A VeggieTales Movie: The Untold Lessons

“And so what we have learned applies to our lives today,
God has a lot to say in His Book… "

Don't be fooled by the advertising, or the reviews. "Jonah: A Veggie Tale Movie" (Big Ideas)isn't just an entertaining, colorful, musical, Oscar potential presentation of one of mankind's most renown stories.

Nor is the long-awaited film from the creators of Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber just another popcorn-and-soda, soundtrack-promoting, fast food toy tie-in, whiny children movie. It’s not a Disney wannabe sell-out by a Christian artist crossing over to the dark side.

"Jonah, A Veggie Tales Movie" is about culture. American culture. Christian Culture. It's about the ability of Believers to abandon pre-conceived notations about movies, and for non-Believers to comprehend that “Sunday morning values” are not relegated to Sunday morning pews.

"In the (evangelical) community I come from, why are we so clueless about getting in there and engaging the culture? I'm not just interested in the subculture; but how do I engage the culture?” The speaker is Phil Vischer, a lithe, multi-faceted visionary former puppeteer, Bob’s morally-outraged alter-ego, and co-founder and CEO of Big Idea Productions.

Please allow for some personal prejudice here. Since I lucked into a preview at the Big Idea studios in June and discovered that the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything do something (oops, did I give away the plot?), I’ve been elevated to star status by my four-year-old daughter and friends, especially after I told them of my breakfast with Larry (who suddenly makes me think of Wallace Shawn).

Ever since, I’ve been eager to see the finished product with children. And adults. To watch the kids’ faces; to converse with the grown-ups about the film’s intriguing mix of theology and introspection – particularly the in-the-belly-of-the-whale sequence: as fascinating a mixture of Old Testament story, New Testament redemption, traditional Jewish funeral rites, contemporary African-American gospel, and an homage to James Brown, Chaka Kahn and The Blues Brothers as you’ll see on screen.

(Frankly, I can’t wait for the Oscar nominations to come out, especially for Best Song, just so there’s a chance for the gospel group Anointed to perform in a non-gospel program before billions worldwide.)

I wonder if in hearing Jonah’s song about the Ninevites other Believers will reflect on our own prejudices -- toward other Believers, other denominations, and other societies.

I wonder if others will think of debates about God The Father and Allah whenever Kahlil the Caterpillar shares the movie’s theme that God is “come-PASH-shun-et.”

In the long run, “Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie” is less about the anti-hero title character than it is about a prayer from the psalms ( 20:4 -- “May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.”) and prophecy from Jeremiah (29:11 – “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”)

Lest we wax too evangelistically poetic about Kingdom purposes, let’s come back to earth a moment, Earth being the bottom line about a multimillion dollar movie. And therein begin the lessons for struggling ministry artisans with big ideas. The lessons come in no particular order, but following the Big Idea model from the opening lyric above, scripture is a guideline.

(These are my own summations and have no direct stamp of approval from any Veggie-tarians at the Big Idea studios.)

Lesson I: Render Unto Caesar for Business is Business.

The budget for the 81-minute “Jonah” is $12 million, modest for Hollywood films, particularly computer-generated animated features. That genre features the ilk of "Shrek," "Toy Story," "Ice Age," all developed with much deeper pockets and much broader manpower.

"The No. 1 goal of any filmmaker is to make another film," says Vischer, quoting one of his role models, "Star Wars" franchise creator George Lucas. “We're not trying to do $80 million. More like $20. “

Still…“We're not making a film to ‘learn to market a film and release a film.’ ”

Meaning, when Monday morning newscasts report the weekend Box Office take, Vischer, creative partner Mike Nawrocki, business partner Terry Botwick, producer Ameake Owens, and distributor Family Home Entertainment will notice how many folks attend the 1200-theatres. The future of their Disney-esque vision rests on whether people who aren’t church-goers enjoy the wry wit, colorful imagery, show-stopping music that Believing families adore, and aren’t theologically threatened.

“The bigger story,” Vischer says, “is that what we've done with the home video market, we're doing with movies.”

(Just a Bob-and-Larry operation 10 years ago, Big Idea couldn’t get videos into Christian bookstores. Now, their displays dominate sections of these shops so greatly, it’s no wonder our daughter refers to our nearby bookshop as ‘The Veggie Tales’ store. No to mention that whenever she’s seen a ‘Jonah’ commercial on Nickelodeon, she’s screamed, “We’re going to that! We’re going to that!”)

“It's not just the fact that we're getting a movie in Hollywood, but we control it.”

Controlling the product has been essential. From creation to distribution to emulation, Big Idea has maintained its purpose of maintaining biblical perspective, even though the stories aren’t overtly evangelical. Even selecting Jonah as the first feature film was deliberate.

