Bibleman, Bibleman, does anything a Bible can | Bibleman

I'm hesitant to start two shows in a row with stories about threesomes, but I think you have to tell this story. So I had a week, you know, I broke things off with a friends with benefits and then had two, three ways in a date, you know, like a normal week. And one of the three ways was really weird because he didn't want to kiss at all and text him afterwards. Like I'm not a hook up person and I was just like, I think you were cheating on someone sounds likely. Yeah, it was just some random dude from a bar and the other one was a sweet friend and like, you know, it's even funnier because I know what's coming. And and we were, we were just, um, you know, hanging out and making out as you do. He was so hot, the other person was so hot. It was like probably the best three way I've had like everyone was in to each other. But then he took two Viagra, then to keep from coming. He asked to make sure that none of us were from New York or Pennsylvania and then started quoting out loud. The names of every victim from flight 93. It was not a bit. It was a bit whether he wanted it to be or not. It is a bit. I'm hesitant to share this story because like I did it again. Really? That wasn't too much for you. Nah, he said he'd fly me out. I think that's going to be a deal breaker for me. Oh, and he also, when I went to use the restroom was like buried in my friends' titties and accidentally called her mom. He said there was only one red flag, but now it seems like there were many, many red flags. You know what? Maybe I shouldn't have known that I've known that I've say it out loud more. I'm also like terrified that he might listen to those. And maybe this would be a great time for him to do a little self-reflection. You gotta realize I had a really weird weekend. I mean, clearly. [laughs] And also someone kissed my armpit twice during one of the three ways. That's not that weird. I'm about it. On a bad day. When I have it showered in like five days, I'm going to think about that. I'm going to be like, "I'm still hot." Had you not showered in several days? No, I had. Oh, okay. I'm just a little worried about my reputation since we did start the podcast. But like, everyone knows we talk about group sex all the time. We are breaking out a purity culture by having three sums. That's what we do. I gotta say, I can't get past the flight 93 thing. I've been thinking about it ever since you told me about it. You were the first person that I told. I like immediately as soon as he walked out the door. I texted you at 7.44 AM. You've never been up that early. I've never been up that early, but I'll stay up that late for a three way, right? And then one of my friends was like, you know, the 7.44 AM screenshot of this text just really seals it in. 'Cause I had to text you right away, 'cause not that I would forget, but it's just. What the. It's so crazy that it's one of those things that you would like see in a sitcom and it would be like so ridiculous. You're like, okay, come on. Like that's just. That's funny, but that's ridiculous. No one would do that. And yet someone did it. And you can rest assured, I plan to do it in the very near future. The hotter someone is, the less game they have to have. We've talked about this. You know, you can get away with a lot of weird shit. Like I said, I'm like, he's still pretty like, you know, it's a little weird to me, but like I'm not gonna. Like he did it to keep from coming like I get it. They make stuff for that. You don't have to get into 9/11 lore. You know, they make those little wipes, they're nummy. I didn't know those exist. I guess topical sprays, all kinds of stuff. None of it involving victims of 9/11. [laughs] How many people were on that flight? How many people were there? Three, pins, three way. No, on the flight. Oh. [laughs] Let's see here. Oh, okay. Well, that's not that many people. There are only 44 people on there. It didn't keep it from coming very long. But here's the part that really gets me. Guides have all kinds of little tricks they do to keep from coming. And that's totally fine. And I have thought all kinds of crazy shit inside my head to keep from coming. But I never vocalize that to the people in the room. Because it's fucking weird and insane and nobody wants to hear it. And it's not, it's not topical. I'd like checking to make sure that no one is from New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania beforehand. Like, clearly you've done it before. And honestly, that would exclude me. I have sex with people from New Jersey. [laughs] So I can't even use this. Well, I mean, I'm going to, as a bit. [laughs] Maybe this is the first time I record myself having sex. I think you should quote the Roman road. Honestly, that's almost too expected for me at this point. Fair. They would be like, "Alright, come on, get out of here." But nobody's going to expect Flight 93. And I had to tell my roommate, because she saw the screenshot of my text to you about it and needed further context. But there wasn't further context. There is not a context that exists that makes it better. It doesn't matter what the context is. There is no context that could fix this. None. So I'm not allowed to let him play me out. I mean, you do whatever you want, but. I just. I would just suggest taking a look back at your previous decisions for partners in the past few years and think, "Maybe this is one of those bad idea ones." I don't know if there's been a good idea what to be on. I think you should just at least toy around with the idea that it might be a bad idea. Miles Peterson, a man who had it all. Well, status, success. Still something was lacking. Visible alone, his spirit beaten, Miles Peterson gave up. And in his Dark Asseller, the words of a single book began to change his life. The Bible? At last, Miles Peterson felt the burning desire to know God, inspired by the word of God and equipped with unyielding faith. Miles pledged to fight evil in the name of God as Bible man. And just when he had nothing to live for, he found the power of God. [Music] Miles Peterson became. [Music] Hey everyone, welcome to How Gay Tho Art. A comedy podcast about growing up queer Christian and elegant fused. My name's Clint Keller, he/him. I'm Jay Austin, Bay