Former Nickelodeon Show Creator Butch Hartman on the Best Way to Reach Kids with Life-Affirming Truths
Raising a child in this brave new world of social media, preferred pronouns, and enough consumable media to last a thousand lifetimes, exposes them very early in life to influences that threaten the foundational truths of faith and family.
Gone are the days of managing daily television consumption and the latest music release that might contain a suggestive lyric or two. Parents trying to raise their children to be moral, upstanding citizens today, are being hurtled through a blender of wokeness, gender ideology, and immorality at an alarming rate.
For the Christian parent, or any parent of moral decency for that matter, what can be done about it? Quite simply, it is imperative that we expose our children early to the foundational truths in the Bible.
Animator Butch Hartman believes it is vital to pour Scripture into our kids and believes the best way to reach them with the Gospel message is through the use of animation.
“No matter what you're going through, no matter what's happening in the world, we want to remind you that you're not alone,” says Hartman. “We want to remind you that God is there. Through animation, we want to remind you that you have a savior. We want to remind you that you can talk to God anytime you want. And He'll give you an answer. You just have to listen to him and open yourself up to Him.”
And Hartman knows a thing or two about animation. As the creator of Nickelodeon’s most successful animated series ever (“The Fairly Odd Parents”), he is now focusing on making as much Christian content for children and families as he can. Hartman and his wife Julieann recently launched the 40-episode cartoon series “The Garden” which also has an app and companion Bible that includes illustrations of the characters from the series.
”With all the devastation in our schools, with the shootings and all that stuff, we decided we needed to make cartoon to help kids," explains Julieann Hartman. “Let's make content where kids now can get an understanding of the love of Jesus and the protection of the Lord through something that they can relate to the most, which is cartoons.”
The Hartmans join us on the Crossmap Podcast to talk about why they made the jump to focusing primarily on creating faith-based content. Listen as they share what went into making “The Garden Series” and how their hope is that it will make a lasting impact on children for generations to come.
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