Bibleman You Know They Say Misery Loves Company

Bibleman, as he's known to his friends, is a alive-activity evidence originally starring Willie Aames of Charles in Charge and Dungeons & Dragons (1983) every bit a superhero who teaches our kids well-nigh the Good Volume without sacrificing the excitement of pulse-pounding lightsabre battles. In its original incarnation, the series lasted from 1996 to 2004.

Aames played Miles Peterson, "who had everything: money, ability, fame, until he lost information technology!" Throwing himself to the ground during a thunderstorm, he found a Holy Bible lying in the mud and was inspired to get Bibleman, an approachable superhero garbed in a adapt of armor based on the one from the book of Ephesians (though the look of the suit seems to have been more than inspired by Batman Forever). Over several years he pitted his faith confronting costumed losers who had nada better to exercise than pick on middle school kids... uh... nosotros mean the legions of Hell, and surrounded himself with a group of sidekicks.

In 2004 Willie left the evidence to spend more time with his family (though there are a few who think someone higher on the nutrient concatenation decided he had too much control over the prove) and was replaced by Robert Schlipp playing Josh Carpenter, a Younger and Hipper Bibleman for a new generation in the reinvented Power Source series. While less unabashedly silly than Willie's time on the show, its attempts to make Bibleman appear "cool" to the kids at home accept become more than transparent, similar the episodes where he learns to bulldoze a race motorcar or fly a jet.

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Tropes in the original and Ability Source serial:

• Affably Evil: Rapscallion P. Sinister from the Fight for Faith alive evidence. The "P" stands for polite.
• All There in the Transmission: That all of Bibleman's enemies were one guy named Luxor Spawndroth was only revealed on the show'due south website, seemingly for fans of lore who wanted an caption. In the show it'due south but actually addressed as one of the many 4th wall jokes, where they're making fun of how their budget's so depression they can only beget one guy to play the villains.
• Armor Is Useless:
  • Despite his armor beingness based on principles for Christian life (particularly Ephesians 6:thirteen-17), when his enemies actually hit Bibleman with their attacks or sin-inducing weaponry it'due south about as protective as wet tissue paper.
  • When Josh takes race machine training he'south wearing his Bibleman suit but with an actual crash helmet instead of that... thing he usually has on.
  • In the powersource series however the shield of faith really works.
• As the Good Book Says...: Bibleman'south existent ability is to call up whatsoever line from the Bible from retentiveness at will, as well as the chapter and poetry reference where it tin be institute. This goes hand-in-hand with the show'south button to get the kids at home to memorize the Good Book to get through life.
• Black Dude Dies First: It doesn't happen because this is a kids show, but in the "Shadow of Dubiousness" episode Bibleman and his electric current sidekick sound like they're making a reference at one signal to how Bibleman will survive whatever happens because the show's about him, simply the blackness sidekick might become whacked by the bad guys.
• Breaking the 4th Wall: Doing this was pretty much the testify's but joke when Willie was around.
• Broken Aesop: Miles Peterson, the first Bibleman, lost everything earlier he took on the part, rebuilding his life and finding new purpose. The lesson, that faith tin can behave you through difficult times, is lost when Willie Aimes leaves and Miles is replaced by Josh Carpenter, a Christian from childhood.
• Clueless Aesop:
  • Episodes as "Shattering the Prince of Pride" and "Jesus Our Savior" have Bibleman saying something along the lines of people shouldn't pay attending to him, they should pay attention to God, since Bibleman'due south just a person like anyone else. That's all well and skilful, but as the point of the show is to make scripture lessons more palatable to kids past having them come from a cool hero with a lightsaber, it'southward kind of self-defeating. If the Word itself matters more than who delivers information technology, why ensure it comes from someone meant to be and then marketable?
  • In "Burdensome the Conspiracy of the Cheater" Biblegirl gets a bulletin that Bibleman needs to meet with her right away. She takes the quickest road out of the edifice and falls into the villain's trap, because taking that shortcut counted as cheating. Yeah you lot shouldn't cheat, but getting there as fast as possible when someone needs your help counts somehow? Really?
  • In the episode where Biblegirl'south added to the cast, when the thought of calculation a new member's mentioned Bibleman says that God will let them know who the correct person is if He decides they need a bigger team. Information technology's kind of difficult to reconcile this with the And Knowing Is One-half the Battle segments at the end of every single motion-picture show, that say anyone who accepts Jesus as their savior becomes a Bibleman or Biblegirl.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Luxor was always completely destroyed at the end of an episode (until it came time to replace the actor), but dorsum again embodying a new sin in the side by side i.
  • The villain afterwards that was no different. In fact unlike Luxor, he simply has just two identities, the 2d undergoing a Diminishing Villain Threat.
• Diminishing Villain Threat: After a two-part episode with a villain who came dangerously close to really beating Bibleman, our heroes spent the next three episodes (and two alive shows) having to debate with the Wacky Protestor, a bluish-skinned uber dork fond of Jerry Lewis impersonations and who's more a threat to himself with that lightsaber than any costumed do-gooder he might meet. To underline this, the Protestor IS the aforementioned villain, Primordious Drool, who came and then close to defeating the heroes (says Biblegirl in the Wacky Protestor's kickoff advent: "But I idea nosotros got rid of him when he was Primordious!") Satan obviously downgraded him to a lesser form afterward his defeat in the two-parter.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Unintentional. The villains usually sneak around getting kids to mildly misbehave or putting them in temporarily foul moods. For these terrible offenses against society, Bibleman obliterates said villains with his high-tech weaponry. Of grade information technology'south non as disproportionate as said villains are demons and information technology'south been mentioned several times that they can crusade wider-spread harm if not foiled.
• Don't Explain the Joke: Allow's just say Willie could exist a picayune too fond of slipping sly references to his acting career into scripts.