Them. And today we're going to be talking about Bible Man, the show, the live show, the cartoon series. Bible Man. We are talking about the Bible Man extended universe as though it is the Christian adventures because it basically is. Like if Bible Man and Larry Boy teamed up, that would be some like DC marvel of the Christian universe. There is a surprisingly, there's not a lot, but more than you would think online discourse about who's cooler Larry Boy or Bible Man. Really? Multiple articles, several Reddit threads. People are talking about it. I think that the sort of truth could slice up a cucumber like it's making a salad. Personally. Also, where are the ears on a cucumber? Well, I don't think Larry has ears, does he? But he has pl- okay. I don't think any of the veggies have ears. It always bothers me when they wear clothes too. It was like, why are we- But then some of them don't wear clothes? Yeah, it's very confusing for me. That is confusing. I'd never thought about that, but yeah, you're right. But I don't know, Larry and Clothes are all, they're like costumes, right? You'll wear like a pirate costume, like superhero costume, but as default is no clothes. But you're right, it is still kind of weird. So, what do you think about Bible Man? So, me and my friend who I was hanging out with, I was like, well, you're staying with me, so you got to watch Bible Man with me now. And we turned it into a twerking party, every time the theme song came on. The theme song slaps. I gotta say it really does. And I think we can skirt their copyright considering how much they skirted their copyrights with their live show. My God. First of all, I've gotta set some expectations. I watch maybe five episodes. Some of the episodes were very familiar, like I remembered watching them as a kid. Same. When he's putting on the armor of God and suiting up in his super suit, his Sailor Moon sequence. Yeah, his little Sailor Moon sequence. And then he gets the sort of truth, and he just starts quoting scripture at all the bad guys. The first one that I watched, the black gay character was a villain, and I could tell he was gay because when they introduced him, he was using a nail file. A lot, a lot of queer-coded villains in Bible Man. Yeah, it was very set the queer people up as the enemy. Oh, without shame. Yeah, but the villains were also so much cooler like they gave the villains the cool songs the villains were great We should we should explain what it is what is Bible man. Yeah, who the fuck is Bible man? It's exactly what you think Bible man is an American Christian-themed Direct-to-video Children's TV series about an evangelical superhero who fights evil often by quoting scriptures Then he helps out kids and he has a sidekick and it's a sort of a classic superhero setup Except for a few very specific and bizarre things. There's a lot of kids songs a lot of children wearing best Yes, and no though it starts off that way where it's more of a kid show But then as the show progresses it gets like darker and more serious and they get more money So it becomes a bigger production. I would put it more in the like power rangers Mystic nights of tear Nagog Anamorphos I've been at that level in style of production overall, I think they made anamorphos into a show Oh, yeah, you've never seen it. I'm actually rewatching it right now. No, I just read the books It's on freebie. Yeah, it's totally free. You would go watch it I'm I'm watching the show right now called evil and it's basically about the church Doing exorcisms but hiring like a clinical psychologist to make sure that they are people that need exorcisms and not and that's like a real thing Like I remember like hearing sermons from like clinical psychologists that worked with the Catholic church And I also remember asking my Episcopal priest if the Episcopal church does exorcisms and he was like yes But it's like top secret and like the priests that do it. They're not a lot to watch horror movies They're not allowed to do anything like they have to be like way more pure than like a regular priest Do you think they've seen Bible man? Yeah, I want to know where Bible man fits into that you couldn't watch Bible man I don't think if that if you know they can't watch horror movies because like Bible man is fighting demons Yeah, they may be Christians and latex gimp suits while not latex like pantyhose material But you know there's actually speaking of the villains well, all right. Let's let's come back to that I've got a whole thing about here. Sorry. Sorry. I'm getting off topic. No, no, you're getting you're good So Bible man is played by Willie Ames. Do you know Willie Ames? Most people are age probably don't I remember like hearing that like The guy who played Bible man has like an crazy like rough life And so that's what I was excited to like learn about this episode the basic gist is Willie Ames was a child star He was in eight is enough and he was in Charles and charge both pretty Successful sitcoms and the 70s and 80s respectively He also and this is kind of an interesting like crossover He voiced Hank on the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon from the 80s You know like that some characters that just get typecast so like no matter what they are and you don't refer to them as their actor name They're always like Dwight from the office. I have no idea who he is He was in a movie about Bible man and I was just like oh, yeah It's got Dwight from the office and Elliott Page and Kevin Bacon in it Like I'm describing it to people also Amazing slasher flick great movie great movie super super made in 11 about a man who hallucinates Bible man and thinks that God is telling him to become an everyday superhero And then he just gets like riches and starts bashing anyone that tries to take away his stripper wife Who is trying to leave him played by Arwen from Lord of the Rings lived Tyler so I was thinking about this when I was watching the show all Superhero tales are kind of ridiculous, right? But take Batman. He is a rich guy who lives in Gotham City major city in America And he uses his money to buy fancy equipment so that he can fight the crime in his city It's a little far-fetched, but it has a certain amount of believable reality to it. That could happen now Imagine Bible