 The floor may not be in the robot. The landscape of late night early morning television can be a grim desolate place. I can't tell you how many times I've found myself awake at 4am watching an infomercial for something like boner vacuums or facial cleansers and asking myself, why am I watching this? Where did I go wrong in my life? I think television has become a lot more dull in recent years because everything is held under such tight reins by the sponsors. With everything being monitored like it is, people can't get away with things like they used to, maybe that's a good thing. But if one has the spare time and is willing to wade through the crap, there is the occasional kernel of interest to be found. From my experiences, I usually come across these in the public access, international and religious channels. The show I'm going to talk about now is of the third variety. It was a humble little show by the name of Faith Buddies, a show featuring interactions between children and puppets along with Bible stories and songs. Not terribly well made or ambitious, it was little more than a second grade Sesame Street with Bible lessons thrown in, if you've ever seen things like Junior Christian Science Bible lesson or Wiser Family Puppets, it's that sort of show with a similar unerving feel to it. Much like Sesame Street, except it leaves you feeling mildly uncomfortable. But that's not to say it didn't have its own unique quality to it, boy did it ever. It stuck to its basic idea and unlike JCSBL, it didn't evoke the feeling of everything in the show being the product of one crazy person. There had to be at least three different crazy people involved in the production of Faith Buddies. It was definitely a low budget venture, constrained in both the monetary and creative sense. The thing about the show that caught my attention was the characters and the unique tone that Faith Buddies had. I've heard it said that the message itself is less important than the way in which it's conveyed. Faith Buddies seemed to have this as one of its core principles. As such, its content was largely the same as other shows of this kind, but it lacked the typical softening to make it more palatable for young audiences. Bible stories were told by means of a narration combined with a slideshow of colored pencil images, which would sometimes display graphic imagery in accordance with the story, like, Kane's murder of Abel, they didn't skimp on the blood like most do. People drowning in the story of Noah's Ark. The Plades of Egypt especially, this one. Trials of Job. Numerous appearances of Satan, not actually graphic, but notably darker and more serious than other depictions. They didn't censor the words either, if you kept a key near you'd sometimes hear bastard or ass. Always in a biblical context of course, but it catches your attention. Though I suppose in this current time where seven-year-olds play games like Resident Evil, none of this is all that shocking. So about the characters. First there's the main character of sorts, Pinky. Oh god, Pinky. Where do I start? Imagine Kermit without his neck thrill, with a big lumpy head, and colored pink. That's basically Pinky. Also notable was his eyes, his pupils were slightly too small and unfocused. Normally this wouldn't be important, except that they liked to end the show by zooming in on Pinky's face. The character was referred to as a he, but I could never tell whether his voice actor was a man or a woman. Either way they gave Pinky a bizarre voice and it didn't help that he often would give his sentences a painfully drawn-out delivery at random. I can only guess that this was done to ensure that the dumb kids get it, as Pinky had a tone bordering on condescending. Pinky was like the alpha puppet, and the show gravitated around him. Whenever one of the kids or the other puppets had a question, they would turn to Pinky for his insight. Though Pinky was typically shown with a Bible and would give verses most of the time, there would be other times where he didn't mention the Bible at all and seemed to be giving answers on a whim. The first thing that caught my attention about the show was that Pinky's character had a distinct lack of warmth or empathy, which only dot worse as the show continued. Pinky would give answers, but they would be very blunt and strangely defensive. Questions about hardships were swiftly answered with things like be careful with questions like that. Or don't question God's ways. Pinky was very fond of the latter statement and would use it as his way of telling people to shut up. The other two puppets were Birdie and Jurda. There were others that would show up when needed, but these were the main three that were present for every episode. Birdie was a blue hippo and Jurda was a green fuzzy bird. They were both little more than dim-witted idiots whose sole purpose was to be the foil for Pinky. They would get curious about something, come to faulty conclusions and then the kids would take them to Pinky to set their dumb asses straight. Pinky would give them a weird disjointed lecture and they would then would change their opinion. Pinky also didn't shy away from making