..Book Reviews..

What was most surprising to me was how Big Idea was barely making it, even when they had videos in the stores. Usually when you see a finished entertainment product like that you think the company must be doing OK. Truth is they were barely breaking even and working college student all-nighters to get the job done.

As they scaled larger and larger that scenario pretty much stayed the same as they took on more and more and it eventually fell apart.

The ending is especially inspiring as Vischer reflects on what he's learned ("And so what we have learned applies to our lives today / God has a lot to say in his book. [pause] You see we know that God's word is for everyone / Now that our song is done we'll take a look.") and realizes that he was chasing his own dream and not God's.

It's also full of all sorts of geeky insider info on how computer animation works, which is especially interesting considering that Veggie Tales pre-dates Toy Story. Vischer beat Pixar to the punch (well, not really, Pixar pre-dates Big Idea) because he figured out a relatively cheap way to do computer animation and chose characters (vegetables) simple enough to animate with the technology available at the time. In some ways, it's a story of being creatively successful within existing limitations.