Hello, my friend. It is gardening season. Oh is it ever? Gardening season? An adventuring season, and I plan to be spending I don't know the next two or three, maybe four months doing little else. Nothing calms my soul, quiets my overthinking, cannot stop thinking brain. Like being in nature, working with seeds and soil, digging up plants, or exploring a trail along the river bank looking for stones.
Oh my gosh.
I love looking for rocks. I love taking the kids and just looking for rocks at the creek. I love miracles, great and small. I love being in God's great outdoors. I love it, love it, love it. I've got a house full of kids this summer five, much like the old lady who lived in the shoe. I am a mom and a grandmom, and I know what to do. I say, go outside, I'm coming with you. Well, okay,
that's not possible twenty four to seven. So we do have to come up with other avenues of productivity and entertainment, which includes some carefully monitored scream time indulgences. Sometimes today's guest is helping me to provide some mom approved options to that end. Butch Hartman, an integral member, of the Animation magazine's Hall of Fame, a multiple Immy nominated animator, writer, director, producer, illustrator, and an actor who has been entertaining and inspiring kids
and families for four decades. Now you know him, I know him for his show The Fairly Odd Parents. It debuted twenty five years ago and is Nickelodeon's second longest running television series of all time, right behind SpongeBob square Pants. Hartman followed his breakout show with three more successful nick series, Do You Watch Danny Fannom, Tough Puppy, and Bunsen Is
a Beast. Recently, this legendary animation pioneer launched Butch Hartman Studios to produce uplifting, original, faith based, and mainstream animated programming for kids and families. He hit the ground running with the Garden Cartoon series. Butch and his wife Julianne are going to join us today to chat about a Garden Cartoon movie, The Greatest Thing Ever, starring the Garden Cartoon characters Lenny the Lion and Lucy the Lamb in
their very first full length movie. The story follows this duo, Lenny and Lucy, as they so the infinite garden to find out what the boss calls the greatest thing ever. Only one problem, he doesn't tell them what the greatest thing ever actually is is a pirate treasure, being a queen, going to outer space, finding a dinosaur. The possibilities are endless. Lenny and Lucy are on an epic search, and they take the audience along with them. Will we get any
clues as to what the greatest thing ever is? Let's ask Butch and his bride Julie Ann. Just after I clue you into one of my greatest podcast sponsors ever. Have you been looking for a milk replacement because you have dairy allergies or sensitivities. Well, I found one that's absolutely amazing. It's Sherry's hazel Cream, made from Oregon hazelnuts. This plant based milk stands out from the competitors because
it's designed for cooking and baking. It all started because Sherry, who could no longer tolerate dairy products, wanted to make gravy, but not gravy that tasted like coconut or oatmeal. So by enlisting the help of her engineer husband and a friend that's a food scientist, and through much trial and error. Sherry's hazel Cream was born because of a special roasting process. It's very neutral and taste and works with a large
variety of recipes. It comes sealed in shelf stable, easy to use, pre measured portion pods that you place into your blender, add varying amounts of water to make milk cream or even condensed milk for pies and other mouth watering desserts. It's delicious and mashed potatoes and cakes, in creamy soups and even casserole dishees. Visit Sherry's Hazelcream dot com to learn more about this product, to read Sherry's story, and to place your order. It's at Sherry'shazelcream dot com.
C h e ri s hazel Cream dot com. Use code love twenty four for ten percent off your order that Sherry's Hazel Cream and Love twenty four with me today are the fabulous team. Butch Hartman and his partner, his collaborator, his wife Julie Ann. Welcome back to Love Someone with Delilah. We're going to talk about the fairly odd parents. We're going to talk about what you're doing now. We're going to talk about the adventures of Lenny the Lion,
Lucy the Lamb, and Dear Delilah. Welcome back. It's good to see you both.
It's great to see you again and we're so thrilled to talk to you. And then you'll you look amazing as ohwas.
Thank you and you guys, look what time is it where you are?
