Michael Lewis Nawrocki (born July 8, 1966) is an American director, animator, writer, lyricist, and voice actor best known as the co-creator of the long-running, Christian video series, ''

VeggieTales ''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 retell ...

'' where he voiced

Larry the Cucumber This is a list of characters that appear in the ''VeggieTales'' franchise. Primary characters Bob the Tomato Bob the Tomato (introduced 1993) is the friendly but slightly high-strung host of ''VeggieTales''. Creator Phil Vischer has often cite ...

. He voiced many other main characters on the show, including Jerry Gourd, and Jean-Claude Pea, and other various characters, is the co-founder of

Big Idea Entertainment Big Idea Entertainment, LLC (formerly known as Big Idea Productions, Inc. and Big Idea, Inc.; also simply as Big Idea) is an American Christian animation company, best known for its computer-animated ''VeggieTales'' series of Christian-themed ...

alongside

Phil Vischer Phillip Roger Vischer (born June 16, 1966) is an American filmmaker, author, speaker, podcast host, animator, musician, puppeteer, and voice actor who created the computer-animated video series ''VeggieTales'' alongside Mike Nawrocki. He provid ...

, and currently serves as the Executive Vice President of the company. He has directed several of their productions, including the award-winning ''

Silly Songs with Larry ''Silly Songs with Larry'' is a regular feature segment in Big Idea's cartoon series ''VeggieTales''. Often secular, they generally consist of Larry the Cucumber singing a humorous novelty song either alone or with some of the other Veggie charact ...

'' segments from ''VeggieTales''.

Life and career

Nawrocki originally wanted a career in the medicine field, and studied at St. Paul Bible College (now Crown College) where he met Phil Vischer while serving on a puppet ministry. Nawrocki later enrolled at the

University of Illinois-Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois sy ...

, and joined Vischer at GRAFx, Nawrocki helped to finance his education by taking a job with Renaissance Video, a video production facility where he gained experience in

video production Video production is the process of producing video content for video. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with video recorded either as analog signals on videotape, digitally in video tape or as computer files stored on optical discs, hard dri ...

and animation and later worked for Post Effects and Film and Tape Works. Nawrocki graduated from UIC in 1992 with a BS in biology and a BA in history. In 1993, Nawrocki left Film & Tape Works, a company that had purchased GRAFx Studios, and his future in medicine to join Vischer and founded Big Idea Productions. After Big Idea's liquidation in 2003, Nawrocki reactivated the company in 2004. On September 30, 2008, Big Idea Entertainment appointed Nawrocki to the position of Executive Vice President. He will "oversee all creative and production at the Big Idea studio," "spearhead the development and launch of new series, brands and properties for Big Idea," will have the "initial focus will include developing an original new VeggieTales TV series," and "cultivate new strategic partnerships and alliances in the creative community to help expand the Big Idea portfolio." In 2014,

DreamWorks Classics Classic Media, LLC, doing business as DreamWorks Classics, is an American entertainment company owned by DreamWorks Animation, which is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures and a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It was founded as Classic Media ...

, the parent company of Big Idea, signed an exclusive deal with

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

to produce and distribute ''

VeggieTales in the House ''VeggieTales in the House'' is an American computer animation, computer-animated children's comedy streaming television series developed by Doug TenNapel (of ''Earthworm Jim'' fame) and produced by Big Idea Entertainment (owned by DreamWorks Cla ...

''. Nawrocki was signed on to continue voicing most of his characters.

Revival of ''VeggieTales''

In March of 2019, Mike's partner

announced on his Twitter that he had re-teamed with Mike at TBN to revive the ''VeggieTales'' series. Just like previously, Vischer and Nawrocki would return to voice their characters and also work as writers for the new show.

Awards

Published works

*''Bob Lends a Helping . . . Hand?'' (2003) (co-author with Cindy Kenney) *''Peas and Thank You!'' (2003) (writing as the voice of Larry the Cucumber) *''The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything and Me!'' (2004) (co-author with Karen Poth)

Filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nawrocki, Mike 1966 births Living people Christian writers American people of Polish descent American Christians 21st-century Christians 20th-century Christians American evangelicals Crown College (Minnesota) alumni University of Illinois alumni American male voice actors American animators American animated film directors American animated film producers Male actors from Dayton, Ohio Writers from Dayton, Ohio