11 million lawsuit about a verbal contract with a distributor, only 10 years after releasing the first Veggie video called \u201cWhere is God When I\u2019m S-Scared?\u201d<\/p>\n\n
VeggieTales started with Vischer and Mike \u201cLarry the Cucumber\u201d Nawrocki, two wisecracking puppeteers who exited Bible college because they were in trouble almost as often as they were in chapel. Vischer learned computer graphics, Nawrocki wrote silly songs and a dream was born.<\/p>\n\n
At its peak, Big Idea was a 210-person animation studio in the Chicago suburb of Lombard. The reorganized Big Idea, Inc., has downsized and moved to Franklin, Tenn., just outside Nashville. The new owner is Classic Media, which controls Lassie, Rocky & Bullwinkle, the Lone Ranger and other wholesome products.<\/p>\n\n
Nawrocki and a circle of others made the move. Vischer did not, but agreed to keep providing the voice of Bob the Tomato and legions of other characters. He will write one of three Veggie scripts each year and consult on others. \u201cThe Lord of the Beans\u201d is just around the corner.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to tell the stories that God is putting into my head,\u201d said Vischer, pausing. \u201cAnd I\u2019m still trying to learn how to let go. But it\u2019s good to let go. It was killing me, trying to run a studio and be creative at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The late Bob Briner would have agreed, 100 percent. Throughout the 1990s, the president of ProServ Television used \u201cRoaring Lambs\u201d and his other books to urge believers to stop cranking out predictable products to sell to the converted.<\/p>\n\n
Briner was a big VeggieTales fan. Yet, weeks before dying of cancer, he offered sobering media insights that would soon become highly relevant to the Big Idea story. Briner said that when he started paying attention to the Christian marketplace, he feared that the artists didn\u2019t have what it takes to make competitive, mainstream products. This was not the case.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWe have people who can tell stories, write songs and be funny,\u201d he said, in April of 1999. \u201cWe have lots of talented people. I\u2019ve decided that this isn\u2019t the problem. Our biggest problem is that we don\u2019t have enough people who know how to handle the money so that the talented people can do what they need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Vischer found that out. He said he started out telling stories and ended up \u201cchasing the Walt thing\u201d as he tried to build a corporate brand that could compete with the Walt Disney Company and the rest of the industrial entertainment complex.<\/p>\n\n
In the end, it was hard to tell funny stories. The pressure was too great.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI wanted to do as much good as I possible could as fast as I could,\u201d he said. \u201cI mistakenly believed that the bigger we got, the more opportunities we would have to do good. What I learned was that just the opposite was true. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While brainstorming the other day, Phil Vischer thought up an idea for a wacky late-night show that could also deal with faith issues. This show would not feature digital vegetables and Vischer playing a big, red, silly tomato named Bob. It would not be a VeggieTales show produced under the Big Idea brand he created […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[79,116,191,1542,584,905],"class_list":["post-1303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-big-idea","tag-christian-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-nashville","tag-veggietales"],"yoast_head":"\n