Christian filmmaker Phil Vischer is back

Phil Vischer, the creator of “VeggieTales,” has been reborn, in a sense, by returning to the business of creating whimsical characters who tell Bible tales to children.

He surmounted the emotional and financial effects of the bankruptcy of his Big Idea Production empire and started JellyTelly Labs, a production company using hand-puppets to do the work of a bunch of vegetables.

Unlike his former Lombard building and a 200-person staff, Vischer has a full-time staff of four and contentedly works out of a 3,000-sq. ft. Wheaton office with a 500-sq. ft. stage.

JellyTelly uses an array of hand-puppet characters to tell Bible stories in two main on-going productions: A weekly half hour JellyTelly.com web show, and a series of 13 DVDs to be released over four years. Episode 3 will be released this summer, and episode 4 in the fall; Tyndale House Publishers distributes to Christian retailers.

The DVDs are called “What’s in the Bible? with Buck Denver,” Buck being “a puppet Steven Colbert or Ted Baxter,” who walks the kids through the 66 books of the Bible, teaching Bible and church history.

Handemonium of Maryland custom-made the some 15 hand-puppet characters designed by Vischer, who voices all the characters and appears on camera in both web and DVD shows.

“The shows are shot on our stage. The sets are computer generated and we composite live puppets into the green screen. We work with CGI to build sets and environments that look like we’re on a big stage somewhere,” he explains.

At JellyTelly Labs, Vischer says, “We can create as much work, if not more work in terms of minutes, with four people than with the 200 I once employed.”

Those four staffer, formerly with Big Idea, are Tim Johnson, business manager and head of all interactive; Nashville-based art director Paul Conrad; editor Bill Ebel and recent Wheaton College grad Liz Thompson.