Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

This episode, I have the privilege of talking with Mike Nawrocki, co-creator of VeggieTales and the beloved voice of Larry the Cucumber. Mike teaches at Lipscomb University, Nashville, Tennessee, and he came over to Japan with his family, a group of students, and another teacher on a mission trip during spring break. We all had an amazing time together making a couple of films and also doing an Art, Life, Faith gathering together. In that event, we showed a short teaser trailer from one of the films made that week, talked about the experience of making the films, including with one of the actresses. We showed some of the short films the students had made in college and then ended the evening with Mike singing some of the VeggieTale songs together with the students. We had so much fun, and I accompanied them on the piano. We also heard a lot about Mike’s new children’s animated series, The Dead Sea Squirrels, which just came out in mid-February, and I can’t wait to share that conversation with you in a little bit.

There were probably, I don’t know, 50-60 people at this event, and one person came up to me afterwards and said, “I don’t know who all these people are, but I want to know who all these people are.” It just shows one reason why we do these. It was a wonderful opportunity to make new friendships. And hopefully, those friendships will last for a long time to come.

Before we get to my conversation with Mike, I want to share a little bit about how this film project came to be, because it’s a really good example of how the arts plays a role in ministry. At one Art, Life, Faith event, I met Kei, a fashion designer and artist. And since then, we’ve often talked about gospel themes in Japanese food. He knows a lot about Japanese food. Eventually, that led into me writing a book, A Taste of Grace, which came out just last summer, full of meditations on the gospel through Japanese food. Well, when that book was released, we did an art life faith together in a beautiful home/art studio that we rented. And in that event, the owner of the venue shared a little bit about his experiences with nukatsuke, a special kind of pickling. And for those of you who’ve read my book, you may remember there was one moment where I whacked my head so hard on a low-hanging door frame. In traditional Japanese homes, the door frames are a lot lower than you expect. You need to duck when you go through. Anyway, at that event, the owner shared this story about how nukatsuke is the haha no aji, the taste of mother, and how it’s one of the most important assets that a family has. He said he was taught that as a child, if the home ever came on fire, it was his job to grab the nukatsuke and make sure it was saved and run out of the house with it, because there’s no way to replace it. If you want to hear more about that story, you can listen to Episode #47 of this podcast.

Well, I was so moved by that story that shortly after we had a church winter retreat, and I shared a little bit with the group. And during it, a young Japanese woman began to cry. After then, she came up to me and she’s like, “You made me cry.” And I said, “Yeah, I noticed that. I was curious, what moved you so much about it.” And she told me the story of how she had a really difficult time growing up with her family. There were many times that she felt isolated, alone, even bullied, and she didn’t have a lot of good memories of that time. And yet when I was sharing about nukatsuke being a way that through Japanese pickling, within a family, it’s one way that God shows his love and care for us. And as she heard that, she realized that even back then, she didn’t know God, but that God was with her, walking with her. And it seemed to redeem that memory for her. It wasn’t all bad. There was some good in her childhood. By the way, this young woman is now one of the leaders in our church in Tokyo. Her story stuck with me.

Well, at another Art, Life, Faith event, I met a young actress in her early 20s, and after talking with her for a little bit, I was like, “It’d be fun to make a movie together.” She’s like, “Yeah, we should do that.” Well, not long after that, Jesus Film Project approached us and wanted to commission us to write and make a couple of films to be able to put on their website for sharing the gospel through Japanese culture. And so it wasn’t too hard for me to come up with a screenplay because I basically just wrote that young woman’s story about nukatsuke in a short film format.

Then the next step, I heard about a group of college students from Lipscomb that wanted to come on a mission trip to make a film. I was like, I have a screenplay, I have an actress, I have a place to film it, I have funding, and now I have a film crew. It’s just amazing how God brought all the different elements together.

It was such an amazing experience with those film students. We had such a good time that who knows, the group may come back next year and make a couple more films for us. But even on top of that, there is also some interest by a couple of the students to become summer interns and stay for longer, 2-3 months next summer. I hope that happens, but we’ll see. So I share that story just to show you how making art isn’t just about coming up with a project and then making something, and then moving on. But it’s all about relationships from beginning to end, seeing discipleship happen, and even seeing people become Christians through the experience.

That’s the reason why we write and publish books. That’s the reason I give concerts and we host exhibitions. That’s the reason that I’m recording this podcast. That’s the reason we continue to invite people into our community through the different events that we do.

