Tom Bancroft (Animator)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week, I host a conversation with a Christ follower who's pursuing world class mastery of their Christmas. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how their faith influences their work. Today's guest is Tom Bancroft. He's a world class animator with more than 30 years of experience, much of which was at Disney, where he animated for Beauty and the Beast, the Lion King, Aladdin, Pocahontas and Mulan. And he wasn't just a low man on the totem pole. He was the head animator who created Mushu and a lot of other characters. Tom and I sat down. We had such a fun conversation. We talked about what it was like being at Disney during the animation renaissance that followed the Little Mermaid in 1989. We talked about how films like Tangled can help us long for the true myth of Christianity. And we talked about how we Christians have to wrestle with really tough questions about how we can work in workplaces that are increasingly hostile to the Gospel. My kids may or may not have also made a guest appearance in today's episode. It's a lot of fun. I think you're gonna love it. Please enjoy this episode with my friend, Tom Bandron. Hey, Tom. Thanks for doing this.

Hey, it's good to be here, Jordan. Thank you for having me.

So for the last few days, I have been the hero in my household with three young girls under the age of six. Right. I. I've been. I've been. I've been talking you up. I'm talking to the guy.

Oh, dang. I was figuring out how you pulled this off. I have four girls and I've never been the hero, so. So you just talk about me and then you were here. Absolutely.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This guy who drew Simba and Pocahontas and Mushu. My kids, well, they think you're the coolest. I'm not really the hero. So you've got four daughters. They didn't think you were, like the coolest guy in the world. Growing up drawing all these Disney Characters.

Thank you for making this the official first question. No. So, yeah, that's the weird thing is I have this. And it starts with my wife. I blame her. We have this weird culture in our family, in our immediate family, where the idea is to not make ever a big deal about dad. Don't talk about what he does for a living. Don't. Don't be impressed by him in any way, shape or form. And they're really succeeding. I mean, I have such a. I.

Mean, they're doing a great job.

I'm beyond humble. I'm kind of crushed all the time. The, the sub part to that, which is that my wife, and this is what I totally blame her for, is is she hates Star Wars. She hates all the movies that basically defined me and made me go down this direction. She hates. And she won't watch cartoons. She doesn't, she won't say this, but she really doesn't like cartoons. And so she's only gone to, like red carpet premieres with me to see the movies I worked on because. Well, that's cool. Yeah, sure. And so she'll watch them for a red carpet premiere, but basically to get dressed up. So, yeah, Netflix. Forget it. She's not gonna watch a cartoon with me. Forget it.

That's hilarious. So that's actually gotta be nice, though. It's a nice balance, right? You're some people. Animators all day long.

I've heard.

That's what people tell me.

They tell me that that's the way it should be and blah, blah. But I'm still daily crushed. I love it.

I love it. That's what we should be. It's very humbling to be at home. I know that well. So, hey, speaking of my kids, Kate, my four year old wanted to come on and ask you directly a few questions. Do you mind if she does?

Oh, my gosh, I'm excited. Yes. Let's do this. Hi, my name is Kate. What was the hardest part of Pocahontas? All right, well, Kate, you picked a good character because Pocahontas, everything about her was hard. But, you know, in general, I would say it was her face. She just had a really hard face to draw from different angles. And I was constantly. There was a supervising animator that I worked with, Glen Keane, who designed her. And he was really the only one that knew how to draw her from every angle. And so we were constantly going to him for drawings. He literally would do drawings for us to help us get a certain angle or a certain look. So, yeah, I hit help I had a cheat sheet.

We're big Pocahontas fans.

Oh, good. Yeah.

In this house. In fact, we were watching it the day before we found out you were coming on the podcast. So good timing. All right, Kate, you got another question? Go ahead, Kate.

What was the hardest part of drawing the songs?

So I think what Kate's getting at here is how do you take these characters from just walking along to actually singing? What did that look like tomorrow?

Well, a lot of people don't know this, but the voices are usually done. Are always done before the animation, and especially back in those days. Today, with computers, the voice actors do their part, and in this case, maybe it's singing a song. Right. And we then do our drawings to match up to that soundtrack, and we have tools to do that. One is called an exposure sheet, where we can literally see what frame say the D and dance, or if that's what they're singing. Right. Then I know that on frame 15, that's a D at the beginning of that word. And so, on that drawing for frame 15, I have to make her and Pocahontas doing a D, you know, like a D sound with her mouth.

That's cool.

Yeah, that's cool.

By the way, did you see the documentary, the docu series on Disney on the making of Frozen two?

I did. I can't remember if I finished it, but I did watch it. It was really well done.

It was super well done.

It was a little painful to watch, and I think that's why I didn't finish it.

I met.

