Phil Vischer (jellyfishland.com), Mike Nawrocki   A closer look at Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki Are Phil and Mike like Bob and Larry in real life? Nawrocki: Yeah, definitely. Vischer: Yeah, and it wasn’t hard to figure out who should do which voice. Their heroes: Vischer: Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis, Walt Disney, Jim Henson, Steve Jobs Nawrocki: Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis Their artistic influences: Vischer: Disney films like Hot Lead and Cold Feet, The North Avenue Irregulars, and Gus; Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits; Tim Burton, the Coen brothers Nawrocki: Mel Brooks, the Dr. Demento Show, the Coen brothers, Monty Python, Terry Gilliam

CD: In 2003, Big Idea went bankrupt, leading to employee layoffs and the selling of the company to Classics Media LLC, which today is part of Entertainment Rights PLC. How did faith help you and your families try to cope with all that?

VISCHER: I’ll just tell you one story: I made it pretty clear to my kids that this was ministry and that the productions assist what I’m doing to help kids. My son, who was 8 at the time, had decided he was going to be the next president of Big Idea. I was heartbroken to have to tell him that it fell apart and we lost it. As I was putting him to bed that night I was kind of waiting for his reaction of, “How does that affect me? Does that mean I don’t get to be president or that we don’t have any money anymore?” But instead he turned to me and said, “Does that mean you don’t get to tell kids about God anymore?” It just busted me up, and I said, “Oh, buddy, there’s a million ways to do that. This was just one of them.” But it was just amazing to see how he had internalized not just, “We own a company and that’s really cool,” but “My dad tells kids about God, and that’s really cool.”


NAWROCKI: I think for me, too, it was just learning the lesson that God is in control. I think a certain amount of security came with the success of Big Idea. Then when that all went away it [was] God revealing, “No, I’m the one that provides for you. Your security comes come from Me, not from these external things.” So that was a big lesson for me.

(To read Vischer’s detailed account of the factors leading up to Big Idea’s bankruptcy, visit philvischer.com.)

CD: Jonah, the first VeggieTales feature film, was a biblical story. Though the new film doesn’t have any direct references to God, you have described it as a spiritual allegory. Can you talk a little more about that?

VISCHER: The film is really a parable. It’s partly to explore different forms of Christian filmmaking. Because everyone in Hollywood is looking for Christian films and no one in Hollywood knows what a Christian film is. There’s a danger of defining the genre too narrowly. When Jesus told a story, most of his stories didn’t overtly reference God. God shows up as the owner of a vineyard or the judge who gets annoyed with a woman. The disciples would say, “Are you sure they got that?” And he would just say, “For him for who has ears to hear.” And so what I wanted to do with this one was to teach a Christian lesson in the form of a parable and let parents kind of unwrap it for their kids.

CD: The film makes a distinction between false heroes who are looked up to merely because they are famous or they have a certain image and people who are heroic for doing good deeds. As parents do you find it a challenge to explain to your children what real heroism is? How do you go about that?

VISCHER: I think as a parent it is hard to expose your kids to real heroism, biblical heroism, when they’re getting inundated with models (from the media) who focus on the superficial. We have to work really hard to expose them. We were just at my mom’s house for Christmas last night and with all the cousins, and she invited a 70 year-old missionary couple over to tell stories to the kids about growing up in China and escaping the Communists, and [being] in Indonesia for 35 years fighting wild boars in the jungle. You see your kid’s eyes open and [they] say, “Dang, I never heard anything like that on TV. That’s really cool.” But it’s definitely a responsibility for us parents to say, “Here are some other models.”

NAWROCKI: (In the movie) we boil down the core concept of what a hero is: somebody who’s not afraid to do what’s right, no matter how hard it is. And I think kids can get that message. They watch the stories of 9-11, the firefighters who risked their lives doing what was right to save others. But I think in a biblical worldview we [ask], OK, who calls us to that? I think what we’re trying to do in the films [is to show that] it’s not about us; it’s more than that. There’s a God who calls us to [heroism].