Let me tell you just a couple more stories about this. In our church, we have a makeup artist that I was talking with about this film project, asking her to be involved in it. And she said, “Do you need an actress?” And there actually was another actress that we did need for the second film. I said, “Yes, do you know anyone?” She said, “Yeah, my good friend. I’d love to invite her.” I remember this lunch that we had together in our apartment where she wanted to know more. It was basically a get to know each other time and talk about the film. But she wanted to know more. She said, I don’t know anything about Christianity. You’ve told me this has Christian themes in it, so I want to understand that better. Can you tell me what you’re thinking? I turned to the makeup artist and asked, “Why don’t you tell her?” I’m thinking, first of all, she’s your friend, and you speak Japanese better than I do. But also, it was a great opportunity for discipleship, for her to be able to answer the question, to try to put in her own words what Christianity is in the gospel. But she gave me this look back like, “Why are you looking at me? You’re the missionary.” I’m like, “No, you can do this.”

Anyway, she did, and they talk back and forth about it, and then she wanted to know more. So I said, “Well, actually, this is taken from Luke 15 in the Bible. It’s a story that Jesus told.” And she was interested in that. She has heard of Jesus but didn’t know anything that Jesus said. And so we opened up Luke 15 together and read through the parable of The Lost Sheep, then The Lost Coin, and then The Prodigal Son. And she was really engaged. She kept asking questions, and the makeup artist kept answering the questions. It was so cool to see that experience happening because we were making a film. Do you see? It wasn’t really about the film. It was about this relationship, these conversations happening, and the film was just the catalyst for these conversations to happen.

Through the experience, we got to know this actress pretty well, and at the end of it, she’s like, “I’ve never worked with Christians before, but this was so much fun. Please invite me again. I’d love to do this again.” And I told her we’d love to have her again. So, who knows when the next opportunity may be next year. Maybe we’ll be able to do that again. I also gave her one of my books, The Broken Leaf, the Japanese version, saying, “You may find this interesting. Here’s the other things that I’ve been talking about, the gospel through Japanese art and culture, and how I have no right to talk about these things.” I do a whole introduction in the Japanese version that isn’t in the English about what right do I have to talk about this and in a humorous way. Anyway, so the conversation continues.

The other experience I’d like to share with you is how when we were trying to plan the filming for the movie that was going to happen later that week, we also decided to plan a little bit of the Art, Life, Faith gathering that was going to happen, and it ended up turning into this media fest where the students were showing one another the work that they made and talking about it. Then we rehearsed with Larry the Cucumber, with Mike Nawrocki, with various VeggieTales songs. I’m accompanying, and he’s singing Larry, and another student’s singing Bob the Tomato, and another’s Junior Asparagas, and the rest. It was just so much fun. When I asked the students later what the highlight of their trip was, they all said it was gathering in my apartment, overlooking the city, seeing all the lights of the city, all the people out there, knowing that they’re not Christians, and here we were talking about these kingdom themes and how through the arts we’re going to bring it displayed to all these people. And they said they really enjoyed hearing from each other what they had made. It was like this great, encouraging atmosphere of sharing one another’s work with each other, to be inspired also in their own work like, “Oh, what’s the next project I want to do? Maybe I want that person involved in it.” Sometimes I forget how powerful those connections are because that’s my daily life here. I’m always surrounded by artists or making things together and just love encouraging one another to make really high-quality art, but also to talk about the gospel through the art that we’re making.

It’s just so cool to be here in the city of Tokyo, where there are so few Christians and to be able to see how God is building his church and sharing his gospel and seeing lives change through the arts. There’s a lot more I could say about that. But I really want to share with you this conversation with Mike, and especially about his new series, The Dead Sea Squirrels.

Roger

Mike, thank you so much for being here today.

Mike

Roger, thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be with you here in Tokyo.

Roger

Yeah, so we are looking out the window of my living room where you can see along the river here in downtown Tokyo. We had an Art, Life, Faith event last night. We were going to do here, but there was so much interest we had to move it to another location, and that was basically because of you!

Mike

Well, I’m honored. What an event. It was so cool to see the folks there and to get to share what we did. I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit about that. But this whole trip for me and the students that I’m with has just been so fantastic.

Roger

So tell me about that. Why are you in Japan right now?

Mike

I am a professor at Lipscomb University, and we have a missions trip here through our film department. Another leader and I, another faculty member, brought 12 film students to Tokyo to work on filming a couple of narrative films that you wrote. So that’s been wonderful.

Roger

That was fun.