From you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for those of us that don't know your world, it was a blast. All right, Kate's got one last question. All right, go ahead, Kate.

Why did Simba's dad have to die? Kate's asking the hard questions today. I should just say the lame answer, which is that it was in the script.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The WR writers told me to do it.

Well, Kate, honestly, you know, sometimes when we're growing up, we need something in our life to happen that's very powerful that will then send us in a new direction, and that we need that to happen. And sometimes it's a sad thing, not always a happy thing that will change our life. And in this case, that was that moment for Simba where his. When his dad died, he felt guilty about it. He thought it was his fault. And that set him down a path of feeling guilty and kind of going the wrong direction for a while. With two bachelor friends that he met, Pumbaa and Timon who just wanted to have a good time and party and dance. And that wasn't really what his responsibilities were. And so he had to then kind of come back and realize, wait, it wasn't my fault, and I want to be more like my dad and remember him the right way.

I'll explain what Bachelor means to you, Kate.

Sorry.

When you're older.

No.

Hey, that was a terrific answer to a really tough question.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

She said that was not a softball.

That was a real hard one. For sure.

That was a real hard one. Well, hey, Kate, thank you so much for those questions. Yeah. So, Tom, real quick getting into your story. What years were you at Disney?

See, I started there, yeah. 1989, the very beginning of 89, and then 2000. I left the first time and then came back for another year later after I went to big idea in 2000. And then they went bankrupt. A couple years later, I came back to Disney just to finish Brother Bear. So all total. And that was around 2003. So the second time I left was about 2003.

When we talked last week, I mentioned that one of my all time favorite books is Disney War. This story of Michael eisner's tenure as CEO of Disney from 84 to 2004. Actually just reread it for like, I don't know, fourth or fifth time. And I forgot that Eisner almost shut Disney Animation down. That was the plan when they came in. And then they did Little Mermaid when you were there, right. In 1989, it was released. It just exploded. Animation kind of became the thing. So was that how it happened with you? Like they were just on a hiring spree of animators because they were just doubling down on animation at the time?

Well, yes and no, actually, when we came, and I say we because I have a twin brother and we went to CalArts together. We're both animators at Disney, and so our trajectory, especially at the beginning of our career, is identical. So just like us, I oftentimes when I refer to myself in the past, I say we. It's a twin thing. So. But when we got there, it was perfect timing, but we didn't know it. This was another God timing thing where you don't, you know, you think it's actually not a great time, but then it turns out to be the best because, like two weeks later, everything changes. Yeah, it was sort of like that in that the whole industry was really crumbling. There were like a lot of TV animation studios like Deke and made Inspector Gadget, things like that. Back in the day and Hanna Barbera was actually going down and there was tons of layoffs and closings. And meanwhile Disney wasn't doing so hot, but. And a lot of people give Little Mermaid the credit for like sort of saving animation or especially Disney. It's not totally true if you back it up a little bit more than that. A couple other big things happened, which was just the summer before that was who Framed Roger Rabbit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a big hit. Big.

Expensive. Expensive to make.

Hit.

Yeah.

Ex. Yes. And super time consuming. But it really reinvigorated because it had that nostalgia, which by the way, is looping back now. People have a lot of nostalgia about 2D animation, but like that it brought back some old characters. It was more like character nostalgia, Betty Boop and things like that that were kind of coming back that people remembered and Bugs and seeing Bugs and Mickey together, those things. But the other thing that happened was that the blue studio left. They were animators from Don Bluth and John Pomeroy and Gary Goldsmith, that's the score composer, Goldman. They left Disney. There were three animators that were at Disney on Fox and the Hound and even before that. And they were really good at this, a whole sub story. But they left Disney and took about 20 other people with them, 20, 25 other people and started their own studio, the Don Bluth Productions. And then they came out with their first feature film, the Secret of nimh. So a lot of your listeners are going, yeah, I remember that. I know they are. Because it was a big hit. And immediately Disney had competition finally with people that basically were. And they ended up making Anastasia and other films that many people to this day think were Disney movies. But anyway, those two big things happened just before or right around Little Mermaid. Then of course, Little Mermaid came out and just took it to the next level. But it really wasn't till Lion King.

Yeah, that was the big.

That was the big one. And that was the billion dollar movie. And it just made three times probably what any of the other movies had made to that point, maybe even more than that, but. And that's when the real hiring thing happened where it was just. They were hiring like crazy at that point because they decided we're, hey, if we can make this much with one movie every year, let's make two movies a year. And that was a Jeffrey Katzenberg decision. But that led us down to basically having to double the studio. And they were happy to do it because they were making a ton of money.

So Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of the what was his official title at the time? He was head of Walt Disney Studios. Right.

But he was the head of Feature Animation.

