God, the Devil and Bob

I really enjoyed this show, and its a shame the damn crazy bible thumpers got their way. I'm not saying there's no God, but do you really think he would want to hang out with those self-righteous troublemakers? HELL NO! Okay, rant over. I know this is not the place for that, but I had to say it...

Anyway, yeah, great light-hearted show. It was a lot of fun and I'm sorry it got cancelled. The acting is pretty good, it had good writers. Damn, 10 lines is a lot. I mean, how much can you say about a show that got cancelled 5 minutes after it came out? Yep, great show. If you find it on DVD then get it.

Well well...didn't THIS show have a bit going for it, in concept and all.

Another one of the "what if?" scenarios, as God and the devil have teamed up (I guess?) to see if the human race is worthwhile or not. They pick an Everyday Man to study and judge...and lets give him an Everyday Man name, like Bob. Perfect!

Actually, pretty much everyone is given the Everyday Man treatment, which leads to some pretty funny moments. The first one that comes to my mind is how God is portrayed: he's not given the bright light behind him, angels singing, flowing beard-type treatment that we'd all expect from Him...rather, his beard is shorter, he wears t-shirts and looks like a hippie, which, in all actuality, he was modeled after Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead. Like I said, when He comes down to Earth, God has problems that we all have, like getting ripped off by a candy machine; not even God the Almighty can retrieve his candy bar from the blasted machine!

Sometimes this leads to jokes that don't even need punchlines; for instance, I thought it was hilarious to have God rummaging around in Bob's refrigerator, popping a cold one and saying "this is good beer!"...I guess it was just funny because I have no idea what on earth God would even WANT to drink a beer, much less find it good ("...and it was good", as the text says).

Granted, "what if?"-type shows, movies, short stories, etc. have been done pretty much since the beginning of the written word...however, a few original traits still managed to appear. At one point, Bob just says the solution to saving mankind is to remove all evil...which God does, proving that this is not so, since good cannot exist without evil (which IS true in real life).

So Bob goes to work, and since there's no evil, everyone is singing at their dead-end job...which, by the end of the day, is almost enough to make Bob puke. Luckily though, that night is his friend's bachelor party, which he has been looking forward to all day. The big moment arrives when a scantily-clad stripper WOULD pop out of the oversized cake, but since there's no Lust or anything, out pops his friends' parents...to give advice on how their long marriage has endured. "What, no STRIPPER?" exclaims Bob. "Well that'd be RUDE!" answers the guy next to him.

This show had the same potential as Third Rock from the Sun: just on the idea ALONE it could've ran forever. In Third Rock, aliens come to earth to study mankind, which everyday life (that's nothing/normal to us) is weird to them (actually it's funny how I make this comparison, since French Stewart from that show voiced Bob on this one), so there was plenty of material to keep that show running, and the same went for God, the Devil and Bob.

Unfortunately, this show had "death warrant" written all over it from it's inception: first was just MAKING a religious spoof; when the show was axed, the network said that the religious outcry didn't have much of a factor, but you KNOW it had SOME. Next was trying to make a prime-time cartoon show make it; it was a very long time in between The Flintstones and The Simpsons before that happened, and several others failed (Fish Police, Capitol Critters, etc.). Last, I think they ran it against something popular...like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or something. So it was killed within only about three shows, I think.

Pity.

Personal opinion this was a very entertaining adult comedy and should never have been cut. I mean how many networks authorize 13 episodes and then CANCEL after only 4 claiming poor ratings. If poor ratings after only a few episodes were the only reason the show was cut than my guess is half of Adult Swim's shows would never last. What kills me it that even in 2000 they gave into pressure from religious activists based on this particular show. To actually find it offensive my opinion is you would have to be more characterized as a religious EXTREMIST, nut case or DISHONEST and simply looking for another cause as this show, at least in my opinion, is pretty tame actually and BOTTOM LINE IS A GOD DAMN CARTOON. My guess is God likely has a sense of humor and I doubt he or she would find humor this tame offensive. I know I am a few years late writing this but once again I just discovered the show, purchased the season, enjoyed it and am disappointed it was cancelled, especially given the cancellation was due allegedly to poor ratings although once again with 13 episodes in the can and only 4 aired, which does not seem quite enough time give any show a chance (look it up, all would be amazed at the number of long running shows that would never have made it if cancelled solely on the ratings of the first four episodes) as well as objections by religious extremists (just my opinion likely given the most weight at the time). What bothers me is why any attention is paid to such objections; obviously they are from pretty ignorant people who are unable to grasp the concept that if they don't like a show they can always change the channel.

Religious extremists in this country are no better than any others as they use intimidation tactics and threats to get what they want. How does this really differ from the tactics of terror groups. Bottom line wrong is wrong and when networks give in they are simply sending a sign to others and condoning actions that most of the world rightly condemns.

As you may have gathered from reading the other user comments (you did read the other user comments didn't you? Go and read them. Read them? Good.) The concept was brilliant. The animation was very good (I hesitate to say brilliant, but it kind of is). The characters were marvellous.

Then the Americans cancelled it.

They said it was blasphemous.

God and the Devil influence a man's actions and he usually, after wavering slightly to make the plot better, ends up doing the right thing. It shows man as a creature that, whilst fallible, is generally good. That God has faith in man and that as hard as the Devil might try he can't seem to turn man to evil. How is this blasphemous? Well, it's blasphemous because it takes the name of God in (what they construe as) vain. The name of God, Lord, Christ or Jesus are taken in vain on so many other shows that it is almost impossible to count them all. [Side note; ever notice how these shows never take Mohammed or Allah or Vishnu or Gnesha or Buddha in vain? There's political correctness for you.] So why target this show? The character's in it didn't take the Lord's name in vain nearly as often as other shows did. The only difference is that God was there to answer back. Was God out of character? No. Was God callous? No. Did God ever do anything nasty? No. Did God have faith in humanity? Yes. Was God good? Yes. So it was the fact that he was actually there, whether or not he was 'as he should be'.

The people who objected to this seem to be overly sensitive to the portrayal of God. I can see their point; they may see this as the thin end of the wedge and that if they let this go God may be portrayed in another show in a far less favourable light. But their job is done for them by studio executives who would not go anywhere near putting that much effort into broadcasting something that would attract so much protest from so many Christians.

So who are the Americans who were not wrong? The ones that made the show and thought that common sense was a lot more common than it is. A wise man once wrote that the IQ of a mob is the lowest individual IQ divided by the number of people in the mob. This does not just apply to mobs but to any group really.

And just as a final note, before the show was broadcast in the UK it was shown to a number of religious leaders. They saw the show as a good comedy and that it had a very good, very Christian message.

This was a great show. I guess I can understand why many people would be against it, but weren't people against the Simpsons when it first came out? I remember many groups saying "Eat My Shorts" was blasphemous! I mean, if FOX had listened to those religious groups and canceled the Simpsons, TV would be really different today. God, the Devil and Bob was not given much of a chance to suceed, and it was really funny. I hope another network, perhaps one less obscure, picks it up again someday.