What if God could use creativity in your family to spark faith, purpose, and discipleship in your everyday life?
On this episode of the Collide Kids Podcast, host Christen Clark sits down with legendary animator, writer, and pastor Butch Hartman—creator of The Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom, and most recently, The Garden Cartoon. Hear how Butch’s journey from a chaotic childhood to Hollywood success and Christian parenting led him to inspire families through cartoons.
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Kids’ Cartoons and Faith: "And the Garden Cartoon teaches kids all about the Bible and Jesus Christ. And it's like, I looked at the Christian marketplace and I realized that there's some cool cartoons out there, but there's not enough."
— Butch Hartman [00:04:15 → 00:04:24]
Nostalgic TV Moments: "So if I used to love the Charlie Brown Christmas special and things like that, but if they only showed it once a year, you had to be right in front of that TV when it came on and you couldn't see it anyway."
— Butch Hartman [00:06:32 → 00:06:41]
Imposter Syndrome in the Animation Industry
"I got to the animation world and everybody is incredible. Like, my gosh, I could never, how do these people do this? So I, I either had two choices. I could run away or I could stay."
— Butch Hartman [00:08:40 → 00:08:50]
Viral Topic: The True Meaning Behind "Apple of My Eye": "What it means is you're so close to someone, you could see your own reflection in their eye."
— Butch Hartman [00:10:05 → 00:10:11]
Viral Origins of Fairly OddParents: "If I could just create my own show, I would have a job, right? So I came up with a show about a little boy, uh, who had two fairy godparents, and I sold it to Nickelodeon as one cartoon, one episode."
— Butch Hartman [00:15:13 → 00:15:24]
Hidden Christian Themes in Danny Phantom: "I love this show because there's a huge Christian theme running through it. You'll never see it when you watch the show unless you know what to look for. Danny's the light coming into the darkness and he's fighting all these, you know, A lot of Christians will miss out on fun stories sometimes. Oh, you can't watch that, they'll turn it off. Sometimes there might be a message in there you might want to see."
— Butch Hartman [00:15:39 → 00:15:57]
The Power of Christian Cartoons for Kids: "Had I had a Christian cartoon to watch at that time, I might have thought differently. I might have learned differently. I might have understood things differently and not let so many things scare me or upset me."
— Butch Hartman [00:19:03 → 00:19:13]
Viral Topic: The Power of Practice in Artistic Growth
"And by the way, All your drawings aren't going to be great, but as you get, as you practice, they're going to get better and they're going to, and they're, you're going to see improvement, but you got to practice."
— Butch Hartman [00:20:27 → 00:20:37]
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