Mike

And then also doing a documentary. And it’s just been such a great experience. I mean, I’m so proud of the students. They’ve just done really wonderful work. All the principal photography is done. We still have a lot of work to do in the editing bay, but they’ll be two short films. They’ve gotten a chance to obviously experience the culture, meet people, and be on a mission in the field that they’re studying and be able to serve others through the work that they love doing in film.

Roger

Yeah, I’m so grateful they came here and did that with us. The teaser trailer we showed last night, it was amazing, just the quality of it.

Mike

Oh, my goodness, yes. I was off in a different area the day that they shot that so for me to see that, I was just blown away, too. I was just so proud of them and just the types of images they were able to capture. And then just the facilities that you all provided, the traditional Japanese house that we filmed in, and the Japanese actors that were there. It was all just amazing and very magical for them.

Roger

Yeah, those actors were great. On Monday, we filmed A Taste of Grace, which is going be about a three-and-a-half-minute film, something like that. Friday, we filmed what we’re calling The Lost Sheep, about a sheep that goes wandering, but the sheep is actually a bicycle, and how the actor finds it in the end and brings it in. Both are based upon themes in the Bible. I’m really looking forward to seeing more people drawn in to the Bible, perhaps for the first time through these films.

Mike

Yeah, and our students are so excited about that, the fact that they can create something that’s going to just have a potential impact on others. They’re very interested in sharing their faith, and that’s just a wonderful opportunity for them.

Roger

Yeah, let’s talk about the event last night a little bit because one of the things I thought was cool was for the students to be able to share a little of the work they’ve been doing up to this point. They can tell people, “Yeah, I had a film screening in Tokyo.” Perhaps they can use that language?

Mike

Yeah, it premiered in Tokyo.

Roger

But yeah, it was really neat for them to share a little bit about their work and their time here. People seemed to really engage with them over that.

Mike

Yeah, they loved it. I think you had four students share their films. We have one animation student with us here, so she had a little animated short that she played, which was just adorable about a couple of beavers. Then a few other students shared films that they have worked on just in the context of their school work at Lipscomb. They’re talented students, and they’ve got great hearts. For them to have that opportunity to share with an audience. They were speaking in English and being translated in Japan. Just that experience for them was just…it just blew their minds, and they loved it.

Roger

Yeah, I love, too, what one of the actresses said who was up there saying how she happens to be a Christian. The others involved were not. Just how amazing the experience. It was her first opportunity to work as an actor with Christians.

Mike

That’s wonderful.

Roger

There are so few Christians here in the film industry. For her to say, “It was different, and it was rewarding, and it was encouraging.” She wasn’t sure quite what words to use. It was really interesting.

Mike

That was really touching. The other thing that Tyler shared with me, the other leader who was on the shoot that day, when you were opening up in prayer, a couple of the actors, probably who weren’t Christians, he was saying the older lady there, the older lady actor, she was just looking around as people were praying. When he finished, Tyler said she shared with him that that day was the 80th anniversary of the firebombing of Tokyo. I’m going to break up a little bit, but just how much she appreciated the fact that we’re friends now, and just that obviously horrible event, and the fact that we could be in a room working together and just communing together as friends was just a wonderful thing.

Roger

Yeah, it really was a special moment because she asked me, “Can I say something?” “Sure, of course.” Then we weren’t quite sure where she was going with this. “Well, 80 years ago…” “I was like, eighty years ago? Why are you talking about that?” But it was moving. Just interacting, too, with her. There were a lot of conversations that happened before the filming about the content. She was trying to understand what it meant. She was interacting with me over the script and saying, “You wouldn’t really say this about pickles. Why are you saying this?” I said, “Well, that’s actually the point because it’s a metaphor for something else. It’s a metaphor for us and how God takes care of us in our brokenness and our darkness And so by the way you use the language, you want to make people think, ‘Wait, we’re not talking about food? We’re talking about something else?’” And we went back and forth with what she was comfortable saying. So I think she really was drawn in by that. And then on Friday with the other actress, we did a film was based on the parable of the lost sheep. Jesus tells the story of the shepherd who leaves the 99 in search of the one. And then, so all of Luke 15, which then goes with the lost coin parable, and then the The Prodigal Son. We read that together before, while we were waiting for the film crew to get ready. And it was the first time I think she had ever read the Bible before. Opening the Bible, and putting it in front of her, and she’s reading it, and then we’re interacting with the story, and she’s like, “Oh, I see. I didn’t know that this was what it was about,” and it was a really good discussion.