man in a mid-sized city say like St. Louis or something It's shot in a suburb maybe a mid-sized city. There's not it is not a major city So a rich guy decides to become a crusader for God in his suburban town Makes a costume builds a cave runs around fighting demons that according to the Lord No one else can see most of the time and then hangs out with children and follows them around and helps them with their problems Can you imagine if someone tried to do this? It's fucking creepy and then somehow you can start hanging out in school with children and telling them like That's a weird thing though because the him being a rich guy that didn't start to like episode four or something because in the first two episodes He was their teacher. Oh well the first four episodes actually, but we only had access to two of those four Wait, so he was a teacher and now he's a rich guy the first set of Bible man. He was those kids teacher the kids that are in the show He was their teacher at school and then they changed it to him being a rich guy a law batman when they did the second season. These are direct to video tapes, right? It's not like something these kids are watching every week waiting for the next episode They're making four episodes a year that you have to mail order on VHS to be sent to you You know, I don't think the continuity was super important. It's just like okay Christian superhero homeschool parents will buy this and As you heard in the theme song they like explain the entire backstory in the theme song so you know I was too busy twerking to like pay attention to the words to be honest Explains the whole him being a rich guy and being suicidal He like took himself to his own grave to kill himself and then finds a Bible in the mud Convenient honestly and decides to become Bible man and this is a show for seven year and it begins with suicidal ideation Yeah, but it's fine because they teach children at young ages about death and dying and how you're gonna go to hell So oh yeah, and to be clear Bible man murders people It's not like Batman or Spider-Man or something like he straight up. I mean their demons sort of I guess but like he kills them He vanquishes the devil. All right. All right, so we know about Miles B. Peterson disguised in the full armor of God So basically it's like each episode Focus on a different sin like that's the format so you've got Bible man Fighting a personification of sin who is whispering into kids ears or into Bible man's ears and making him doubt or I don't know Did they ever do a lust episode because I really want to see how they made that confriendly? They'd never tackled lust unfortunately suicide murder those are fine But you can't talk to kids about lust come on again. Why are we okay with exposing children to violence but love is I don't know Yeah, so you've got like the Fiber who tells lies and gets you to lie but the villains usually played by the same guy right? So this is the most interesting bit I think about the lore yes A large portion of the villains are played by the same guy, but that's canonical. They're all actually Luxor Spondrauth who is the Bible man universe stand in for Satan so Bible man exists and Jesus exists But Satan doesn't exist well instead Luxor Spondrauth like that's such a downgrade my name was Lucifer Like my name was Satan, but let me try out Luxor Spondrauth first. You're kind of right though Like it is at an extremely Christian themes show and yet they did feel like they could make Satan the bad guy They had to make up like a alter ego Satan stand in well. They made Bible man like the hero wasn't Jesus Yeah, I guess so that's so they needed like Satan man But he keeps coming up and he looks totally different He'll be in different costumes and makeup and you'll have a different name like they're all Luxor Spondrauth But he was in the episode playing Shadow of Doubt and Dr. Fear and Master of Misery and El Fureo so honestly Some really fucking great names. Oh my god great names also the Fureo so one it was a live in Levitah Locoh rip off amazing like the first few episodes still have songs and stuff and so it's like a bunch of children Singing living Levitah, loka but living Fureo's It's the same guy playing a lot of the villains which helps on a production standpoint But it's also Purposeful and that it's an allegory for Satan being able to take on these many forms, right? That's like one idea of Satan. I feel like there's so many different because there's like all these demons and demons are all powerful But then angels learn around like demonic lore is so different across anyway. Sorry. We're not gonna get into that and to be clear Bible man does not adhere to any known Demonic lore that I'm aware of they're playing pretty fast and loose What you're telling me Bible man isn't the most biblically accurate So a couple I guess nuts and bolts things here Bible man ran from 1995 until 2010 so they had a pretty they had a pretty good home now they were in full-time production They're making three or episodes a year Yeah, so it was 95 to 2003 was the original Bible man wait They only put out a few episodes a year and you're saying that it's not really consistent that sounds like us. Yeah, well people were buying it Hey y'all should buy our merch speaking had a long run there There's been two different Bible man's Williams is the original and then Robert T. Schlipp took over after Willie Ames retired. Now something that's interesting, I think, that about this is they do not recast characters as different actors. When a new Bible man came, like they wrote Miles Peterson off the show, and then it was a new person that like came in, and he has a new different origin story and everything. So like it wasn't just him taking over the role. - Why didn't they switch over from teacher to rich guy then? Why did they write in the actor change, but they didn't write in the Bible man change? - Well, season one, I feel like, doesn't really count. Like the first season's really, really bad. It's like VBS style, like it's shit. Subsequent years, they get quite a bit more money and the production values a lot better, and you know, they're watchable at least. But like the first season is absolute garbage, and I don't think they really counted that. - Yeah, you can definitely tell. Like even by episode four, like they're using fake lightsabers, and like-- - Oh yeah, Bible man uses a lightsaber, by the way. - I wouldn't say that these were high budget per se, like when everyone is in a warehouse scene, like shooting out each other, the only furniture in the warehouse was like pallets, and I was just like, that's a film birthing. We need something to make this look like a thing, but all we can afford is pallets. - It's a palace. It is very self-aware about that stuff though, right? When you go to a new location, it'll bring up like a readout at the bottom, like a lower third on the screen, but it's supposed to look kind of like a spy thing right, or something like Batman would have. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like a little heads up display. - It would say like warehouse, and then it parentheses low budget filming location. - It did? I didn't catch that part. Amazing. - Anytime something's particularly ridiculous, they do kind of address it, which I appreciate. They had some amount of self-awareness around how ridiculous it all was. We were talking about this earlier. We should probably finish this. Williams was a child star, and he kind of went the classic child star route. He was in a couple successful shows. He became an alcoholic and he kind of ruined his life, and he wasn't in anything for a long time. And somewhere in the mix there, he found Jesus. He got saved. He turned his life around and he decided why not combine my two favorite things in the world, acting and Jesus. And so he did, and the result was Bible man. - We can mine those and look at our result. - Wave you were lightsabers on it. Honestly, I think that might be a mistake. - Oh shit. I tried to make up for it with all the rainbows, but okay. - It's very clear when you watch this, that Williams is a huge fan of the 1960s Adam West Batman. - It is such a Batman ripoff. It is such a Batman ripoff. It's bad cosplay Batman ripoff. - The Batcave, the Gadgets, some of the villains even. And Willie Ames like tries to do an Adam West like thing. It's kind of hilarious though, because you know, the 60s Batman is like extremely gay. - Well, so as Bible man, it's just, well you're extremely gay, but all the villains are gay. - Like honestly, the queer representation compared to like most Christian things. - You're right, you're right. There's more queer representation of Bible man than any other evangelical media I've ever seen, I think. You're right. - Exactly, I mean, just because we were all the villains and the Bible man is neither here nor there, 'cause you know, the villains were pretty crafty. - This is a great time. Let's listen to this clip. This is from the Bible man live show. Yes, they did do a series of live shows and they recorded some of them. It's honestly some of the best Bible man content, I think. But I want to play this little clip here that really showcases the homoerodicism of Bible man. - Play. - Beat, you know, defeat me, beat me. - Oh, conquer you, that I will do. I will bring you to your knees. You don't have to bring me to my knees. I will willingly get on my knees in humility before God Almighty. (grunts) Come, let us bow down and worship Him. Let us fall on our knees in front of the Lord our Maker. Saul 956. - Oh, you will fall on your knees when I get done with you. (grunts) (dramatic music) - You can't stop me. - I absolutely lost my shit when this happened. I was in tears. It's so sexual. I like the get on your knees. I will. And then he's like, come. - He literally just shouts, come. - He never gets old. - Bible man's really into tying up the villain. - And I mean, none of this is intentional. I don't think, but they're just so obtuse. - So you're saying that Bible man is the sub? - Well, you would think that, but he usually just kills them. The villains are the ones that tie people up. They do like tying up Bible girl. Bible girl got tied up a lot. (upbeat music) - What about all of the like pop culture references? They're constantly referencing movies and musicians and comic book characters. It's sort of this non-stop thing. But what's weird about it is they are making this for a demographic who wouldn't know about this stuff. I mean, it's weird. It's like it's not stuff for the kids. I think it's for parents. - Yeah, it's for parents to watch with their kids. - But here's what I'm saying though, is like, this is a culture that the parents don't approve of, right, this is like they came from the secular culture to Christianity. They were raising their children in this strict, separatist kind of way. So the only things they have to watch are things like fucking Bible man. And he's putting these wings in it. And it's like, I don't know, it's the perfect example of this tension between our parents generation and our generation where most of them grew up in a secular culture. They didn't grow up in extreme Christianity like the way that they raised us. And that was like fine for them, but we weren't allowed to engage in culture in the way that they did. - Yeah, it's like you guys won't even let us watch. Like you wouldn't let us watch the Batman TV show 'cause it has morals you don't approve of. - But the morals of Bible man, totally fine. - Yeah, you can kill people as long as they're demons. - There's like a Twin Peaks reference in Bible man. They reference Kung Fu, the TV show, Frank Sinatra. - No one would ever understand these references because they're not supposed to pay attention to them. - I know, but Twin Peaks was old enough at that point that their parents probably did watch that like in high school and stuff. And then didn't raise their kids to be able to watch that kind of thing. That's what I'm saying. Like Willie Ames had this awareness that the parents of the kids this show is for would get the pop culture references because people of that generation didn't grow up like they way they raised us. - Yeah, no one grew up the way they raised us and then they're wondering why all these kids are like rebelling because we never got to experience just normal life. - I fucked five people last week because I didn't get to have a whole phase. - It's your fault, Mom. Says all your faults. - If you just raised me with normal boundaries, I would have healthy ones as an adult. - Well, I