  El Furioso: (to his bungling sidekick) I'yard about two seconds away from replacing you with Scott Baio!

• Early Installment Weirdness: The primeval videos (under the Bibleman Evidence moniker) featured a format closer to Barney & Friends, complete with varied songs past a group of kids. Lampshaded later by Dr. Fear: "Oh brother, I'd rather watch Barney!"
• Evil Counterpart: LUCI is one to UNICE.
• Evil Is Petty: The villains have no higher purpose than picking on centre schoolers and are proud of it.
• Family unit-Friendly Firearms: Bibleman and his sidekicks wield variants of lightsabers while his enemies more often than not take ray guns. Probably for the "ray guns don't really exist" reason.
• Concluding Battle: Every episode ends with a duel between Bibleman and a villain of the calendar week, but on several occasions they seem to cut to a final lightsaber fight for no reason other than because it'due south a dramatic way to cap off the episode. "Shattering the Prince of Pride" is a particularly bad example where they plan to gear up a trap for the villain, then seem to realize there wasn't enough fourth dimension left in the show to do that and just had Bibleman stomp into the villain'southward hideout and have a sword fight. Without, of course, removing the footage of Bibleman talking about setting a trap for the villain.
• Friend to All Children: Something the prove was no dubiousness going for, with how the innocent victims Bibleman saves from sinful villains and teaches lessons from the bible are nigh invariably kids or tweens.
• The Gods Must Be Lazy: The villains in this show are apparently demons or at least backed directly by the Devil himself, explaining how they can repeatedly come back from being blown the hell to smithereens and call Satan on their cell phones. On the other hand there's like two times in all the years they've been doing this that Bibleman and his buddies have gotten straight aid from their divine patron (specifically, in "Acquisition the Wrath of Rage" God provides Bibleman a shield against Luxor'due south swing, and in a later episode God cleared out a bunch of mines).
• Free Laboratory Flasks: Both the heroes' and villains' bases feature flasks and beakers of brightly-colored liquids which they rarely, if ever, utilize.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Satan of class. The closest we hear from him is in a telephone call with one of the villains (and nosotros don't hear what he himself sounds like).
• Hoist by His Ain Petard: In Willie's era the show went to pains to show how information technology was the villain's own fault he was beingness blown to smithereens, usually in the form of Bibleman merely using his lightsaber to bounciness dorsum the villain's ain shot or some such. The new series has actually shown Bibleman going on the offensive and taking them out with a thrust from the Sword of the Spirit a couple times.
• Hollywood Atheist: Averted far more oftentimes than you'd call back. Denying God's beingness nigh never comes upwards. Rather, villains like Shadow of Doubtfulness but convince people to doubtfulness His omnipotence or compassion.
  • Even more averted since the villains are all demons or robots, they don't actually portray atheists as evil. (The closest matter is the Wacky Protestor in Fight For The Religion, and even then he is a demon who is just using information technology for his own program in that episode.)
• Honesty Aesop: The episode "The Six Lies of the Fibbler" is about the Fibbler influencing a daughter named Ashley to lie to get out of problem for beingness tardily for her musical exercise.
• If You Kill Him, You Volition Be But Like Him!: Played with in "Conquering the Wrath of Rage" where the current incarnation of Luxor Spawndroth seems to be trying to maneuver Bibleman into hitting him down in hatred. Lucky for him that's the one episode mentioned above where God decides to ship Bibleman some direct assistance.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Most villains, just the Wacky Protestor in particular.
• Invincible Hero: Averted when Willie was still in charge of everything. The prove went out of its way to make sure Bibleman suffered from the problem as the current kid in trouble to illustrate his humanity. Nowadays if whatsoever of the heroes catch the villain's bad ju-ju it's commonly the sidekicks, and fifty-fifty so it's gotten pretty rare.
• It'due south All About Me: The Prince of Pride'southward shtick is to making others think only about themselves instead of God. He himself is as well extremely egotistical.
• Knight of Cerebus: Primordious Drool (In contrast to his Wacky Protestor appearance), takes the stakes to darker levels. Despite some comical moments, he puts even Luxor to shame with a plan that almost succeeded and the most challenging threat the Bible Team has faced.
  • None of which is to say Drool wasn't a very intentionally comical villain; we're still talking near Bibleman hither. The show stopped in its tracks to take him sing a song like it did with its other villains, and the Jerry Lewis impressions might've been stronger as Wacky Protestor, but they were still there equally Drool.
• Large Ham: All the villains, but Luxor Spawndroth in particular. Being evil looks so much fun when he'south onscreen.
• Laserblade: Cuz information technology's kewl.