Mike

That’s so wonderful. To me, that’s so amazing because you hear people going on missions trips and sharing their faith, and you get this idea about preaching on the streets and doing that thing. But to go over and just be able to do what you do as an artist and interact with other artists and share your faith that way is just an incredible opportunity.

Roger

Yeah, God really gives us opportunities through the arts, in Japan in particular. I think that the arts is a great inroad into people’s lives. We love seeing that and love seeing how God continues to bless our efforts in that.

Mike

That’s wonderful.

Roger

Let’s talk about VeggieTales a little bit, if that’s okay.

Mike

Sure.

Roger

I have always been amazed at how famous VeggieTales is in Japan.

Mike

And I’m finding that out. I knew that we had some of the episodes dubbed in Japanese, and the Japanese Larry the Cucumber happened to be my favorite foreign language dub of Larry. I’d heard a number of other Larrys in other languages, and the Japanese version was by far my favorite, the best that I heard, the Hairbrush Song in Japanese, as the kids say, totally slaps. It was really great. But being here and hearing that, just the popularity of it among the people that I’ve met so far has just been fantastic. I just would have never known that.

Roger

When I travel around giving concerts in small churches, I shared this last night as well, but how it’s very hard for churches to provide children’s ministry because they’re so small. Most of the people are older, and when kids come, they’re like, “Oh, no. What are we going to do? We’re all in our 70s, and now we have some kids here from the neighborhood.” But something that every church has is a VCR. And I think your distribution strategy of, Well, let’s get this into VHS and get it out there was perfectly suited to Japan’s needs at the time.

Roger

Even the smallest towns I’ve been to…very rural parts of Japan. And the VeggieTales VHS is right there.

Mike

Oh, my goodness. And did they ever… Did DVD follow or is it still VHS?

Roger

I’m not sure. I think it’s still VHS, actually.

Mike

That’s incredible.

Roger

Change is hard. But it was just the fact that you worked so hard to put this product into a medium to get the Christian message out there, and then how God blessed that by having it distributed throughout this country, which has so few resources in Christianity, is just a tremendous gift to us. So thank you so much for doing that.

Mike

Oh, my goodness. I mean, it’s an honor and it’s truly humbling. I just remember thinking all those years, because it’s animation, you’re in your animated studio and you’re making, I call it making the donuts. You’re making the show and then you’re sending it out there. But it’s been so amazing for me to see just the impact that it’s had in people’s lives. I meet a lot of now college-age kids who grew up on VeggieTales and tell me what it’s meant for them. God’s word, when it goes out, does not return void. And it’s just been amazing to be a part of that. And I’m so honored to know that I’ve had the chance to do something that has been so well received all over the world.

Roger

Would you be willing to share Larry’s voice with us a little bit?

Mike

“Sure. If I don’t blow out your microphone, I don’t know if you got a compressor on this baby or not. But yeah, there’s Larry right there.”

Roger

That’s awesome! Thank you, Larry, for being here also. But I don’t want to take too much of your time, so let’s go into what your current project is right now. Tell us about that.

Mike

So I’m really excited. We just launched. I left VeggieTales full-time in 2016. You mentioned the home video market. VeggieTales started on VHS and moved its way into DVD. The home video market was very strong for a number of decades. But in the mid-teens, people just stopped buying home videos, by and large, or at least not enough people did which brought an end to that business model. I left Big Idea in 2016 and started working on a new series that I had in mind for a few years. It started with the bad pun, the Dead Sea Squirrels. One of the lines that we drew in the sand very early on with VeggieTales was to never depict Jesus as a vegetable. We were irreverent in many other ways, but we just wanted to draw the line there. I started thinking about, “What other vehicle could we have as a show to be able to tell more New Testament stories, more gospel stories?” That title popped into my brain one day, and I started to form a world around it. When I left Big Idea, I started to develop that as an animated series.

But then a friend of mine who was in the publishing industry suggested, “Hey, have you ever thought of an early reader series with this?” I hadn’t, but I thought it was a great idea. I went away, did some research, and then I worked up a pitch to Tyndale Publishers. They loved it, and I started writing the books. Each book is about 8,000 words, so they’re ideal for early readers, from when kids first start reading in kindergarten up through about fifth or sixth grade. The books were doing well. In the meantime, I also went back to school to get my MFA to be able to teach at the university level. I did that and then started working at Lipscomb University with my good friend Steve Taylor, who brought me in. Steve and I had worked together on a number of projects for VeggieTales. And so went in, began teaching, and then had the opportunity to create a pilot based off of the first book. It turned out great.