Yeah, head of the animation. Then eventually the whole studio, I believe. But for my listeners who've heard me talk about Disney war before, yeah, Jeffrey Katzenberg is quite the character. So you left Disney the first time in 2000. You went to Big Idea, the creators of VeggieTales. What led you to make that move?

Well, my heart. And that's. That's what I tell people and in. In non Christian podcasts. So here I can say it was definitely God. I really was following my heart because I had. It's. It is a long story and I do want to tell parts of it. It's hard for me not to do it. I'll try and condense this a little bit. I had risen to the top. I'd gotten all the way to where I wanted to be, which was I was a supervising animator on Mulan, and I designed Mushu the Dragon, and he was my character. But to get there, and it was about 10ish years to get there, I had been doing, like, crowd scenes and all the stuff you do early on as an animator, but it took a long time. And at least in my viewpoint, looking back, I'm like a few years, right? It wasn't. But I was working my way up. And, you know, I did Pocahontas and Pocahontas, and I did Young Simba and Lion K, but never, like, I was always trying to get the juicier and juicier parts. And I wasn't a supervisor. I wasn't the lead guy that designed Pocahontas or Simba. I always had somebody above me. And then finally I got that position on Mulan and I just killed myself. I just. For about two years straight, over time, all the time. I had a daughter during that time, Ansley, or my middle daughter, and I hardly saw her as a baby because of Mulan. And. And I'm not blaming Disney, I'm blaming myself, really. But they did kind of take and take and take, just like any corporation will, if you're willing, you know, and just keep saying yes to every opportunity they'll keep taking, Right? And especially if you're doing a good job. And so that's what I was doing. I was just trying to prove to them that I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. And so right at the end there, I had just finished Mulan and literally had maybe a couple weeks off. And then they said, will you work on John Henry, which was an animated short that my buddy Mark Henn was directing. And so I supervised on John Henry, and then simultaneous to that, a Roger Rabbit short where they were. They were thinking about doing a Roger Rabbit sequel. And so I took on a big chunk of animation for this test that they were doing. And then California called and said, oh, can you work on Tarzan and just do it at nights and on weekends, so in the way of your John Henry work during the day. And so I just not only didn't have hardly any break, but I just. I just tacked on to other jobs on top of that.

Yeah.

And it was all like, oh, my gosh, it's finally happening. Right? I'm finally in that position that I felt like I deserved five years before that, but finally had gotten there and people were wanting me and asking for me to do specific things. I was, like, the only animator in Florida that worked that animated on Tarzan. I was like, it was very specific section they wanted me to do. So it was an honor, but I just said yes to everything. And so what ended up happening was I got sick. I came in one weekend, and I loved work. I wanted to stay there as long as I could. And again, this was a mindset that was not. I was excluding God and my family. I was a Christian, but what I was doing was I was definitely making Disney and animation my altar, you know, I was worshiping at the. At the Disney altar, I guess you could say. And I got sick because. So I came in one Monday, I had a sore throat all weekend, and it just got worse and worse. But I still went in because I loved it. And about halfway through the day, I'm like, oh, my head hurts and stuff. I'm gonna go home. And my wife calls. She was running errands or whatever, but she's like, hey, where are you? I'm like, I'm at home. I'm just. And she's immediately alarmed when I say, I'm at home. Because she's like, you don't go home. You love that place. And so I'm at home, like, babe, I'm just going to shut my eyes, take a little nap. Because, like, the lights kind of hurt, you know, Makes my head hurt more. She's like, that's a migraine now. Okay, back up. I've never had a headache before. I hate to say this. I know, right? Everyone hates you. Yeah, a lot of people hate me, and my brother's the same way. I think it's because we split our brain at One point in our lives. And so we both never had headaches. So I didn't know what this really was. And that's why when she said, oh, that's a migraine, we, I'm coming home and taking you to the doctor, I was like, no, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. Just kind of just need to go. Sure enough, she drags me to the doctor and I'm kicking and screaming the whole way. And when we get there, they immediately test me and they. They say, you have meningitis. Oh, I had an infection in my brain that basically what they found out later was that the infection in my throat, the sore throat I had was really bad, but it. It somehow went up into my brain and basically my brain was swelling. And that's what meningitis basically is. Yeah. And they couldn't figure it out. They couldn't figure out what was causing it. And at first, and then they put me on, like. So I was in the hospital for a week with IVs in me and, like, very strong drugs going in, trying to kill this infection. And it took them a while. The sore throat went away within a day or so. But then after that, it still wouldn't go away. They couldn't figure out what it was. And it literally took a week before they could. And I just remember my wife being there every day, coming in and just crying and, you know, I could have died. And the doctors were saying that. And the first day I was there, they didn't know if it was viral meningitis or what's the airborne one. I can't remember. But they do think it was the viral one. So. But in the end, you know, I saw not only her love for me and her dedication, her concern or worry and all that, but what happened was. And I didn't even know it was happening during that process is that I came back, I came out of the hospital, and I went back to work. Literally a week later, I still had plugs in me. I was going home at lunch to get IV put into me. Still stupid, but I wanted to get back. But as soon as I got there, I looked at things differently. And I know that this has happened to some of the listeners. There's times in your life where this is a little bit like what I told your daughter about Simba is something kind of big sometimes has to happen to re. Jiggy your brain. And it's a God thing, 100%. And if you're not a believer and that's happened to you, I hope you re look at that and trace back all those little things, those little events that had to happen for everything to line up to make that happen in your life, to make you think differently. Because people don't think differently easily, right? Yeah. And this was that moment. This was that. So I came back into work and I was just like wanting to get back into it, but I still loved it. I still love Disney, I still love my job. But there was something that had been pulled away in my brain that went, yeah, but I can do this nine to five, I can go home. I relooked at my relationship with my God and my family because of that moment. And this is all leading up to your question, which is how to get to Big Idea. Within weeks, if not a month of that. I get this random email. I was in the National Cartoonist Society. So I got this. I was on a. This is early Internet. So it was like.