don't know that I would, but it wouldn't have been worse. - Right, exactly. - Definitely wouldn't have been worse. - Fair, you know what, fair. - You know, in later episodes, it becomes a more direct thing. Like when Bible men became more popular and when they were doing like live shows and stuff, the pop culture references became more contemporary and they were like jabs at it. Like they would mention things like the Wiggles, which a lot of Christian evangelicals had a problem with for some reason. - I used to call penises Mr. Wiggles when I was evangelical. - Yeah, you've said and I hate it so much. (laughing) And it pops into my mind every once in a while. I'm like, God dammit. You know so much about we know. (sighs) Goodness. So Bible man isn't just one TV show. - True. - Like we got action figures. We, you mentioned there was Bible man live. There were six episodes of that. So there is the Bible man show. - That's the original set. - Which was four episodes, and that was the original where he's a teacher from 95 to 96. And then 98 to 04, that's when he becomes rich and gets the armor of God and that's called the Bible man adventure. - That's core Bible man. - Yeah, that's what I remember. That's the sort of truth. - Yeah, that's like the OG Bible man that people think of is the Bible man adventure series. - And then there was Bible man Jr. which had four episodes in the year 2000. Can you tell me a little bit more about Bible man Jr.? - I would put it in the category of like the candy shop show that was in the gospel bill universe that's like for preschoolers. So it's a lot more silly and simple and had, you know, a little more ridiculous characters. I think there were like puppets in them. - Always puppets. Evangelicals love puppets. - The Bible man is for the Y7 crowd. You know, goose bumps, power rangers age. But the Bible man Jr. was for like preschoolers. - And then we also have Bible man power source from 2006 to 2010 that had six episodes. So that's when the second Bible man takes over and it's like a soft reboot for the series. - And then pretty recently the animated series came out. So like there's probably gonna be like other iterations of Bible man in the future. - Oh, probably. - Because the Bible man animated adventures came out between 2016 and 2020. - And they have a lot of episodes. - There were more animated, episodes than there were live action episodes, but live action is whatever on the members. - Well, we were too old for the animated ones. I mean, that was just like a few years ago. - That's why. - That's probably what we were. - Yeah, yeah, we were out of it. - But yeah, I mean, the animated venture is like pretty successful. And Bible Man just as a whole has been really successful. Obviously, most people have never heard of this, but in 1998, total Bible man sales made up like less than 1% of children's Christian home videos, which is a very specific category. But three years later, they had 11% of the market. They were in third place behind veggie tails being in first place. Like it was the third most popular Christian like family home video in the world. - What is it? Veggie tails. - 321 penguins was number two. - The fuck is 321 penguins? A Christian show? - It's a Christian kids thing. - Never heard of it. Was it like to compete with club penguin or something? - It is an American science fiction computer animated children's television series, Randall 2003. It aired on NBC, Jesus. So yeah, it was Veggie tails, 321 penguins and Bible man. So it was pretty successful. The dove foundation gave it a family approved seal, which is a big deal to some evangelical families. They like that dove seal of approval. And all the tie-in merch, they made a video game. They had a bio-division. - Yeah, bio-division, video game adventure. Even though video games are supposed to be secular and bad for you, they did make Bible man a fight for faith. - I was able to get a copy of this video game. - Did you play it? - I have not been able to run it because it is a application made for Power PC, which has not been supported in a very long time, but I did find a full playthrough of the game online. So I was able to watch it all in man. It's really bad. It's kind of a dungeon crawler vibe. Like it's an isometric RPG, but you can't do any attacks. You can only block attacks back at people. - What does it feel like, Bible man? - And you can like take Bibles and just like lay them around places. - Why not? You gotta spread the word of God. - When I was a kid, me and my sister had Bible man and Bible girl costumes from the Christian bookstore. They had like Halloween costumes and we bought them. - Well, they weren't Halloween. They were a fault festival costumes. They're like that quality, like a Walmart Halloween costume, quality Bible man costume. - And all of these would like be sold at your Christian retailers. Like that's where you could buy the video game too. Like it wasn't GameStop. It's Family Christian bookstore. - Right, yeah. GameStop was not stocking the Bible man video game adventure of Fight for Faith. You could not get that down to GameStop. Nor could you get these soundtracks or the tapes. You know, maybe you could find the tapes that video rental stores sometimes. I know our video rental store had some of them. You could find them around, but generally, yes, Christian bookstores and mail order. And the bookstores would have the action figures, the costumes, the booktions, the whole deal. It was a whole marketing thing. - The board game. - I would love to play the board game. I wasn't able to find one. - Hold on. - So the description of the game, players select a hero card and matching token to battle the bad guys while traveling quickly through the town of Shatsville in an attempt to save the children. - Why? - It's called Shatsville. - The Bible-Band board game. - With the Z, Shatsville. - Do they live in Shatsville? - I don't know. - This is what I'm saying. - They're just so-- - The crititions, Crink. - They're so opaque. Like, I don't think they even realized the connotations of the things they were creating in this show. - And in Shatsville, I will bend my knee to you. - I will willingly get on my knees. Come! - Next four way you have, you should like, really act out. I don't even know. You could do it with two people and just have Luxor and Bible man. But if you wanna do include Bible girls, you could do a whole thing, unquote. - And need my dad to dig through all the old shit at home and find the Bible man costume and mail it to me and I'll just show up in it. Or not show up in it. Wait till things are going to be like, I need to go grab some water and then come back and I'm in it. - It's kind of like the scene and super where Elliot Page wants to have sex with White from the office and is like, but can we please wear our superhero costumes for it? And you're like, sorry, honey. The Bible man costumes stays on. - It stays on. - It stays on. Come on, obviously. At least the mask and the cape. - There is also music. They release several albums. - Bible man lives. - They also release the official soundtrack and they also released Bible man 18 songs to trounce villains which you know what? - Great title. - Great title. 