VeggieTales is an American Christian media, computer generated musical children's animation, and book franchise created by Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki under Big Idea Entertainment. The series sees fruit and vegetable characters retelling Christian stories from the Bible, with episodes presenting life lessons according to a biblical world view. The franchise originated as a video series, with episodes distributed primarily direct to home media, first in 1993 on VHS, and later on DVD and Blu-ray through to 2015. The television series VeggieTales on TV! ran on NBC from 2006 to 2009, and two Netflix series debuted in 2014 and 2017. Two films were released: Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie (2002) and The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie (2008). The success of the animations helped establish a franchise of related media, including music, stage productions, and video games. The series is distinguished as the most successful Christian children's franchise of all time. It has sold over 16 million books, 7 million music CDs, and 235 million music streams. History VeggieTales was created by Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki through the production company Big Idea Entertainment with an overall aim to convey Christian moral themes and teach Biblical values and lessons for a child-based audience. Vischer developed the idea for VeggieTales in the early 1990s while testing animation software as a medium for children's videos. Due to limitations in the Softimage 3D at the time, Vischer opted to avoid the technical production hurdle of designing characters with arms, legs, hair, and clothes. The first animation model for VeggieTales was an anthropomorphic candy bar. Further inspiration derived from Vischer's wife who suggested parents of the target audience might prefer a character who promoted healthier eating habits. Vischer then began to design the characters based on fruits and vegetables. Vischer then recruited his friends to voice the cast of VeggieTales in the early episodes. Dan Anderson (Dad Asparagus) and Jim Poole (Scooter) who collaborated with Vischer on dramas at their local church, were recruited for the cast. First offered in the direct-to-video market, the first release was the 30-minute video, Where's God When I'm S-Scared?, in December 1993. Softimage 3D was used to animate the characters for episodes until 1999 when it was replaced with the animation software, Maya. In January 2002, HIT Entertainment sued Big Idea, claiming Big Idea "abruptly walked away" from a 1997 deal with Lyrick Studios, which HIT