Yeah, like listserv. Yeah, yeah.

It's like what Reddit is now, but it was like just a chat room kind of thing for, for cartoonists. And Chris Brown, I remember this, he was the artist for Hagar the Horrible. He's like, well, I got a day job, but, you know, I thought I'd throw this job posting up here because some headhunter sent it to me, but obviously, you know, kind of busy. And it was for Big Idea Productions. It was to go to this little studio in Chicago and be like a technical director. I wasn't qualified for it. It didn't have anything on it that said Tom Bancroft. Right. But I saw it and went, oh, that's the people that make veggie towels. My kids watch those in Sunday school. I've seen those. And. And I was like, immediately. And again, another God moment. I didn't even know why I became obsessed with Big Idea. Again, this is early Internet. I went to that. WW Big Idea. How does that put in that and the semicolon. And yeah, so I did all that. I finally get to their, their website and they had a newsletter and all this and I'm reading all about it and I'm finding out about Phil Vischer, the creator of it, and then the other co creator, Mike Naraki, and I'm just like, I'm digging deep. So this entrepreneurial side of me is getting excited too, just to see this little group that's making these amazing videos. I didn't know the whole story behind it and some that's pushing me, but then at the same time I'm like, I'm falling in love with the company. And not just the product, actually more so the company. And so I start going around to all my co workers, other animators, especially the ones that are Christians, and I'm going, do you know about Big Idea? I'm start at Disney. I'm at the top animation studio in the world and I've just finished some of the best projects that have ever been made. Mulan and like, Joel and Moose, like.

Hey, have you seen Larry boy?

Yeah, I'm going around talking about Bob and Larry and this, but mostly this company. And so, long story short, I end up reaching out to Phil Vischer and saying, I'm interested. I. I saw this job posting. Obviously that's not me, but do you need help? And. But I'm fooling myself the whole time I'm trying to go, oh, yeah, but I'm not really interested. Just like, hey, I just want to kind of get to know what you guys are doing and where you're headed. And. But he's sniffing me out. And so we end up going back and forth for months, just emailing back and forth to the point where one day he does say, we'd love to have you come down. Can you come get interviewed? We don't know even what the job would be, but we're making a feature film for the first time and we need people like you that have made feature films. That would be amazing. And so I'm like, oh, that's almost like a job offer and kind of an interview. And so I go home to my wife, who I haven't told a lot about this. I've been telling her about Big Idea and just how cool it is. And, you know, I'm talking to Phil Vischler, the creator, and that's. Isn't that neat and all that? But she's like, even more so than me denying it, right? Going, okay, well, that's nice. But anyway, we just build our. And we did. We just built our dream home and we had a new baby and okay, good for them. And so she goes on a run right after I come home, and I tell her that basically Phil wants me to kind of maybe fly out there and meet with him and maybe I'll do that. And she goes on a run and she comes back and she's crying, Jordan, I know you've been here, okay? God communicates to us through our wives, our spouse, right? Yeah. And we need it, right? And this is the wife that I've been kind of denying, right? Not giving her my all for many years. And I'm Trying to, to not do that anymore. And so when she comes home crying like, babe, what's the matter? And she's like, I think you're supposed to go to Big Idea, you know, And I wouldn't let allow myself to even feel that right. And so when she said that, I finally allowed myself to go. I think I do want to go. I had to finally admit it to myself. And so when she started crying like that. But why she was crying was that she didn't want to go. She loved her house, her friends, our life there. And she was just. But I needed it to come from her. God knew I had to hear it from her because I was not going to stab her in the back again by going, oh, I'm going to go do whatever I want to go do. I've been doing that for years and staying late and things like that. And her saying that opened the door and she knows it now. And, and by the way, we've gone full circle. I'm not going to keep going this story. I'll probably hit it later. But we have gone full circle. We can now see why that happened. It wasn't all perfect. The whole arrangement was not. And we ended up going. Big Idea went bankrupt within two and a half years of us getting there. We were able, and we don't often get this in this life, but we were able to see a few years later after that kind of why. Why a lot of that happened because we've been blessed here in Franklin, Tennessee many times by that, by me going to Veggie Tales.

