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Most shoppers at the Yorktown Center, a busy mall in the western Chicago suburb of Lombard, probably have no idea that the corporate headquarters and production studios for the nation's best-selling children's video series are nestled right here next to Penney's, Payless Shoes, and

Famous Dave's Barbeque. Department signs—WOMEN'S, CHILDREN'S, HOUSEWARES—still hang from the ceiling of the old Woolworth's store where Big Idea has taken up residence while it searches for a permanent site. Still, the place has a lived-in feeling. Workstations are decorated with posters and assorted memorabilia featuring characters from the Muppets, Star Wars, The Simpsons, Toy Story, and Scooby-Doo. When I visited the Big Idea studios last spring, the company's 200 employees were toiling on Jonah, creating animation for Christmas and Easter videos, and planning the second VeggieTales theatrical release (tentatively set for 2004). Walking through the facility, you can practically feel the currents of creative energy.

Though the high-powered creativity is the same, the scene is a far cry from where Big Idea began in the early '90s. Phil Vischer, who was kicked out of a Minnesota Bible college for missing too many chapels, started his company in a spare bedroom with money borrowed from friends and family. Working on one computer, Vischer and his college roommate and puppeteering partner Mike Nawrocki (who gives voice to Larry the Cucumber) dreamed up a collection of vegetable personalities because it would be technologically easier—and cheaper—to animate characters who didn't have arms, legs, or clothing.

The first video (Where Is God When I'm S-Scared?) cost $60,000 to produce and was a financial bust until Word Entertainment agreed to distribute it in Christian bookstores. Sales took off once college students working in the bookstores began playing the videos on store monitors nonstop. Word of mouth took over from there.

What has hooked both child and adult is the videos' wacky brand of humor, which Vischer calls "reverent irreverence." It is a key to VeggieTales' ability to deliver earnest, if not heavy, spiritual lessons. The series changes Bible stories into light-hearted morality plays (with David as an asparagus, Goliath as a giant pickle, and Esther as a lovely green onion), and makes witty references to pop-culture mainstays such as Gilligan's Island (in God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?!) and Batman (in the Larryboy series).

The 19 VeggieTales videos, as well as Jonah, are filled with playful nods to figures like Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and Jim Henson's Muppets—all major comedic influences on both Vischer and Nawrocki.

But the main thing that keeps the series effective is solid storytelling that draws from the deep wells of the Old Testament. Even when the videos look to nonbiblical cultural sources, they are rooted in Judeo-Christian virtues. Madame Blueberry (a brilliant parody of Flaubert) is about thankfulness. Lyle, the Kindly Viking (presented as a newly discovered Gilbert and Sullivan opera) extols sharing. When Pa Grape (portraying a monk) initially resists the idea of helping oddball Vikings who have pillaged his monastery, Lyle (portrayed by Junior Asparagus) says, "But I'm pretty sure God wants us to help everyone, not just those who are nice to us." Vischer says he has heard complaints across the spectrum—the series is either "too religious" or "not Christian enough." But the character traits encouraged by the series—generosity, thankfulness, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness—are fruits of the Holy Spirit.

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October 7 2002, Vol. 46, No. 11