• Musical Episode: The early Bibleman Show episodes. See too Early on Installment Weirdness.
• Nebulous Evil Organization: In the new series the villains from different episodes communicate with each other sometimes. "In the Presence of Enemies" has them class a total-diddled Legion of Doom.
• No Name Given: Until partway into the new serial, Biblegirl and Nothing were referred to by their superhero names even if they weren't in costume. Strangely the Affirmative Action Girl meant to stand in for Biblegirl for a few episodes, Melody, doesn't get a superhero name at all. Even though they kept her on after Biblegirl returned.
• Not-Then-Harmless Villain:
  • Ludicrous is the bumbling sideckick throughout Luxor's run, just he is still just as effective using the evil weapon of the twenty-four hour period on Bibleman when Luxor himself couldn't.
  • The Wacky Protestor, with his less awesome or threatening quit compared to Luxor and Primordius (the latter being his prevous identity), it'southward easy to forget that his inventions worked just too, whether it's the child(ren) of the day or even Biblegirl, and his plans are treated serious enough for the Bible Adventure Team to finish him.
• One-Word Title
• Only the Called May Wield: Information technology's shown in diverse episodes that the Bibleteam's weapons can only exist used by faithful Christians. Thus it'south confusing that when they made a two-part episode the bewilderment was ready around their headquarters going into permanent lockdown to make sure its secrets didn't fall into the villain'due south hands. When the same villain was shown repeatedly being infuriated past the mere mention of Christian names and terminology and would never go well-nigh their arsenal. Additionally, many of the enemies have like weapons which appear to exist just as effective as Bibleman's arsenal.
• Opening Narration: Used this to explicate the setup earlier the theme song.
• Power Levels: They don't go into particular because Bibleman and his friends get their powers from their faithfulness to the almighty, only when they ran into an enemy more powerful than they were used to they would often spit out some technobabble nearly how high his free energy levels were.
• Purple Is Powerful: The color scheme of the Bible Squad'south outfits is purple and yellowish. For a while Bibleman wore a silver suit instead for some reason but they somewhen got rid of it.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Played with in Jesus Or Savior Function one

LUCI: Are yous going to create a Bibleman lookalike to rampage on the city and arraign the existent Bibleman for information technology?

Primordious Drool: No. That'south been washed to decease.