Very, very cool. I love that story and completely can understand the Lord speaking through our wives who are filled with his spirit, our spouses. All right, fast forward, way fast forward to today. Give us the 62nd pitch of what you're doing right now with Pencilish.

The short answer is Pencilish Animation Studios is a. It's an entertainment company where we're going to create first with animation, but eventually with live action too. And we're going to create people's IPs, their ideas, and my own of course too. And whichever is the best idea is going to win. But then we're going to invest in those IPs, that intellectual property and create that either as a TV series or a feature film, whatever is best for it. And we're starting with TV type series, but we're doing short form entertainment. And so because the world lives on their phone and a lot of our target audience of course does, which would be sort of like middle school, high school in general, we don't want to do preschool. We're more interested a little bit older. And that's the TikTok generation. Right. And that's the Instagram generation again. I'm in that world, even though I'm an old guy. Yeah. And so I know it well. And I know artists. I know what they want. And so we're creating about three or four series that we're going to launch on a YouTube channel, pencilless YouTube channel. And when I say they're short form, there'll be five or 10 episodes for a series, but it'll be each episode is only about three to five minutes long. They're very short, but they're sequential. You get to know the storylines and the characters, and it's really kind of what webcomics are already doing. But now we're doing the animated version of that. I love it.

And this is the first time an animation studio has been crowdfunded like this, right?

Yeah. I believe we are the first for profit. I will say. Sure, yeah, yeah.

It's very cool. I was happy to join the round and invest. I love this concept. So I think this is interesting. Like, you're making this leap from animator to animation entrepreneur. And, you know, I've always believed that part of the art of mastering entrepreneurship is just telling great stories. Like, you got to be able to tell a compelling story to investors, to your team, to customers, whomever. And in that way, you know, there's certainly some parallels to animation illustration. Are you finding that to be true, that entrepreneurship is essentially just another vehicle for storytelling?

Oh, 100%. I think that's why I'm so interested in entrepreneurial ship. And I just keep creating things and trying to make it sort of a worldwide event like Mermaid, and same with my art education website and things like that. And I've created apps and things like that. And it's just, I love the idea of getting something out into the world and seeing how people react to it and then trying to tell that story of either what that product is or, you know, what the actual story is, if it's, say, an animated series or something like that. And so having, again, a marketing guy that's a part of our company, I have a great business person that's also involved. It takes some of the fear out of it. Plus, hopefully it makes me a little bit more trustful. I don't. I don't think anybody should give me money if it was just me. Right.

So the animator running the business of the studio. Yeah.

You don't want that. But even if I am entrepreneurial, that doesn't mean that I'm like an amazing business person that knows everything about the stock market and things like that.

Yeah, but you built a team.

Yeah, we have an amazing team. And that hopefully when people go on wefunder.com pencilish you'll find, you know, our advisory board, which by the way, even has a celebrity, we have Ming Na Wen, who's I think the only actor or actress that is both in a Star wars franchise, a Marvel franchise, and is a Disney princess all simultaneously.

That's like the new EGOT. That's like a more. More impressive.

Yes.

That eGoti. That's amazing.

I think she's the only one too.

That's pretty impressive. So, Tom, I want to talk a little bit about how the gospel shapes the work you've done throughout your career. You know, when you went to work on Veggie Tales, super clear to see how your work connected to God's work in the world. Right. Less clear for some people at least of how. Where that connection was at Disney or Pencil Ish. So I'm curious, in what ways did you view your work at Disney and now at Pencil Ish when you're not doing overtly evangelical content? How do you view that work as ministry?

It's a really good question. Obviously, I fight with it every day. I don't think it ever gets super easy to know because there's going to be some little thing every day that's going to come up and go, okay, how do I approach this? How do I answer this? How do I. And your relationship with God is going to be a part of that. So I guess in a way that's the short answer, is that every single decision is going through the focus of my relationship with my God. And if that's not happening, okay, there's obviously a problem. But I did decide to make pencilish A1. It's A for profit and have, you know, tons of shareholders. And so I didn't want to make it a Christian endeavor. And I must admit, I've done that. I've done for CBN. I created SuperBook, their new animated series. I helped create that. I directed the pilot. And then for, of course, VeggieTales, I created the LarryBoy 2D animated series for them and worked on their first feature. And so I've done a lot of that. I've done it. I've illustrated a Christian bible. So I love that side of things. But I also see that you can reach a lot more people without always having Sort of. Because fortunately I have a love hate relationship with the Christian industry.