We're we're in Ireland right now, and so we're eight and you're on the West coast of America three twelve. Well we're eight hours ahead of you. Put it that way, we're eight hours a head. So we've already seen the future. But we can't tell you what happened.
You've gone back to the future. And now we're going to share a little bit of time talking about some fun characters.
Yes, hey man, well I'm glad, I'm well. First of all, we want to thank you because I don't think years ago when you started your radio career that you realized you would become a cartoon.
Character who also is giving advice.
Who also gives advice. And I think it's so great. Not many people will step out and do that, and you did, and you decided to do a voice for us, and we're so grateful.
So you're probably best known. Well, you're best known in our household for the Fairly Odd Parents.
Yes, that's that was like I did that show in Nickelodeon for over twenty years along with Danny Phantom and Tough Puppy and Bunsen as a beast are by four show to the Kelodier.
So, Fairly Odd Parents. What year did that debut?
That debuted as a series in the year two thousand and one, March of two thousand and one. It was a series of short cartoons before that, but then it ran for about eighteen years once it premiered. Oh, we made eighteen years of new show. So it was a really big full time job and a major major milestone for me in a great, great, great time.
How much of the Fairly Odd Parents characters were based on your family, Well, if you.
Use the word odd, then all of them, yeah, you know, I mean they weren't really.
I guess they were based on I think every aspect of Butch Hartman probably.
Yeah, I mean Timmy Turner. The boy is named after my brother Timmy, and he's a year old boy and he had no power, no control, which is how I felt when I was a kid. So that I wanted to make a show about a kid who finally had some power, so I thought I'd get him some magic friends. And that's where the fairly OddParents came in, and Cosmo
and Wanda come in. Drew them. I drew Wanda first, and then I'd never seen a fairy godfather before, so I drew Cosmo and I named him Cosmo because at the time, in the nineties, when I first created the show, he had just revealed on Steinfeld that Kramer had a first name and that his name was Cosmo.
How fun does Kramer know that? Did they know that?
I don't think no, I don't think Michael Richards knows that. I would love to tell him someday. But so as where Cosmo came from, Okay.
This is like an Easter egg. This is like one of those sweet little hidden surprises that I.
Love, absolutely see. I revealed it here to you.
Well, thank you, thank you for now. Let's just hope he's listening. Let's hope he's a sappy love song kind of guy.
Well, who's not a sappy love song kind of guy? Come on, we have we all have to do, right, I think.
You know you want to know something really funny about sappy love song kind of guys. My show is four and about women twenty five to sixty four. That's our target audience. That's the sweet spot. That's who they hope listens every night to the Delilah Show. I get more calls from men, almost two to one than I got from women.
Are your calls from men? They just want to know the inner workings of a woman's mind.
No, no, not the least bit interested. I get more calls from men who just want to tell me she's his rock. No.
Wow, well, my wife is starting with my rock, that's for sure.
They do not call to complain about the acts. They do not call to to share stories about the kids. They call to say she's my rock, quote unquot.
That's it.
That's all they want to say. The problem is, that's not really a compelling story.
Because sometimes things that are that are just so simple aren't that interesting.
Sometimes, right, very very not interesting. But now you have a new your first fold length full feature movie out.
Yes, we're very thrilled. It's based on my brand new cartoon. Oh. The cartoon is called The Garden Cartoon that stars Lending the Lion and Lucy the lamb and they live and work in a miraculous garden where anything can grow. But it's about. It teaches kids the Bible. It's about and it teaches kids about scripture and how to read your Bible better. And then God comes down every day in
this in this garden and talks to Lenning Moussy. It comes down as a rainbow and tells them, you know, gives them a task to do and a new excitement, and normally they don't always get it right, so they have to consult, you know, the Bible. It's like a brand new Veggie Tales for the modern era, for high quality kids entertainment. There's a lot of stuff out there,
but there needs to be more. And I thought, you know, after leaving Nickelodeon, and I really love Jesus and I'm like, I'm gonna make a cartoon that teaches kids about him. And so we made The Garden Cartoon, which is a series. It's it's all over the place now. It's on Angel Studios, it's on Apple TV, it's on Amazon. So the series is out. We made a full length movie that you my darling are part of, and it's called the Greatest Thing Ever.
