Big Idea is a family media company located in Franklin, Tennessee. Known for the computer-animated VeggieTales children's video series, Big Idea is now branching out to new and exciting venues.
Where We Came From Big Idea was founded in a spare bedroom by computer animator and storyteller Phil Vischer in July of 1993. With one computer, little capital and no connections, Phil set out with the goal of creating values-based family media products.
Working with two young art school grads and friends volunteering on weekends, Phil completed the first half-hour episode of VeggieTales, Where's God When I'm S-Scared? before Christmas, 1993. It was the nation's first entirely computer animated video.
After selling 130,000 videos through 1995, word-of-mouth began to kick in. By the end of 1996, 750,000 videos had been sold. With friends telling friends about the video series, "Veggie-mania" really exploded! Big Idea shipped its one millionth VeggieTales video in March of '97, then passed the 2 million mark in November of that year and the 3 million mark in March of '98, making VeggieTales one of the most popular children's video series in the world. By the year 2001, the company had sold more than 20 million videos. Following its success at Christian retail stores, the first two VeggieTales titles were released to mass market stores like Target, Wal-Mart and K-Mart on March 31, 1998 ... and all other titles have followed in the months since then! In recent years, we've expanded to the popular DVD market with rereleases of all our titles, each of which is loaded with lots of bonus features. No matter where you shop, Big Idea continues to teach kids valuable lessons.
And we're not just talking about talking vegetables! Big Idea has also produced the "3-2-1 Penguins!" and "Larryboy" animated, direct-to-video series.
On October 4, 2002, Big Idea premiered its very first big-screen theatrical film, Jonah - a VeggieTales Movie! Fans all over the country packed out their local theaters for the biggest fish story ever told by singing vegetables, and made Jonah one of the most successful family films of the year.
Where We Are Going Now located in Franklin, Tennessee, Big Idea is continuing to tell entertaining stories that improve the lives of families. While the world's most famous tomato and cucumber will always be on our banner, Big Idea also plans to expand what we're doing in film, music, publishing, and more!
The future is looking good for the baby media company that only a few short years ago consisted of one guy in a spare bedroom with almost nothing but a big idea.