I have mostly a hate relationship. Yeah, we talked about this before. Yeah.

Yeah. So I just like to soften it to say, well, hey, but I mean, because. And the love part, of course, is. Is God and. And the believers, the God doing that work too, though, that are passionate about doing that work. But anybody that's been in that industry also knows that there's this real fight between, oh, I want to do this as ministry. I want to get this out to as many people as possible, but I want to also get rich, you know. Right. And like at cbn, that was the only place, I must admit, I'm going to compliment them by saying. And they don't get all the compliments. I don't think all the. But Pat Robertson and then his. Gordon Robertson was. Who was in charge for the Superbook project we were creating. They almost never thought about the money. And I will say there was a detrimental side to that too. Like we could have had tighter budgets and blah, blah, blah. But in general, they just wanted to get it out to as many people that would see it. They would spend money.

They were extremely mission.

Yeah, exactly. They would send millions of dollars on an episode. Not per episode, of course, but on episodes, and get them out into the world for free if that would be the way to more people. And they did. They. There were some foreign markets that were either giving away or practically giving it away.

Yeah.

And because it would just get more people and they weren't. So I love that about them. Veggietales. We were in financial straits almost the. The moment I got there for about two and a half years, they were trying to get back on their feet and they couldn't. Ultimately went bankrupt. But. And so they would do some like, quick, oh, let's pivot over here and do this, and maybe that'll make us some more money. And there was a little desperation there, unfortunately, that clouded those years, that big idea. I will say that I never felt like they kind of went away from what Phil thought that God wanted him to do. I'm not gonna. I'm not saying that at all. But there was some desperation in the air.

Yeah.

Like, oh, you gotta keep the light. Yeah. They were still doing things that were sort of like, let's do a compilation video of the best silly songs that'll make money fast, you know? Yeah. And. And I get it. That's business. Right. So I'm certainly not saying that as a negative, but I've seen all sides of it is what I'm saying. And I want to kind of compete with secular entertainment because we have a little bit more freedom with the storytelling. Obviously, we don't have to make a point. It's not educational. Everything I've ever done in the Christian realm always had to have an educational element because it was for kids. And so therefore, there was always a gospel moment and it becomes a little formulaic and all of that. That. That as a creator, I want them to love what I created, that Superbook episode. I want them to like it as much as anything on Cartoon Network or on Netflix or Nickelodeon. But that's never really going to happen because those people creating the secular work are just going for entertainment. Just make it as bright, as powerful, as loud as, you know, actiony as possible. Right? Or as funny. And we could never get to that level because we were always trying to make a comment. And so what I'm trying to do with Pencilish is create content that will be out in the world, will be secular. And really, it was Phil Vischer that I think said, this is. Sometimes there's a point where there's two different kinds of things that you can do as a Christian entertainment. His definition was the things that are very upfront and that have gospel and all that. It delivers the message, right? And that's pretty much what we were doing. We were doing a funny version of that, but that's what VeggieTales was. And then he said the next step. And we never got there at VeggieTales, but he said the next step is making stuff that's just fun and. And lives in the world, but has things that you. It's more like you're saying no to things rather than saying yes to the gospel and all that. It's more like this one's going to be without evil. You know what I mean? So, like, I can make a show that has a lot of the purity of the Bible without saying it. And it's really more what I take out or that I won't include. I guess you could say that makes it by a believer, that kind of.

Art, art that is just great art first and foremost, but has redemptive themes without being explicit sometimes is the most effective. Like I've mentioned this before, but C.S. lewis, by the time Lewis was 17, he was pretty dead set as an agnostic. And he read a book by George McDonald called Fantasties. And it was this magnificent piece of fiction. And he later said there was something about that book that was so true, so beautiful. That he knew there had to be a God. And it wasn't until decades later he realized McDonald was a believer. And those were redemptive themes pointing him to Christ. I think about Tangled. We watch Tangled all the time in my house. That movie has so many spiritual layers. It talks about idolatry, it talks about sacrifice. Right. The whole climactic scene is a picture of Christ's death and resurrection.

Right.

It's not preachy, but it makes us long for what Tolkien and Lewis called the true myth that underlies all the other great stories. It makes us long for the day when all the sad things will come untrue.

Right.

And like, I don't know, like, if that's all a movie does or all a book does, I think that's good. I think that honors the Lord, it honors the biblical narrative in the world, and it's just good art. It's going to be seen by a heck of a lot more people, Right?