• Put on a Bus: Coats, who "left on a pinnacle surreptitious mission" for whoever it is they piece of work for and hasn't been heard from since. They actually made it seem similar he'd come back at i point only for it to turn nigh to be a decoy, letting Bibleman boot himself for not realizing the real Coats has one dark-green centre and 1 bluish heart "every bit an unfortunate side result of his ancestral lineage".
• Race Lift: Biblegirl started out beingness portrayed by a Latina extra, but was replaced by a Causasian a couple episodes afterward while still being the same character. Her name was even changed from Lia Martinez to simply Lia Martin.
• Real Men Love Jesus: Comes with the territory, really. You might even say Bibleman kicks arse for the Lord.
• Re-Release Soundtrack: "The 6 Lies of the Fibbler", "Silencing the Gossip Queen", "Defeating the Shadow of Dubiousness", "Conquering the Wrath of Rage", and "Shattering the Prince of Pride" all got new soundtracks, which were used for the TBN airings and on newer DVD releases.
• Robo Cam: The Bibleteam vesture masks that sometimes have this. 'Cuz it's kewl.
• Science Is Bad:
  • Surprisingly averted. Both good and evil rely on super-scientific gadgets and self-enlightened computers.
  • Initially played direct. The first episode is explicitly anti-science. However, information technology's no longer bachelor, and then they may have disowned it.
  • Check the DVD-R Hell episode review from Brad Jones. One kid is singing about science similar it's a disease that, when exposed to it, needs to be rapidly disinfected with some Bible reading.
• Something Person: Bibleman.
• Standardized Leader: The main reason Willie's fourth dimension on the testify is by and large considered more than entertaining. Josh Carpenter was a much more than generic "hero" character who had none of the penchant for jokes or self-deprecation, and almost no time was spent developing him as a character. Partly since he was introduced when information technology stopped showing Bibleman also being tempted by the sin of the episode, denying the graphic symbol that window to show his human side. His introductory episode doesn't even prove him coming together with the balance of the squad; it just shows them coming dorsum to their hideout, all exhausted from their first training session that we didn't see either. That'due south non even in the deleted scenes, indicating the filmmakers didn't fifty-fifty bother.
• Strawman Political: Several of the villains, such equally Wacky Protestor, who apparently thinks the best mode to make people atheists is to go around called-for their Bibles.
• Swiss Cheese Security: Bibleman'southward supposed to have way better technology than the villains, as a lot of the early on episodes rely on them hijacking his arrangement to enable their electric current evil plan. Those scripts ordinarily required Bibleman's security to be hands bypassed by those same empty-headed villains, though.
• Take Over the Globe: As Master of Misery, Luxor has stated this to exist his ultimate goal. Other villains have also stated aloud that they want everyone to be at their mercy.
• Accept That!: In ane episode, Dr. Fear sees Bibleman helping others and remarks, "I'd rather spotter Barney!"
• Third Human action Stupidity: In the two-part episode "Jesus Our Savior" the villain easily defeats Bibleman using a lightning bolt assault. In the final fight of the episode the villain instead opts to employ his weaker, easily deflected energy ball attack.
• Totally Radical: Tries to be cool for the kids with lightsabers and slang, but but comes off equally campy.
• 2 Decades Backside: During the original series the show had 2 types of jokes: Breaking the Fourth Wall and that existence the whole joke, and jokes about Television receiver shows that the target audience would exist manner too young to know anything about. Like Willie's own interim history from the 70s and 80s, or things similar Cagney & Lacey or Donnie and Marie.
• Uncle Tom Foolery: When he was around, Coats' (the original minority sidekick) principal jobs seemed to exist a) providing moral support for the white guy, and b) giving the white guy and the sentient figurer someone to brand fun of. After he left he was replaced by Cypher, whose job was to be a goofy, cocky supporter to our hero who handled his Magical Computer. This lessened over time, but still when someone on the Bibleteam needs to be the butt of a joke, odds are it'll be Cypher.
• Villain of the Week: In both The Bibleman Show and Powersource, there is a different villain that Bibleman has to face and each was played by a unlike histrion, rather than reusing an thespian for more than one villain like in the center season.
• Villain Song: There was one an episode in the pre-Power Source days. Many of them had two entirely unlike versions, because of the redone soundtracks.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Luxor Spawndroth literally had a pet mouse (or rat) in "Breaking the Bonds of Defiance" that never showed upwardly the next time he appeared. The Wacky Protestor had a caged-up gorilla and some other pets in his get-go two videos. The Fight for the Faith however, omits them entirely.
  • There are also cases of an advent of a to a higher place to the villains that only appears in one video and and so disappears in the next without mention like D.I.R.T from The Fiendish Works of Dr Fear and Johnny Caponi from A Light In The Darkness.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyhow?: Bibleman'due south power is that he tin instantly remember any line from scripture... and that'due south it. The fact that he seems to have this aforementioned power even when out of costume implies that it isn't even a power: he just memorized the Bible.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: One of the new series villains was named 2 Kul four Skul.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/Bibleman

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