The greatest thing ever. And dear Delilah, no, you.
Know, let me tell you all. It's that you when we when we when we approached you to play this character, I thought, what kind of a character can I make? Delilah? And all the characters in the in the cartoon have like their first name as the same letter as their last name. I lend me the lion, lou see the lambs, I thought, Delilah with a D I'm like a deer, Dear Delilah. So I drew a picture of a deer behind a radio microphone and I showed it to you, and I thought, I think you reacted. How did you
react when you saw that? Oh?
I was thrilled. I loved it. But she, I said, she she's not a blonde.
Yeah, we made her a blond very quickly. I read her blonde. Yeah. Yeah. But it's great you came in. You did a great job. And it's really funny if your your deer character appears in three spots in the cartoon and in the movie. We're letting Lucy here on this grand quest to find the greatest thing ever, God tells them, and they call God the boss, by the way, because they worked for him. So the boss gives them an assignment to go find the greatest thing ever, and
they're thinking, what is the jelly bean? The raccoons? Is it ice cream? What is it? So we don't know what it is until the very very end, which I will not swell for you, but the movie is so much.
I'll let you in on a little secret.
I read the book. You read the book already, I already know the answer. Well.
The thing that I love about Dear Delilah, and I don't even think you two knew this when you approached me and asked me, is the character that you created for the movie is like a deer and she's easily distracted and she'll be talking along and then lose her train of thought. What you didn't realize, or maybe you did, is that is is post metopausal adhd Delilah to a t like I walk in a room and I have no idea what I'm doing there, how I got there,
why I'm there, what my mission is. I walk out of the room and I remember that I walked in the room, you know, to get a cup of tea, And then I walked back in the room, and I'm like, why do I have a pear of scissors in my hand and where did they come from? You know? And then Dear Delilah kind of has the same.
Last time, the same kind of a distraction that we thought we would be really funny. As a deer, you're in the middle of a question and you you're like squirrel, and you stop and then go back to the question and everybody's kind of waiting for you to say something, and then you hop up on your desk. You're eating branches, you know that type of thing. So it's really really fun Also too.
We have obviously screamed the movie many times with our own staff and everybody.
Last I mean, it's it's It is probably one of the funniest points in the movie. Yeah you can get a big you get a big la. Yeah, so you're you're a bitty hit in the movie. And so when those Deer Delilah action figures come out, you're gonna really be happy.
I was I was going to say, like, are you guys gonna help me pick out you know which antlers I'm going to wear when we're nominated.
For Very completely Children Emmy, or well it's a it's a female deer. They don't have antlers. She's more like a forest deer, like like a white tail deer. Yeah, like a grown up, like a grown up Bamby. That's exactly exactly. You did a great job. I just want to commend you because you stepped right into doing cartoon boy so easily. Many people can't do that. So you did a great job.
That's because I've spent years doing cartoon voices to entertain children grandchildren. However, all of my cartoon voices end up sounding just like Dear Delilah. If you watch when people watch the movie, if they turn it on and they watch it or have their kids watch it, they're going to know it's me within like seven seconds exactly.
Well, actually, one group that we did scream like they said, is that Delilah.
Ever, we're like, how did you know?
They said, well, how do you not know? That? Boy?
It's fun? You said, You've got a new grand baby in Florida. Whenever I walk down a street in Florida, because I'm on in every single town in Florida. The only thing, you know, the only thing there is more of than alligators is radio stations that carry the Delilah Show.
I Hey, it's.
The one place where people stop me and I'm like, oh my gosh, I know your voice. Recognize that voice. That's so cool. Yeah, it kind of cool, except then I feel compelled to talk to them and it's a thousand degrees.
Yeah, yes, and you're outside in the sun. Yeah yeah.
Can we just step into this little kiosk here or you can listen to me on the radio.