Yeah. Some of that is part of this is like going, okay, what things do we want content wise to be in our content, you know, But I have a strong feeling that I have a friend. Okay, I'll just say it this way. I have a friend that writes, is a script writer and he's written for Tangled, the TV series. He does a lot of Disney animation screenplays and now he's like a showrunner on one of the. One of their shows. I don't even think he's a believer, but he's gotten to the point where he was telling me the other day, he's like, I am so tired of going into a meeting and sort of pitching a story idea. And they're like, well, where's your lbtq? You know, where's your, you know, where's this. Not at all talking about the story. Just they have this checklist, right. And they're trying to go through it and, and then changing things to get that. And now again, I don't want to sound like that guy that's saying we don't need to have more, you know, black people represented in animation.

You're not saying that.

Yeah, but to say that now we have this sort of checklist, you know, is that too far? Are we forgetting that we're making these for kids? And again, some of that is sexual content, right? Yeah. Like, do I need to make a show for an eight year old that talks about this character is homosexual, this character is whatever. Some of these labels that we put on ourselves and that aren't really a part of your life when you're eight. I don't know. I mean, to me, it gets into talking about sex a lot earlier.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I need to fight with that. I need to go, okay, how do we fit into this part of the story? How do we fit into the world here, even though we're making secular content? And by the way, we do have a show that has a homosexual character in it that was pitched to me by a woman that is a writer. And she came to me, and this is her story of when she was a kid and growing up and her neighbor was a gay black kid, and it wasn't a part of their story. They were like 8 and 11. And so it just wasn't. She knew it, but it wasn't like an issue. And so they didn't make it an issue. And I want to tell that story. I want to show that we can tell that story and say that obviously that, yes, he's gay, but, you know, that's not a part of this story. What is is that he has a really fun personality and that they're best friends. He's loyal to his best friend, and she is to him. And to me, that's the story I want to hear right now. I want to hear about people just being people and being loved for being a person, no matter what your color is, you know, and to me, that's also showing God's love in the world.

These are going to be big questions that the church has to continue to wrestle with. How do we maintain doctrinal truth, be set apart and be willing to be persecuted in our places of work for standing up for truth, but doing it in a winsome way, creating culture that tells redemptive, more biblical stories.

Right.

Like, I. I think of. I think of Andy Crouch in. In Culture Making and his core argument that the way we change culture is not by standing on the sidelines and condemning it or retreating from it. We change culture by creating more culture, creating better cultural goods, better TV shows, better books, better businesses that are more in line with, again, the true myth of the gospel.

So I want to finish that thought just a little bit more, just to say that that woman creator that is creating this show with us is. She's a believer. And I think I left that part out. But she became a believer later on in life, and. But she didn't turn away from her best friend, obviously. And so I want to hear her version of it. I want her to go through it and tell that story from both aspects of her when she was young. But her as a Christian. And I think all we're going to see is love for people that are different. Right. And obviously I'm not saying different in a bad way. And by the way, she's different. The point of the story is that she was a little girl that wanted to wear boys clothes and had short hair and just felt different and she was straight. But she wants to tell that story because it's all about accepting people that are different. And why can't we say that story and do it in love and have, you know, take out the controversy, Take out the. Because they're not.

It's not relevant to the story.

It's not relevant. It's about these two characters and how much they love each other and watch out for each other. Hmm.

Hey, Tom, three questions. We love to wrap up every conversation with number one, what books do you recommend or gift most frequently to others?

Okay, Jordan, I'm really going to disappoint you here. I am not. I'm not a reader.

Can we do tv? Can we do tv?

What TV are you recommending that I could do? Yes. And I hope you have movies because I have a good one. Yeah, yeah, sure. TV is, I hate to say it, but it's, it's gonna be, you know, the kind of geek culture stuff. I'm very much into the geek culture and obviously I'm recommending a lot of the Marvel stuff right now. They're doing an amazing job with Captain America. Falcon. I got that wrong. But we've all seen it on the.

Disney homepage, so we.

Exactly. It's coming up all the time, but. And the movies of course, too. But just as much like we're watching the Crown right now on Netflix.

Love it so much.

Yeah, I do too. And it's. I like that. It's hopefully a true story. I mean, I think it's pretty close from what I understand. Yeah. But it's neat to see the relationships and stuff.

That show is so magnificently written.

It really is.

It's my all time favorites. The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin is my all time hero.

Oh, mine too.

Really?

Well. Oh, we love. I love Social Network because of him. I love Social Network. Moneyball. We just rewatched the West Wing last year, so.

Good.

Yeah, I mean, that's the president you want, right?

Bartlett for America.

Bartlett. Oh, my gosh.

