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The Return of the Veggie King
In their latest video, VeggieTales creators Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki give kids an important lesson about using God's gifts. It's a lesson they learned the hard way.
By Edward Gilbreath
 1 of 4
Phil Vischer knows a lot about God's gifts. As a co-creator (with Mike Nawrocki) of the popular VeggieTales video series, Vischer used his vivid imagination and quirky storytelling to launch what would become the best-selling Christian videos of all time. He had technological savvy, too. In 1994, more than a year before Pixar's Toy Story, VeggieTales was breaking new ground with 3-D computer animation.
Perhaps Vischer's greatest gift, though, was his ability to combine childlike silliness with biblical values. As the voice of Bob the Tomato, Vischer told millions of kids "God made you special, and He loves you very much," and the kids believed.
Then in 2003 Vischer's company, Big Idea, filed for bankruptcy after a spate of financial problems. Big Idea and its debts were sold to the New York-based Classic Media, and its headquarters moved from Chicago to Nashville. Mike Nawrocki and other Big Idea staffers made the move, but Vischer's day-to-day involvement with his beloved Veggies came to a sad end (he now travels to Nashville twice a month to do voice work for the videos).
In VeggieTales: Lord of the Beans, the first episode written by Vischer since the change in Big Idea's ownership, Junior Asparagus plays Toto Baggypants, a young Flobbit, who must discover the true purpose of a magical bean he inherited. It's a witty spoof of The Lord of the Rings, with a message about using the gifts God gives us.
Today's Christian recently spoke to Vischer and Nawrocki (a.k.a. Larry Cucumber) about this latest installment of VeggieTales and the painful lessons they've learned about using the gifts God gave them.
What was your inspiration for Lord of the Beans?
Phil: My kids are now 14, 10, and 8. And they're not as excited about VeggieTales as they used to be. But they love The Lord of the Rings movies. They love the drama and the depth of those worlds that J. R. R. Tolkien created. I discovered that some of our more rabid VeggieTales fans—ex-high school kids and college kids—were also rabid Lord of the Rings fans. The Christian values were so strong in The Lord of the Rings films that it set them apart from the typical action movies. So I thought it would be fun to encourage those values and to take Tolkien's world and populate it with veggies.
Was it difficult to make the story relevant to 4- and 5-year-olds?
Phil: Yes, that's why I really had to look into the core teaching of the Rings. It's one thing to say "Look at this great world full of Christian archetypes that Tolkien crafted" and to throw vegetables into it, but we also had to figure out what the lesson should be. The Lord of the Rings has lots of lessons and themes, but in VeggieTales we need just one. Since we're dealing with younger kids, we wanted them to walk away with one little nugget that they can put in their hearts and carry around.
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