18 songs to trounce villains. I've not had a good trouncing in a hot minute. - Yo, I think they could add to that. I know a song called KDV and it's like Kill and Darth Vader with my mother fucking kick drum. Oh no, that would never make it to the Bible. - I don't know. You have to take that right down to Shatsville. I want to move into the characters, but as we transition, let's play the second version of the theme song. ♪ This is the story of mask ♪ ♪ Need a sand ♪ ♪ Who had everything ♪ ♪ Money ♪ ♪ Power ♪ ♪ Fame ♪ ♪ Until it lost it ♪ ♪ Bible man ♪ ♪ Bible man ♪ ♪ Bible man ♪ ♪ And just when he thought he had nothing to live for ♪ ♪ He found the power of God ♪ ♪ Bible man ♪ ♪ Bible man ♪ ♪ My old Peter Cindy K ♪ ♪ Bible man ♪ - Okay, it's updated, I like it. - The like yelling the guy, ♪ Everything ♪ ♪ Money ♪ - I wish our theme song with this heart. - It's pretty good and it's just like it is completely unhinged. - It's so bad. It's so, the whole show, the whole, we gotta keep going. - Let's rent through the main characters. So we've talked quite a bit about the first Bible man, Miles Peterson, played by Willie Ames. You heard his backstory in the theme song. He wore three different costumes. The main ones are purple and yellow, but then he did a new silver and white costume later on, which was pretty badass. Kinda reminded me of the end of Batman and Robin, the George Clooney one where they got the cool silver costumes. I feel like it was probably directly inspired by that. And every episode he got to do a sailor moon kind of dress up sequence, which I love. - It was great. It's what I remember the most. It helped me like that sequence. That was how I memorized the armor of God. - He would like get in, old school Batman like two, like for getting dressed, right? It would like put the armor on him and he would have the waist belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peace, shield of faith and the helmet of salvation, and then his lightsaber, the sword of the spirit. Here's something that I don't understand about the lightsaber things. It's one thing if Bible man has a lightsaber rip off thing for his weapon, like whatever I get it. Why do all the villains have lightsabers? Is it Bible man's sword? It's supposed to be the sword of the spirit. It's like a special thing. And like it makes sense for it to be like a special, crazy power sword, but all of the villains also have lightsabers and they're not explained at all. They just have them. - Those aren't the sword of the truth though. - Well, no, they're a different color. - Don't ask too many questions. This is church. - When I lived in San Francisco, I worked on a kid show. That was like, that was what I did. I produced shows for kids for several years. And there's a certain amount of stuff you can get away with, right? You don't really have to explain every little thing. There's some stuff that kids and people in general are just gonna get. You don't have to go into crazy explanations of everything. It's just like they have powers and like we're rolling with it. But there does still need to be like baseline reasons that things are happening. - Yes. - And particularly in villain motivation, they're, and I don't know how to emphasize this enough, and this is the number one problem with Bible man, is there's no reason the villains are doing the things that they do other than just being evil. Like they don't have any motivation. They're not trying to achieve anything. They don't want anything. They're just doing this stuff. They're just terrorizing children all around this suburban town for the hell of it. - Like there's not that much crime in a suburban town. - But he's not fighting crime. - Oh, true, you know. - Bible man does not fight crime. Bible man fights demons. And the visibility of the demons is questionable. Like it doesn't seem like regular people can see the demons, but he can, and sometimes the kids can. - Yeah, the kids can sometimes, but usually the demons are invisible, and they're just like, the demons can cause Bible man to doubt. It's not just causing the kids to doubt. - Yeah, I mean, Bible man has to fight against principalities and powers as well. - I just don't understand their logic. They have too many different competing. - Where these demons coming from, what's their motivation? They all know each other. They all are either reporting to or are incarnations of Lexor, but his motivation isn't very clear. Like I don't know why any of them are doing any of this, other than just because they're demons. - Yeah, they're demons. They're supposed to make people lie, and that's what demons do. - It's sort of like a screw-taped letters type approach to demons, right? Where like demons are these actual beings that are invisible to humans that have sway on actions in like a psychic way. - I'm still mad they gave that one villain the nail file just to queer code them. - The villains are 50% queer code at least. And the other things, the villains, they actually do a really good job. They have cool names, they have great makeup and stuff a lot of the time. They're really over the top like flamboyant characters which compared to Willie Ames' Bible man. They are significantly more interesting and entertaining. Like Bible man sucks. He is not fun at all. - Anyway, second Bible man comes along. Josh Carpenter. They write off Ili