Bronze-level articleBibleMan

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Have you ever wondered what Batman would be like if Bruce Wayne was a fundamentalist Christian? And Batman didn't fight crime, but instead fought sin? Where the singular Robin is replaced by a group of anal-retentive, bible-verse-spouting, so-annoying-and-self-righteous-that-you-just-want-to-beat-the-shit-out-of-them teenagers and young adults? And the Batman wannabe wears a purple and yellow SpandexTM costume? And the costume's rubber "Breastplate of Righteousness" has ripply pecs and abs that somehow make him look gayer than Batman? And his Bible -- aka, "The Sword of the Spirit" -- morphs into an actual sword[1] that he uses to fight evildoers?

Well, wonder no more! You've just entered the alternate universe world of BibleMan![2]

Contents

[edit] The premise

A wealthy, fortyish businessman[3] goes out for a walk on a dark and stormy night and finds a Bible casually on the ground after having a breakdown and begins to read it. He is immediately converted from a depressed, hard-nosed businessman into a Bible thumper. But he decides to go one step further. He will use all of his amassed wealth to become a crusading superhero.

After a decade of this, when he was too old for this shit, the original "BibleMan" handed off the franchise to another fortyish confirmed bachelor.

[edit] Target audience

BibleMan is intended for kids ages 2 to 10. However, when watching any BibleMan episode, one can't help but doubt that any kid who has started to use reason and logic[4] would ever fall for this bullshit.

Adults might find it entertaining if they smoke pot first.

[edit] The characters

"BibleMan" was originally played by washed-up kid actor Willie Aames,[5] but is now played by Robert T. Schlipp, a youth pastor from Northern California. BibleMan has had many cohorts. Currently, he is aided by:

  • Cypher: The brains of the team. (Funny, you'd think BibleMan would be the brains.)
  • Melody: With whom BibleMan has zero sexual tension. (And a double-bladed lightsaber)
  • BibleGirl: Ditto.
  • U.N.I.C.E.: BibleMan's supercomputer. (With God and Jesus on his side, why would BibleMan need a computer?)

[edit] Villains

There are quite a few (and all of them make Captain Planet look like Batman), but a quick rundown:

  • Slacker von Lazarus - A villain with hypnotic mind-powers and lasers which he uses to brainwash people into the sin of sloth.
  • Dr. Narcissus - Self-adoring supervillain who corrupts others with self-esteem and independent thought.

[edit] Merchandising

After debuting on Paul Crouch's TBN, the producers of BibleMan realized that there was money to be made from this. You can buy the following from the BibleMan website:

  • DVDs
  • Books
  • Action figures

And if you pay enough, you can have BibleMan and his crew perform for you at your church, revival meeting, etc.

[edit] Video game

A BibleMan PC game was released in 2005. Despite ads for the game lauding it as "critically acclaimed", virtually no reviews of the game exist on any major game review websites (with the few existing reviews being puff pieces from Christian gaming websites). According to a few independent reviews on Youtube, the game is essentially a poor man's Diablo clone.[6]

[edit] Videos

Just a quick sample of the (ahem!) odd sensibilities that one would find in a BibleMan episode. Maybe you should smoke some ganja first.


[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Actually, a store-bought LightsaberTM.
  2. Spelled "Bibleman" on Wikipedia, and "Bible Man" on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). However, "BibleMan" is the spelling used on the official website, so we're going with that.
  3. Who also seems to be a confirmed bachelor.
  4. At approximately age 5.
  5. Whose career seems to parallel that of washed-up kid actor Kirk Cameron.
  6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXsHPLl-zFY
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