Saturday, May 2, 1998

Characters in 'VeggieTales' videos get their religious messages across with attitude, not platitudes

By David Lyman / Knight Ridder Newspapers

It looks like just another glitzy kids' cartoon. There's a wisecracking tomato, a silly cucumber, an asparagus family -- a whole crew of engagingly squeaky-voiced garden creatures.

There's plenty of the usual Saturday morning slapstick, too: pratfalls and sight gags and all manner of vaudevillian shtick. But if you stop long enough to listen to what "VeggieTales" has to say, there is something distinctly different unfolding.

Bob the Tomato talks about the importance of generosity. About being kind. About keeping an open mind.

About God.

It's stunning. Not that what the tomato has to say is so shocking. It's just that in a world where children's entertainment is dominated by snarkiness and high-decibel hoopla and unabashed commercial huckstering, "VeggieTales" has co-opted the slick, sharp-edged wit of commercial television to deliver unapologetically Christian entertainment.

Even more unexpected is that "VeggieTales" has been an unmitigated commercial success.

Not in a mega-billion, Disney sort of way. But even before a new national distributor landed it on the shelves of Kmart and Target and other national chains earlier this month, "VeggieTales" had sold a remarkable 3 million copies (there are nine videos now, at $14.95 each) in the relatively minuscule world of Christian bookstores.

"VeggieTales" isn't the first video to market itself as Christian children's entertainment. It's just the first to actually entertain.

"Saturday morning entertainment with Sunday morning values," the "VeggieTales" videos crow at the beginning of each tape. And it's true.

In "The Story of Flibber-O-Loo," a thinly disguised retelling of the Good Samaritan tale, two mountaintop towns have feuded so long that no one can remember why. All that remains of the original altercation is that everyone in one town wears a shoe atop his head, while everyone in the other wears a kitchen pot.

Drawing on the same animation technology used to make "Toy Story," the images are as visually arresting as they are deliciously silly. Paired with sharp banter among the all-vegetable cast -- never mind that tomatoes are fruits -- "VeggieTales" is the kind of amusement that appeals to entertainment-savvy kids.

"They've got that combination of sweetness and sarcasm, of wide-eyed wonder with a wink-wink nudge-nudge attitude," says Wayne Zeitner, vice president and general manager of Everland Entertainment, the Nashville-based entertainment group that found "VeggieTales" and began distributing it to Christian outlets.

Zeitner was already an old hand in the Christian marketplace when, in 1993, he saw an ad in a Christian booksellers publication touting the then-unknown "VeggieTales." The guy who had placed that ad, Chicago-based animator Phil Vischer, was a first-rate animator. But he had no idea how to market his work.

Zeitner ordered the tape and was smitten. "What they achieved is a very difficult trick to pull off," says Zeitner. "You can't just affect that sort of attitude and insouciance. The stuff those guys throw off in their asides is funnier than the main comedy gags that other people spend months cooking up."

Today, "VeggieTales" is widespread in the secular world -- it's soon to be in Blockbuster stores. And like any other enterprising business venture, it has spawned scores of spinoffs. There are "VeggieTales" pencils and "VeggieTales" stickers, "VeggieTales" books and "VeggieTales" apparel -- more than 200 products in all.

And while Vischer, 31, is delighted, the success doesn't surprise him. He cites studies suggesting that upwards of 75 percent of Americans call themselves Christians. "But look at how Hollywood and television portray religious people," says Vischer. "They're generally insane and dangerous or cute and harmless. There's a great deal of mistrust for religious people in Hollywood."

To Vischer and his partner Mike Nawrocki, that chasm was not just a marketing opportunity, but it was also a chance to feed what they perceived as a hunger for spiritual substance in the American family.

But don't look for "VeggieTales" to become a tool of the radical religious right, says Vischer. "VeggieTales" steadfastly avoids hot-button issues like abortion and gay rights.

The pair met in a Christian puppetry group at Minnesota's St. Paul Bible College. They cobbled together some scripts with the idea of making Christian cartoons. But because their animation software was so primitive, it proved impossible to make realistic-looking arms and legs. So they searched around for appendage-free characters that would be endearing and silly at the same time. Vegetables seemed a natural.

"VeggieTales" has pursued its goal with such grace and in such an unthreatening way that even parents who don't consider themselves particularly religious are beguiled. "VeggieTales' " lessons are so universal, in fact, that all but the most rigid non-Christian parents are likely to find them acceptable.

"I can't remember the last time we went to church," admitted Karen Gilmore, a 32-year-old mother of two from Roseville. "But my sister-in-law gave us a copy of 'VeggieTales' last year and it was such a good break for my son from things like Power Rangers and the Mutant Ninja Turtles. We've got four tapes now."

The public longing for morally uplifting children's entertainment hasn't been lost on big business.

"This is part of a trend," says Kmart spokesman Dennis Wigent. "We've already seen it in the music world where there has been a cross-over between what was traditionally religious music and a mainstream presentation. 'Veggietales' is just an extension of that."

And big-time entertainment companies have taken notice. The Chicago "VeggieTales" studio has been visited by three of the world's six largest media companies, says Vischer, each trying to find a way to include "VeggieTales" in its roster.

But so far, it's a fit that doesn't seem to work.

"Usually, it comes down to 'we like what you're doing, but we think you could focus more on life lessons and less on the God talk.' They're missing the point. We're not just telling kids to tell the truth because it will make society function better, although that's not a bad thing.

"God is at the heart of what we're talking about. We like the success, but we're not going to edit Him out just to get a network deal."

(c) 1998, Detroit Free Press.

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