Ames, Miles Peterson. He gets written off. - But both of them are canonically Bible man. - Right, like he takes over the role. Got it. But what was interesting is second Bible man, he decided to become Bible man when he was a kid. Like they did this thing. I think it was like trying to make kids feel like they could become Bible man. So like make it more relatable to kids. So like his backstory is that he was a kid and his parents fought all the time outside his room and he found solace in the Bible and grew up and decided to dedicate his life to be Bible man. Let's play that clip too. - As a boy, Josh Carpenter never truly understood the importance of God's word. - What? - Where do you think I shop? You know, I just go in the grocery. That's all I do. - Until in his darkest night, he came to realize his deep need for God in his life. Upon accepting Jesus Christ, he began to study his Bible to memorize scripture and to grow stronger in Christ. Until one day, he joined the growing forces of those who take God's word to heart and courageously follow Jesus. (upbeat music) - These are the new adventures of Bible man. - But nothing really too much different about him. Bible man does have a sidekick, Cypher. - Okay. - Played by Brady Williams. And now, interesting about Cypher is he's a lifer because Cypher is in some of the earliest episodes. He comes in like episode four, five, like in the second season. And he stays all the way through Willie Ames then he stays all the way through the second Bible man as well. And he is in the live shows. Like he saw it all the way through. - So Bible man traditionally his suit color is like purple and yellow and they made Cypher originally. He was like silver and black but then they were like, oh, let's color coordinate him. And then they'd imagine. - And he got his own like lightsaber. He got these like things up. What did they call it? They're like, I don't know. They're like these little blades that are like half circles that go around his hands. They're kind of like, you know, like brass nucks but lightsabers I guess. He had one in each hand and he could like block shots and shit with them. They did eventually get a Bible girl who was a decent character, really bad costume design at certain times. Like just like they did not even try on her costume. I don't know what the deal was with that. - She's a woman. - She used a knit. That was her thing. She would throw knits on people. - That's why she was always getting tied up. - Yeah, thematic. In the early episodes, her name was Leah Martinez. But then after a few episodes, they shortened it, dropped off the "iz" and named her Leah Martin, which I don't know. It just feels kind of racist. - Yeah, they just wanted to whi-to-fi her name. - Like. - Thanks, though. - Interesting. - Bibleman does have a super computer AI system, a law jarvus that he relies on called unis. - Universal networking intelligence computer entity? - Yes, exactly. The Bible cave AI and mobile mission command center, and she like, you know, she gives them all kinds of mission updates and that kind of shit. And then the bad guys also have one called Lucy, the link to underhanded computer influences. And they're both voiced by the same woman. She just puts on a bad jersey accent when she does the evil one. - Amazing. No, no. - It's so funny. (laughs) - She sounds like Harley Quinn. It's like she's normal, like doing an AI kind of voice and then she does like a shitty Harley Quinn impersonation. - Aw, put it in. - All the villains are actually just characters on Jersey's floor. - The villains are camp. That's what they are. All the villains are just extremely camp. There is some anti-Semitic stuff. They do play into some Jewish stereotypes in a few episodes. And another really problematic thing they do is, a lot of times there will be like henchmen that are not the demons. And it's not really clear if the henchmen are demons, but sometimes the episode will just open and by the way, it'll be like fighting them for the cold open. It'll just be like henchmen. And they're all wearing like gas masks or some shit. But a lot of them will have like bad Chinese accents. - Oh no. - Yeah, it's like a thing they do several times through the show is like all of the henchmen will have, yeah, like just terrible mocking Chinese accent. It's really bad. - Braces. - Yeah. - And he kills them. To be clear, he murders them. This is a perfect example. Let's play this clip. This is just after Bible man murdered two henchmen at the beginning of the show. And his A.I. is there with him. He's talking to her. - As it says in Psalm 3710, in a little while, there will be no more wicked people. - Thanks, and you were great. - That was exciting. And it would make a great story for our new comic strip. We should do things like this more often. It was fun. - He just murdered two people. We should do this again. This was fun. - Yeah, just celebrate a little bit. - Okay, yeah, let's talk about some of the episodes that we watched. The first one that we watched is from season one, six lies of the Fibler. The Fibler is a character that is a direct rip off of Caesar Romero's The Joker from the 1960s Batman. He looks exactly like him. He behaves exactly like him. What did you think? - So this one is the one that felt the most like Barney to me. I wasn't ready to turn on Bible man and then have a bunch of kids invest standing on verandas of Southern houses, doing hand motions, singing three songs before we met Bible man. - So this was from the first season, the first set of four that they did. And yeah, there were like three full-length songs in it. Like half of the runtime was kids singing. Like it opened with like a four minute song. - There's long songs. It's not like a two minute like Bible school song. It's like, I don't know why they were so long. The only thing I can think of is like, because it was directed DVD, maybe they were expecting like people to like watch these at vacation Bible school and then like sing all the Bible man songs. - That's what I think. And it also just helps fill the time. I mean, at the end of the day, they only made like a 15 minute show because the like half of it was musical numbers that they did that weren't really related to the plot at all. - Not at all. I can't stand musicals