VeggieTales: Celebrating Christmas and building families

Mike Nawrocki believes in the power of story, family and the Bible.

Humor, song and talking vegetables complete the formula.

Nawrocki is the co-creator of VeggieTales and co-founder of Big Idea Entertainment, which continues to produce programming for families that is buoyant and, at times, silly, but which always comes from a Christian perspective.

"We want to tell stories from a biblical worldview; from a worldview that assumes that there's a god who made us, who loves us and wants a relationship with us," said Nawrocki, who founded Big Idea in 1993 along with Phil Vischer. "We're going to tell stories out of that space."

Recent releases from Big Idea focus on one of the most extraordinary moments from the Bible — the birth of Christ — and also on the family, which Nawrocki calls a "great model" for learning about God.

"The Little Drummer Boy" is VeggieTales' latest feature-length offering. It's based on the 1968 stop-motion animated feature, which Nawrocki calls a "holiday staple."

"We've done our own VeggieTales spin on it," he said.

That means talking vegetables who sing and joke, but ultimately deliver a substantive biblical message. Junior Asparagus plays the role of Aaron, a young boy embittered by tragedy and mistrust whose heart changes when he happens upon the scene of Christ's birth. Mixed in with the expanded storyline is an original song, "Can't Smile Without Ewe," and, of course, a just-for-fun number called "The 8 Polish Foods of Christmas." There's ample comic relief from characters like Mr. Lunt, who is preoccupied with chocolate milk, and Larry the Cucumber, who is one of the three Magi but fancies himself as a Jedi.

More importantly, the project gave Nawrocki and his team the chance to approach a sacred subject in a reverent manner.

"It was a great opportunity for us to go to the manger," Nawrocki said. "From the beginning of VeggieTales, we wanted to stay away from showing Jesus as a vegetable. We just felt like that would be crossing a line that we didn't want to cross.

"'The Little Drummer Boy' just gave us the opportunity to tell the Nativity story through the eyes of Aaron … and experience the manger in a way that really worked for VeggieTales."