So here's my range of TV though. West Wing, the crown. And I'm going to give you one in your world of short form animation. My kids found Bluey on Disney. Have you seen this show, you were.

Telling me or somebody else was. I need to look it up. I'm writing it down right now.

This show is terrific. They're seven minute episodes.

Wow.

Australia by the BBC. And somehow Disney acquired the rights on Disney plus.

Somehow.

Somehow.

Right, right. It was making money and they. Exactly. And they bought it.

It's extraordinary. It's hilarious. My wife and I laugh out loud at every episode. And it's made for, you know, five year olds. It's really great. All right, who would you most like to hear in this podcast talking about how their faith influences the work they.

Do in the world? I. You know what, I'm gonna say it because it was the first one that popped in my head. Phil Vischer. Yeah, yeah, Coke, the creator of Veggie Tells, and he's obviously not doing anymore, but he has an amazing story about losing it too.

Yeah, yeah, we'd love to have Phil. That's a great, great. I don't think. I don't think Phil's ever been an answer to that question, but that's a good one. All right, last question. You're talking to an audience of people who do a bunch of different things vocationally. Some of them are artists, some of them are entrepreneurs, some of them are, I don't know, janitors. We got a wide range of vocations. What they share is a love of the Lord and a desire to do great work in service of others. What piece of one, piece of advice do you want to leave that audience with?

I mean, I don't want to be corny again. First thing popped in my head is like, follow your heart. But it's funny because, okay, I'm going to reshape this. And again, I'm just.

This is great.

I'm saying everything on this podcast I shouldn't say, but I kind of feel like the thing that we don't know as a culture, and I'm really talking to millennials especially, and now I'm going to get more in trouble is we're starting to go down the road as a planet that is basically saying, obviously everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame and they're all getting it, by the way. Everybody's getting it. But we're getting to that point where we're a dream equals I deserve my dream, okay? Just like the kids. There is. There's an entitlement I get. I get emails all the time, almost daily, either on Instagram or direct to me, which is saying, my dream is to be a Disney animator. Look at my work and can you can you get me a job? Basically, you know, like, they're that simple. And usually. And now if they're 8 years old, that's one thing. Okay, sure. No, this is how you do it. Blah, blah. And by the way, even at 8, they can look it up. It's all over the Internet. Why are you asking me? Right, right.

Google your way out of problems.

Yeah, exactly. Slight pet peeve there. But. But when I see that, and more, more times than not that people are asking that are not eight years old. They are. They're 23, 20s and 30s even. And they're like, I've always wanted to do this. And. And then I click on their Instagram because at that point I'm just dying to know. And I see this artwork that is like below high school level, and I'm like, okay, you have not done the work. You cannot achieve a dream and just dream it. You have to do the work. And so again, I know this is sounding. This is not the Christian answer that maybe you were.

No, I think it is, actually. I think this is terrific.

But yeah, I think God gives us desires of our heart that we have to do our part is. The point is that there's so many people out there that get a desire and they get confused between a dream and a goal. Okay, we have to then go, okay, if this really is what I'm meant to do, and I feel God really wants me to, I have to do the work. Disney is the Olympics of animation. Right. And so I cannot go to the Olympics as a swimmer. Let's change this analogy a little bit. And compete with Michael Phelps. Right. If I don't get in the pool every single day, multiple times, probably for hours at a time. Right. But then why are they coming to me constantly and saying, I want to be at Disney, what do I need to know? Blah, blah, blah. At 20, 30 years old and going, yet they've hardly picked up. They don't draw every day.

You can tell because in the words of Warren Buffett, one of my all time favorite quotes, nobody wants to get rich slow. Especially now. Like, it's just long obedience in the same direction.

Yeah.

Discipline over time. We talk about it so much on the podcast. Hey, Tom, I want to commend you for the great work you do in the world. Right? Just telling great stories, just serving your employers and also serving families and viewers through the ministry of excellence and just creating great art. Right. And serving people in that way. By the way, the best place to find you, I'm assuming, is Instagram. Right at Tom Bancroft one.

Yeah. The numbercraft zero. Who's this guy? Someone just asked me that yesterday. Somebody. I don't know if there's a zero. It felt weird to take the zero when. When saying your Tom back. Right, right. Number one. You know.

Right, right. Sounds you're the number one.

It seems more positive. Yeah.

You guys can go follow Tom there. He does a terrific job producing content. Tom, thanks again for joining us.

You got it, Jordan. This is great. Thank you so much.

That was a blast. Special thanks to 4 year old Kate for joining us on the call to mastery making the debut of another member of the Raynor family on the show. So glad you could do that. That was a lot of fun, guys. Thank you for tuning in. Hey, if you're loving the podcast, go rate it on Apple Podcasts right now so that more people can find this content. I'll see you guys next time.

Weekend.