"Bible stories are still the best sellers. They've been there, but not well done," he says, pointing out the popular but inaccurate “Prince of Egypt” and NBC’s anachronistic film “Noah”. "There are a handful of stories with big marquee value. There's a fair amount of stuff that's told to be biblical that's not quality."

Lesson No. 2: Don’t Trade Dramatic License for Scriptural Errancy.

"There is God -- we all have a spiritual side," Vischer says, explaining the broad, universal quest for the deity. "(Then) there is biblical truth.

"Watching a movie I think, ‘Wow, this is cool. Wow this is dangerous,’ in the hands of people counter to what I believe. I want to use those techniques in the service of Biblical truth."

Those techniques include hiring the best people available, particularly those who share the yen for biblical truth. And, as “all things come together for the good,” Big Idea hired crew – some may say raided -- from competitors Warner Brothers, Dreamworks and Disney; people such as producer Owens and art director J. Michael Spooner, whose expertise was animation, but whose passion was The Lord.

"With all their resources, the major media companies can do anything except inspire the hearts of men," says Owens, who joined Big Idea in December 2000 to produce the ‘Jonah’ project begun, then abandoned, the previous year. " People trying to find the intersection between giftedness and God's will were not in the proper place."

Lesson No. 3 – Your Ministry is not About You, It’s About Him.

Though Vischer is the most visible human spokesman of Big Idea, quickly asserts that if he had his druthers, like Jonah he’d ‘ruther’ be elsewhere, "in a cabin somewhere writing a book....a long book...slowly."

"I never wanted to be in charge of a company," says the 35-year-old CEO. "My drive comes internally from moral outrage."

Terry Botwick shares that perspective, and two years back the former vice president for CBS Entertainment became Big Idea's Chief Operating Officer, responsible for establishing the business strategies of the ever-creating creative team.

"I had a vision similar to Phil's: a deep need for a family entertainment network trusted by people. I was going to try to build such a company, and when I met Phil, he was about nine years ahead. I had a lot of practical experience to help with the vision he had."

The Vischer vision? "Do we want to be company led by a visionary, or a visionary company? Our goal is to be Disney with a biblical world view. In the next ten years, our goal is to find (projects), fund and deliver.

“I look at, as role models, C.S. Lewis, who left a great body of work, or even George Lucas, and the other Walt Disney. ‘Disney’ has 10 times the opportunity to influence global values than they did when Walt was alive. We can only build so big on 2 1/2 videos a year. If ‘Jonah’ does well, we'll have the resources. “

The bigger idea is to create television programming, feature films, and create an environment where creative souls with similar values may tell their stories --
“moving from one artist to enabling other artists -- we want to find other creative artists to help them get their vision seen."

Lesson No. 4: The Purpose of Ministry is to Prepare the Next Generation.

"There are countless kids in youth groups with ideas in their heads and no way to get it out. I've run into kids who become youth pastors because they couldn't be filmmakers. This is for the creative ones who sit back and usually get kicked out of Bible colleges,” says the former Bible college student. “They can still serve in ministry without going off to be a missionary."

Lesson No. 5: Telling God’s Story is Christian Responsibility

Stories -- true tales such as Jonah, and the parables of Christ -- have drawn people to The Lord for centuries. Yet, “Christians have, by and large, given up on telling stories,” Vischer told a room of Christian media a few months back.

"Stories are the living truth of an idea; not three-point sermons, but little stories: stories about vineyards and olive trees. The power of the story is to try to redirect our culture and the historical truths of Christianity,” he said.

"Four-hundred years before the birth of Christ, Plato worried about media. He decided the playwright has more power than politicians. Whoever writes the story has the power. If Plato were alive today, what would he say?"

Perhaps that contemporary American Christianity has become insular and has more of a reputation for judging culture than influencing with “come-PASH-SHUN.”

"We don't have access to the global audience because we've abandoned the arts,” Vischer contends. “We don't see Christ in any places of significant power. We often find ourselves talking to ourselves. The problem is the gatekeepers are not too excited about our stories.

"Big Idea wants to reclaim the power and capture the world with story.”

But, you know what? Don’t go to the show thinking about all this stuff. Just have fun. Laugh at the in-jokes. Explain ’em to the kids. Come out singing the music. Don’t feel guilty about buying a DVD down the road. It’s just a movie. Take a friend who doesn’t believe. May want to prep them, though. Maybe use the words of another classic storyteller, Bill Cosby, who before each episode of his Fat Albert cartoon series, warned the viewers: “Be careful. You might just learn something.”

Hey-hey-men.