Michael Louis Nawrocki (born July 8, 1966) is an American animator, filmmaker, and voice actor best known as the co-creator of the video series, VeggieTales, where he voiced Larry the Cucumber. He voiced many other main characters on the show, including Jerry Gourd, Jean-Claude Pea, and various other characters. He is the co-founder of Big Idea Entertainment alongside Phil Vischer and has directed several of their productions, including the Silly Songs with Larry segments from VeggieTales.
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Life and career
Nawrocki originally wanted a career in the medical field, and studied at St. Paul Bible College (now Crown College) where he met Phil Vischer while serving on a puppet ministry.
In 1993, Nawrocki left Film & Tape Works, a company that had purchased GRAFx Studios, and his future in medicine to join Vischer and founded Big Idea Productions. After Big Idea's liquidation in 2003, Nawrocki reactivated the company in 2004.
In 2014, DreamWorks Classics, the parent company of Big Idea, signed an exclusive deal with Netflix to produce and distribute VeggieTales in the House. Nawrocki was signed on to continue voicing most of his characters.
In 2019, Nawrocki started releasing the Christian children's chapter book series The Dead Sea Squirrels, in which a boy named Michael discovers the petrified remains of Merle and Pearl, a squirrel couple who lived during Jesus' time, near the Dead Sea and brings them to America, where they are revived. It was conceptualized in 2016 originally as an animated series. In 2025, an animated series adaptation of the same name was released on Christian children's streaming service Minno.
