Nickelodeon Creator Behind Fairly OddParents Launches Christ-Centered Movie for Kids
Movies
Audio By Carbonatix
8:30 AM on Monday, July 14, 2025
By Milton Quintanilla, Movies
The creator behind the popular Nickelodeon series, The Fairly Oddparents and Danny Phantom in the 2000s, has released a Christian animated series and film that teaches kids Bible lessons through fun and adventure.
“I really took a chance naming something The Greatest Thing Ever. In Hollywood, it’s like saying this is the greatest movie ever. But you know what? It was just a title that came to me because our characters, Lenny and Lucy, have to find the greatest thing ever. What could it be? Is it jelly beans? Is it an iPhone? Is it a pickleball? They have no idea,” Butch Hartman, the series’ creator and professing Christian, told CCM Magazine in a recent interview.
The animated series follows characters Lenny Lion and Lucy Lamb as they travel through this miraculous Garden and try to discover what the Greatest Thing Ever actually is! The Garden: it’s where the Gospel grows!”
He noted that his motivation in making the series is to provide quality faith-based content for kids.
“After working in Hollywood for about 40 years… It really was on my heart to go into the Christian marketplace. I saw a real gap there for high-quality entertainment for kids.”
From there, the film, The Greatest Thing Ever: A Garden Cartoon Movie, was born.
“I thought, man, let’s just make a really cool series that teaches kids the Bible but has a great time doing it and, you know, has great songs in it and just has Bible lessons and stories coupled with fun, adventure, and great characters the kids can fall in love with. And, you know, while we’re at it, let’s make a movie on top of it.”
Hartman also credited his wife, Julianne, and his “amazing team” at his Butch Hartman studios for making the show a possibility.
“When you work for a big company like Nickelodeon or Disney or Paramount, you go in and they’ve already got, you know, the water cooler set up,” he explained. “But when you start your own company and want to do your own thing, you’re the one that’s got to not only get all the equipment and the employees, but you’ve got a distributor and you’ve got to get the animation team set up and all that.”
He hopes that the show and other shows he has in the works would build trust with parents who no longer want to watch typical films and shows because of the questionable content they contain.
Hartman also contended that making The Greatest Thing ever is personal to him, given that he grew up not hearing about the Lord.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t know a thing about Jesus. But if I had a cartoon like this to teach me, maybe I would not have made some of the dumb mistakes I made in my life,” he shared. “So, my job is to reach kids and help families reach kids with the gospel and make it easier for families.”
The Greatest Thing Ever is now available for streaming and for purchase on DVD.
Photo Credit: Left: ©Getty Images/Chris Weeks/Contributor Right: ©Instagram/Butchhartman
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