Absolutely?
So how fun is there going to be more Lenny and Lucy movies?
Yes? Yes, As a matter of fact, we have a Christmas movie coming out that was called The Christmas King that's coming out this Christmas. We're excited about that.
I I could have I could have been a deer in the forest there. I mean, I'm thinking we.
Have pats and bells around your neck. Yeah, work and add that in actually now that you mention that, and then we're gonna have We have another one coming up in the future. We're gonna be doing a Thanksgiving movie and we have an Easter one coming up as well. So we're going to hit every holiday that we can heads because that way, at leasty'll be shown during the holidays. So that's kind of fun.
Mother's Day Valentines, I can help you out here I am.
But if you're if you're willing to do it, we'll be happy to have you. Me Dear Delilah can be all over the place.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, And I like the action figure idea.
Yeah, exactly right. You're gonna have like I think, Dear the Dear Delilah action figure should have like a a laser gun that pops out of her back and like a jet that comes out as you can fly and shoot lasers too.
I'm now I'm really liking this idea.
Everybody's really thinking we have a deer that shoots laser now, I okay, I'm just kidding, but yeah, it'd be really fun.
We have been talking about great animation. We've been talking about The Fairly Odd Parents and the Greatest Thing Ever with creator Butch Hartman and his partner Julie Ann. We're going to talk to them a little bit more after I spend a little time sharing some news of a Fabulsa's podcast sponsor with you. I'm so glad to get to share all that Mercy Ships is doing in the world with you. They travel to medical deserts, providing free, life changing surgeries to people in need led by an
all volunteer crew. They've been putting their faith into action for almost fifty years. Mercy Ships is all about impact. They performed nearly one hundred and twenty thousand free surgeries to date and touched more than two million lives. But more than the numbers, it's about dreams restored and lives renewed. It's about loving someone. You can be a part of
this amazing organization. When you support Mercy Ships, you experience the joy and transformation a mother seeing her child for the first time, a child finally to run and play and dream and just.
Be a kid.
Visit mercyships dot org to give or learn about the other ways you can get involved. That's Mercyships dot Org. My kids think my superpower is that I can teleport, because they'll hear me cooking something in the kitchen and then they'll go upstairs and I'll be doing laundry in front of the washing machine, and then they'll look out the window and I'm outside working in the garden, and
they they're convinced I can teleport. They don't know. I just have the worst ADHD of any person in the universe.
And well, don't learn the magic. Let's make the audience think you can.
Yeah, oh no no, And I let them think that. So then I'm like, and I know what you're doing when I'm not around, because I can teleport in like The Fairly add Parents and just you know, pop in and listen.
Yeah, right in magically exactly and so yes, and The Fairly aut Parents is now on Netflix. Season two of our new Fairly Apparents is called a brand New Wish that's on Netflix right now.
Oh I did wait wait wait, back up, back up, back it up.
Well I'm backing up.
I did not know that this is important information. See, I'm a no screen parent. There aren't many things I have regrets over. But if I could go back and change something, I would definitely go back and not allow the children that grew up in the last generation that I raised, not allow them so much access to screen time at a young age.
Well, I can, I can certainly understand, I WI. Well, that's the whole point we'd made the Garden cartoon in the first place, because even if a kid does get on a screen, we want to at least provide an option for them to watch something that's fun, something that's healthy, and something that's safe. But not boring. I mean, it's hard to do entertainment the state, but I get boring. But The Garden is like the Fairly Odd Parents, like with scripture in it.
So I was gonna say, the five that I have at home now do get screen time, but I pick it and and it's one screen. We only have one screen in the house. And so we have family you know, family movie time, family cartoon time or whatever. My husband and I do a Bible study on Saturday mornings, so they get to watch something while we're doing that that we pick out. I didn't know there was new Fairly Odd Parents on Netflix, now, ma'am. Now I have a
go to. But also we do have an app where the whole series lives.
On, so the the Garden series.