cheap shots at them or the kids, but they didn't bear to challenge him, except for one time when Jurda called him a smarty-pants. This was met not with any verbal response, but merely a cold hateful glare. I wouldn't think a scene between two puppets not speaking would make me feel uneasy, but it did. Faith Buddies quickly became a guilty pleasure for me. As much of an asshole as Pinky was, I couldn't help but be amused by the guts this little puppet had. Pinky would tell it like it is, from his perspective regardless of whether his words were appropriate or made any sense, and he just did not give a thug whether he offended people or not. This was very evident in the homosexuality episode. Yes, they had an episode about gays. And this delicate subject was treated with all the subtlety of an hammer on glass. Sodom and Gomorrah, drawings of bearded men French kissing, Leviticus 2014, Leviticus 1822, dubious statistics regarding AIDS, known as H.I.D., the whole shebang. Pinky went so far as to suggest that prison rape was a mass conspiracy concocted by Satan to turn men gay. It was funny up until the end when this little girl was talking to Pinky about her older brother who had recently come out to his family. Pinky proceeded to stow at her about how he was a sinner faggot's best-in-for-hell, leaving the poor girl on the verge of tears. That was when I first started to really question what the intent was behind this show. It was always a little odd, but the latter episodes had become quite vile and mean-spirited. This would culminate in the show's last episode. Along with everything else, even the way Faith Buddies started an episode was strange. It would feature Pinky asking questions like... How do you feel about blank? Before saying... Today we're going to talk about... Followed by a black title card showing a word like guilt or forgiveness in a light font. The word for the last episode was predestination. And right from that moment I had this feeling in my gut that something wasn't right. I had seen other kids' shows touch on controversial subjects like homosexuality and sin, although briefly and with a lot more tact. But I had never ever seen a children's show focus on or even mention predestination before. I must admit I was really curious as to where they were going with this. I should have known better. The episode started the same as any of the others. Bertie mentions an idea he heard called predestination and talks about it with Jirdah and some kids, a lot of goofiness and dicking around with musical numbers and such. Then they go ask Pinky about it. Pinky reacted to this concept in an entirely too-pleased manner unlike anything seen before. A little boy asks him to clarify what it means and he's told... Some people are destined for heaven and some are destined for hell. And rambles about the power of God. The boy asks... Didn't Jesus die to save everyone? And Pinky replies... He died for the chosen ones. The other children gradually begin to grasp the gravity of this and become visibly afraid. The same boy asks him how do people know where they're predestined to go. Pinky tells him... You won't know for sure until you die. But if you look deep in your heart, you just might find the answer. Pinky then stares at the screen and everything comes to a halt. I thought the show was over until another title card comes up. There is no redemption for the damned. Another slideshow of illustrations appears, but there's no Bible story or moral this time. Just a glimpse of what the viewer has in store for them if they are not chosen. A man and woman hugging each other before being burned. People with their feet chained to the ground being eaten by marauding divils whose mouth spans their entire body, with their bodies being ripped from their feet. People being impaled on spiked killers by flying divils. People in the lake of fire having their bodies burned and regenerated forever. Giant deformed creatures fighting and bowing out each other's eyes. The accompanying music is spliced with sounds of screaming and painful cries, with intermittent quits from Pinky's such heads. This is the wrath of the Lord. And it makes me happy to see sinners cut lots they deserve. This horror is thankfully cut short a few minutes in by yet another abrupt cut. This time the credits have started rolling, but the scene is zoomed out to show the whole set, including lights, cameras and microphones. The kids and puppets are nowhere to be seen. A man in a black hat enters the room, and proceeds to douse everything in gasoline before setting it aflame. The cameraman follows him out and the last scene shows the black-headed man and the cameraman laughing as they toss all the puppets used in the show into a furnace, with the final shot being a close-up of the burning Pinky puppet. It hasn't been that long since I saw the last episode, but I'd yet to find any answers as to what the intent of this show really was, or why it ended that way. I had some guesses that it might have been a covert parody all along, or perhaps the show's founders got their funding cut and this was their way of getting back. Or maybe they were just crazy. I really don't know.