From there, we were able to raise the rest of the funds for a full 13-episode first season based off of 12 books that I had written. It tells the story of Merle and Pearl, an old Jewish couple from Galilee, who lived in the first century. Merle has it in his brain that he wants to take a little trip down the Jordan River to the Dead Sea because you can’t sink. He and Pearl get on this raft and spend the day in the sun and in the salty water. Of course, discover it’s a hot, and they seek out shade in a cave. They get lost in the cave. They’re salt-encrusted and dehydrated and that preserves them for 2,000 years in that cave. Flash forward to present day, a little boy named Michael, 10 years old, is with his dad, who’s an archeologist. He’s at a dig in the area, and Michael stumbles across these dead squirrels, and he thinks that they’re cool. So he smuggles them home back to Tennessee and sets them up on his windowsill so they don’t stink up his room. It rains that night, and they rehydrate, desalinate, and come back to life.

So they help Michael as he’s going through things that 10-year-olds go through in the modern day with flashbacks to the first century. Michael’s dealing with a problem with a bully at school. He’s plotting revenge on getting back at the bully. But the squirrels will say, “Hey, we have a story about that,” and we go back and hear a song called “Do Unto Others,” which is Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount. They’re able to plant those seeds, and that works its way through the story. It’s an opportunity to tell those gospel New Testament stories in a way that’s really helpful for kids in the modern day. Then later in the series, we actually share the full birth and death and resurrection gospel message through the story as well.

Yeah, just really excited about the series and its launch.

Roger

You’re the voice of Merle, is that right?

Mike

“I’m Merle, yes. I’m Merle the Squirrel.” He’s not as famous as Larry yet.

Roger

How can people watch this show?

Mike

We are on a streaming service called Minno, the number one Christian streaming service for kids, gominnow.com. We did a deal with The Wonder Project, if folks are familiar with the House of David, which is out now on Amazon. Eventually, we’ll be under their umbrella within Amazon, but they sub-licensed us out to a company called Minno, where we’ve got great friends. In fact, they stream VeggieTales, so all that content is also available there. They’re just wonderful folks. We released February 14th with our first three episodes.

Roger

Congratulations! That’s pretty recent.

Mike

It’s very recent, and we’ve been adding two episodes every week. In the next two weeks or so, all 13 episodes will be out. We’ve been hearing great things, great feedback from folks. On the 15th, the day after the release, we had a really wonderful premiere in Nashville, where about 700 folks showed up and lots of kids. We showed the first three episodes and had just a really, really great reception. Super excited to see where the show is going to go.

Roger

Yeah. Would you say it reaches the same audience? If people love VeggieTales, they’re going to love Dead Sea Squirrels?

Mike

Yeah, I think so. That’s what I’ve heard from a lot of people. It’s a different type of show. VeggieTales was an ensemble cast of vegetables. Every episode was a different story, like a short film with the beginning, middle, and end, and you could watch each of them of a la carte. Squirrels is different in that it is a story that spans 13 episodes. It’s got these great little cliffhangers that hopefully keep you wanting to watch and see how that first season resolves. Then there’s enough threads there to keep you going into season 2, that type of thing. I think nowadays, what people are drawn to about streaming, I think it fits into that format really well.

Roger

Cool. Well, I can’t wait to see it.

Mike

Thank you.

Roger

Also, you have a podcast you want to let people know about?

Mike

Oh, yeah. It’s The Bible for Kids. It’s a podcast that I do. Trisha Goyer is my current co-host. The idea around our podcast was, back in the day, if folks wanted to hear more about great resources for kids, faith resources, they would go to their local Christian bookstore. In the States, they were everywhere. In fact, that’s where we got started with VeggieTales in Christian bookstores, initially. But by and large, most of them are not around anymore. That’s happened to a lot of bookstores. We wanted to provide a podcast for parents who are looking for those resources for their kids. We talked to a lot of authors who have new books coming out, musicians who have projects coming out for kids, filmmakers. Just Any of those types of projects that want to pass on biblical values to kids, we’re interested in talking to authors about that.

Roger

That’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

Mike

Roger, this has been so wonderful. Thank you for being such a gracious host here in Tokyo. We’re just over the moon about our time here with you all.

Roger

Loved having you here. I hope you bring the students back. They really were a joy to have here.

Mike

Thank you. We haven’t left yet, and they’re already talking about coming back. So thank you so much.

Roger

Awesome. God bless.

Mike

God bless.

Roger

Thank you so much for listening to the Art, Life, Faith podcast. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne.” We’ll see you next time.