So if you were to, you know, give your kids the phone and say, hey, on this app, you can watch anything because all the episodes are there, the songs are there.
Yeah, tell the Garden cartoon app. So check that out. That's on the app store and you'll love that. And but yeah, Fairly Out Parents on Netflix, it's called a brand New Wish. We are a new Wish. That's the episode or the series name, and basically cosmon One, they get given to another child and so it's the adventures of that new child with Cosmon Wana. So it's really a blast.
So you guys haven't slowed down at all, is what you're saying.
God, No, what is of those were? Yeah, that's a bad word. And no, we're not of less. You know we we we just we're both in our sixties now and we are we realize like, look, we just love life. We love doing what we do like you do, and we don't we don't want to stop and we love doing it. I've got for it all. Yeah, I want to get to Heaven to be exhausted and say, well we gave it is. We tried everything, you know, and you know our goal. Now, let's just make some awesome
kids entertainment. We just opened Butch Hartman Studios, which is my brand new studio, which is going to be doing uh show after kids entertainment, show, family entertainment, Christian entertainment, and we really feel it's necessary at this point.
Did I tell you I can do a few accents.
Way you're not well, which dot its?
I'm sure I could. When I'm around people that have an accent, I start talking like them, not on purpose. I'm not mocking them. I just it just happens, and so.
I'm exactly the same.
Isn't it weird? And then you can't stop, like do you get stop?
I find their accent so enchanting and charming that I'll begin talking like a Scottish parson. What about on the Scottish parson? See you say, the boy the boys and the gouddles.
Yeah, and the gttles and they had cuttles in their hair tuddles.
See, all you'd have to do is take me to Scotland, and you know, all the kids too, and and leave me there for a few hours. And then you'll have the most durable Scottish dear that you know.
There you go, I think I think Dear Delilah has to bet her Scottish cousin.
There you go, Delia. My bestie Janey always laughs because she says whatever accent I try, they end up sounding like Hilda, my mother in law, who's from Costa Rica. So any accent I try, after like ten seconds, morphs into Hilda.
So yeah, so Hilda. We really have to make a story about Hilda that we're all safe.
There you go. Then it's perfect.
I got it all right.
Well, go enjoy the rest of your trip. We will definitely catch up soon and any help that I can be in any possible way. I love the fact that you're creating amazing content for young people, especially amazing content that inspires and teaches them about the greatest thing about God, in his goodness and mercy and glory and beauty and love, love, love, love love. I love that.
Amen. Thank well, Agandella. We can't thank you enough, Della for being in the in the movie, but for your help and you know, telling people about the Garden cartoon. The Greatest Thing Ever movie comes out July first on streamers everywhere, and we can't wait for people to see it. Less know what they think about it.
Well, hopefully everybody and their kids and their grandkids now that your new Grandma's and Grandpa's grandkids will be blessed.
Amen.
Yes, amen, thank you. I'm excited to welcome summer, to spend time in my garden, to go adventuring, to go to the creek, and to join Lenny and Lucy in the garden on July first, to discover just what the Greatest Thing Ever actually is. That's when the Greatest Thing Ever will be released to all streaming platforms right now. The movie is available for video on demand preorder on Fandango at Home. It's also available for DVD preorder on Amazon.
You can visit Gardencartoon dot com to learn more about the Garden, where two best friends, Lenny the Lion and Lucy the Lamb, embark on adventures inside a miraculous garden where anything can grow. Their enchanting world is not just a place of wonder and imagination. It's a place where faith takes root and flourishes. And you can keep up with Butch and all of his creative projects at the
Butchhartmannstudios dot com. I encourage you to step out into the sunshine while the days are warm and the moon is showing up later and later into the evening, into the garden with you, where the gospel grows. And as our friends Lenny and Lucy will remind you, the best adventures are the ones you take together. Thank you for joining me, and when we need a little advice, don't forget to reach out to Dear Delilah will be back.
Join me at night on the air, Join me for every episode of Love Someone with Delilah and do me a favor. Take some time out of your summer schedule to slow down and love someone