YOUR FELLOW ALUMNI ONE ALUM WITH A BIG IDEA BRINGS NEW MEANING TO VEGETABLES

In 1993, Mike Nawrocki (MFA ’19) was one-half of a team that came up with a really big idea: teaching children Biblical values…through talking vegetables. And thus a generation of youngsters grew up learning moral behavior and Christian tenets through the goofy and gregarious VeggieTales®, produced by Big Idea Entertainment. Nawrocki was not only the co-creator, writer and director for VeggieTales, but he also created the voice of the beloved Larry the Cucumber. The seed of the VeggieTales idea came to Nawrocki and co-creator Phil Vischer from puppetry, a creative art Nawrocki was involved in during his undergraduate years at Crown College, where he was involved in student ministry with his friend.

“We wanted to take what we did in puppetry and put it into video,” said Nawrocki. “Phil was a little more serious and driven, and Larry was a little more goofy like me. We related to each other as friends the same way Bob and Larry relate to each other.”

Nawrocki brought his famous voice and prestigious writing and directing talents to Lipscomb’s faculty in 2017. He wanted to improve his live-action film and educator skills, so he decided to also enroll in Lipscomb’s Master of Fine Arts program.

Today Nawrocki is still teaching future generations, but now he’s teaching Lipscomb students the art of animated film…through squirrels. Dead Sea Squirrels to be exact. He is working one-on-one with upper-level animation students to produce his latest animated series: The Dead Sea Squirrels, based on his series of books for early readers.

Read more about Nawrocki at lipscomb.edu/bigidea