NEWS FEATURE: Veggie values: video series promotes morality without preaching

c. 1998 Religion News Service UNDATED _”Eat your vegetables!”is the mantra millions of frustrated parents chant nearly every dinner hour. But for the past five years, kids haven’t been able to get enough of”Veggie Tales,”a creative video series that has sold nearly 5 million units and yielded a bumper crop of produce-themed products. It all […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

UNDATED _”Eat your vegetables!”is the mantra millions of frustrated parents chant nearly every dinner hour. But for the past five years, kids haven’t been able to get enough of”Veggie Tales,”a creative video series that has sold nearly 5 million units and yielded a bumper crop of produce-themed products.

It all began in June, 1994, when Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber _ the animated stars of the series _ served up”Where’s God When I’m S-Scared?”Featuring vivid visual images, goofy gags, fast-paced action and witty songs like”God is bigger than the boogeyman,”this initial Veggie Tales video went platinum _ 100,000 sales _ through sales at Christian bookstores alone.


Today, nine episodes are available in Christian bookstores, and four of these are being distributed to the mainstream market by Lyrick Studios, the company more famous for purple dinosaurs than talking vegetables.

As of early September, these four tapes were among the nation’s 25 bestselling children’s videos, outselling popular titles in the Rugrats and Teletubbies lines.

Some of the episodes are creative retellings of Bible stories.”Dave & The Giant Pickle”is an adaptation of David and Goliath;”Josh and the Big Wall”is a veggie version of the Israelites’ attack of Jericho; while”Rack, Shack & Benny”does the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, three Old Testament figures who were thrown into a fiery furnace for their obedience to God.

Others are inspired by secular sources.”Madame Blueberry,”released last July, is loosely based on Flaubert’s”Madame Bovary.”How loosely?”We skipped the part about the prostitute, and the suicide at the end,”joked 32-year-old Phil Vischer, the visionary behind the vegetables.

Vischer grew up in a single-parent home where TV was a frequent baby-sitter. He got his creative start studying puppets as a Bible college student, graduated to producing high-tech computer animation for corporate clients, and founded his Chicago-based Big Idea Productions to market and produce his produce.

Persuasive without being preachy, the videos combine story segments and”Silly Song”intermissions to promote positive values like telling the truth, loving one’s neighbors, and forgiving wrongdoers.”The series doesn’t promote a religious message, but a moral message backed by religious values,”said Dan Merrell, Lyrick Studios’ senior product manager.”Plus, the programming is very good, they’re funny, the songs are catchy, and the animation is first-rate.” Still, Vischer believes his videos are powerful teaching tools. “Every episode teaches a nugget of truth,”he said,”a values-based lesson that is so concrete that a four-year-old can pick it up, put it in his pocket, and carry it around for the rest of his life.” And each tape concludes with one of the characters delivering the series’ basic message:”Remember, God made you special and he loves you very much.””If nothing else, if each child realizes that he or she is special and loved, this world will be a better place,”Vischer said.

For more than 60 years, Disney has been the big banana of children’s entertainment.”Mickey Mouse”was America’s first animated super-celebrity, and Disney has long dominated national kidvid sales.


Vischer hails Walt Disney as one of his creative heroes, praising Disney’s technical skills and down-home values. But like a growing number of Christian parents, he puts less trust in the Disney name now that it is part of a multinational entertainment colossus.”Disney is so huge,”Vischer said.”There’s just no way that a mission like Walt’s can survive in such a media giant.” But instead of joining the boycott of the house of Mouse currently sponsored by a variety of religious groups, Vischer is on a crusade to build a better mousetrap.”People should have the right to boycott,”he said,”but when it comes to things we don’t like about Hollywood and the media business, by far the most effective way to counter them is by creating alternatives that are more creative but are filled with God’s truth.” Vischer wants people to quit moaning about how bad popular culture is and start doing something to make it better.”As Christians, we spend too much of our time cursing the darkness and not enough time lighting candles. Christian have by-and-large abdicated every industry that impacts our culture. We don’t raise our kids to be filmmakers. We think God can protect them (as missionaries) in the depths of Africa, but we don’t think he can protect them in the depths of Hollywood. As a result we don’t encourage kids to go into the arts.” Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber have successfully crossed over to the mainstream stores, and Vischer is relishing every moment.”The people who need God’s truth aren’t necessarily in Christian bookstores,”Vischer said.”The people who already have shelves of Christian videos don’t need more.” Lyrick’s Merrell agrees.”A big part of this series’ success is word of mouth,”he said.”Kids hear about Veggie Tales at church, but their parents don’t always frequent Christian retailers. But many parents throughout the country want this kind of programming.” And Big Idea’s ambitious mission statement shows that Vischer’s not content with small potatoes.”Our purpose is to markedly enhance the moral and spiritual fabric of our society through creative media,”says the statement.

Vischer said he hopes that within 20 years Big Idea”is a top-five media company, right alongside Disney, Nickelodeon or Fox.” Here, Vischer’s corporate and parental interests intersect.”Parenting is really, really hard,”said this father of three.”It’s got to be the hardest job on earth. Do we really need kids’ TV and movies to make it harder?” DEA END RABEY

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