in general because I feel like not enough musicals are good at telling the plot through the songs. I mean, musicals to do what Game of Thrones did with like the sex position where it's like, yeah, there's a shit ton of sex scenes, but like the plot is happening during the sex scene. Like it's not something you can skip. I mean, good musicals do that. - That is not how I felt about Bible man songs. - I wouldn't quite classify it as a musical even because they weren't songs that were related to what was happening on any level. Like they were just breaks in the narrative. It was like kids literally singing like a Christian, like church Sunday school kind of song. And then the story would continue. It was like an aside almost. The part that really I thought was hilarious is there's one moment where they're in the church and the Fibler is there. No one can see him. He's like sneaking around, but he's like invisible too. And then Bible man discovers him and chases him around a bit and the Fibler escapes outside where he remains. And then Bible man has this aside to like talk to the kids about their petty youth group drama that's going on. And it's like there is a trans-dimensional clown outside the church and you're standing in here talking to these kids about their petty squabbles. Do you not have something better to do Bible man? - Yeah, I feel like the trans-dimensional clown might take precedence, but it's outside the church. They don't need to deal with it 'cause it's not inside. - Something else that's strange is Bible man an alter ego for him? Like he will take calls in the Bible cave without his mask on and stuff, like just talking to-- - The Bible cave. They don't even-- - Yeah, that's what it's called. It's the Bible cave. And he has stained glass in it too, which is pretty dope, honestly. It's pretty cool. He'll take calls. He'll take video calls and he won't be in cost to him. - Yeah. - The identity of him never comes up as a thing. He doesn't seem to have a life outside of Bible man, except he is the teacher in the early episodes, but after we get past that, he's just like Bible man full time. Something else that was kind of interesting is second Bible man did not wear eyeshadow. - Yeah, 'cause that's gay. - Episode three, this is when the doubt is like the villain. - Well, and that's the first incarnation of Luxor. - Oh. - And he is the archvill and he keeps coming up. And ludicrous is his sidekick. - The fact that they just called his sidekick ludicrous and got away with it. - He knew no of them kids was listening to ludicrous. - I'm so mad, Rick. This is the episode where they have the live in Lovita Loka Furioso thing too. - The white guy, El Furioso. - The white guy, El Furioso, yeah. - When they get to season two, on this episode they like, they ditch the musical numbers, they ditch the teacher thing, this is when it like becomes an actual show I think. I find it's footing and you know, if you racist Asian caricatures. Yeah, well that's part of their footing. Goodness. [music] Is there anything else to say? Do you have any other thoughts about Bible Man? Bible Girl and Bible Man. Why can't it be Bible Woman? Because they have to infantilize women. Yeah, it's very like infant. Yeah, that was that was the only real like piece that we left. Still is unwarranted, but it felt less weird in the earlier episodes when it was Willie Ames and then Bible Girl came on because Willie Ames was old by then. I mean, he was like in his 40s and Bible Girl was like 20 or something, you know, and he's still infantilizing, but it made a little bit more sense. But then when the new Bible Man took over him and Bible Girl and Cypher, like all the same age, that it just seems particularly weird. But Bible Girl is kind of badass, honestly. Okay, so Bible Man versus Batman versus Superman versus, I don't know, fucking Marvel people. I mean, Superman's obviously going to win. Superman is the ultimate superhero in terms of powers and stuff. Yeah, but he has kryptonite. Bible Man doesn't have a kryptonite. You can just like shoot Bible Man. You know the kryptonite. You can just, I mean, he's just a normal guy. As homework, everyone, since he all listened to this episode, you'll all need to go watch Super 2011. Honestly, I would say get on YouTube and watch just one 30-minute episode of Bible Man for the context and then watch Super. It's going to make Super so much better for you if you have the Bible Man context. You know what? That's so fair. And Super's Wilds, like there's some Hinti stuff I wasn't expecting there's some. That's the seed that like really sticks out in my mind more than anything is the Hinti bit. Like that is just so out of my field. The figure of God coming down to touch his raw ass brain. It's a weird movie and I'm really happy that someone made it. It's directed by James Gunn, who made like the most recent suicide squad movie, Guardians of Galaxy. I guess Super was his first superhero movie, but then he makes, you know, DC and Marvel stuff now. It is great. It has to white in it. Yeah, I have no idea what Dwight from the office's name is. He's just white from the office. Rain Wilson. Rain Wilson. When I text you about it, I said you should watch Super. It has Rain Wilson parentheses to white from the office in it because I didn't think you would know who it was. You would know me. All right, El, thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate it. We also make the show for free. So if you want to help support us, we have a Patreon. And we also have merch that you can buy online and you should please tell all your friends and them your favorite episodes. Ask them what their favorite Christian sex toy is and which position they would like to fuck Bible Man in. Our next episode is going to be a big one and sort of a less silly one when you're going to be talking about young life. I think that's it. Thank you for listening everyone, write to us, tell us your favorite Bible man, villain. I'd love to get some data on that. Maybe if you need to last longer to bed, try memorizing the names of all the people who were on flight 93. Do not tell people to do that. I never want to have to experience that again. It could become a thing. I'm never going to lose that down. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]