'VeggiTales' gamble on first movie

The star is an asparagus. His buddies include a tomato and a cucumber. And they're featured in a movie based on the biblical tale of Jonah, the guy who got swallowed by a whale.\nWhat's the big idea? At Big Idea Productions, it's that kids' entertainment can teach children a thing or two about morality and religious faith yet still trigger a belly laugh or two.\nThe independent studio from suburban Chicago is about to find out if mainstream moviegoing audiences agree. Its first feature-length film, "Jonah -- a VeggieTales Movie," opens Friday.\nBig Idea has put $14 million into the movie, making it a gamble even though the company has sold nearly 30 million of the startlingly successful "VeggieTales" animated videos over the past nine years.\n"Jonah" recycles the biblical book into a fishy story-within-a-story starring Archibald Asparagus (voiced with a British accent by Big Idea founder Phil Vischer) in the title role, alongside Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber and others from Big Idea's improbable garden of animated fruits and vegetables. ("No vegetables were harmed in the making of this film," viewers are assured.)\nAs with the home videos, Mom, Dad, and other viewers above VeggieTales' target ages of 3-8 will be amused by knowing cultural references: "Jaws" and "Lawrence of Arabia" sneak into the film, as do snack foods, a pop singer, and audiotapes by a motivational speaker ("You are powerful and attractive. You do not run from your problems.")\nThere are also silly ditties (the best one, "The Credits Song," comes at the end of the credits) and goofy gags. When the prophet Jonah enters town to preach God's law, fast-food stands that offer pork, bats and bugs instantly turn kosher and start selling bagels and coffee.\nIn this quintessentially Jewish story, the good guy (who was scripted prior to the Sept. 11 attacks) is Khalil, a vaguely Muslim traveling salesman who's half caterpillar, half worm.\nActually, either Muslims or Jews would find VeggieTales productions wholesome rather than troublesome, apart from the studio's Christmas and Easter videos. But Vischer, Big Idea's Iowa-bred founder, is very much a product of white evangelical Protestantism -- the Christian and Missionary Alliance, to be specific.\nThe 36-year-old Vischer says white, Protestant America has lots of nice, happy people but little great humor. Maybe the people are too comfortable, he muses, admitting that he escaped into humor when his parents divorced. His personal idols became Britain's Monty Python crew and the Coen brothers.\nVischer was tossed out of Minnesota's St. Paul Bible College (now Crown College) for skipping chapel too often, and he started working in video production rather than studying elsewhere.\nIn 1993, Big Idea produced "Where's God When I'm S-Scared?" -- a pioneering children's video with 3D computer animation. By 1998, Wal-Mart came calling.