Comedian Explains the Challenges of Christian Entertainment | A Bee Interview with Thor Ramsey
On The Babylon Bee Interview Show, Christian comedian, Thor Ramsey, talks to Kyle and Ethan about becoming a Christian stand-up comedian, making the Church People Movie, and doing a political comedy show. Thor Ramsey recently wrote the book, The Most Encouraging Book on Hell Ever, where he tackles the question by probing deeper. Thor starred in Church People, as a Pastor trying to find his passion again inside the mega church marketing machine. The political climate has motivated Thor to start a new web series, The Protest Show. Kyle and Ethan find out the origin of where Thor Ramsey's name came from. They talk about his transformation from a secular comic to a Christian comic. Thor gives insight on the challenges of Christian comedy and how it differs from a normal comedy club. Thor gives his Kirk Cameron story once in the free portion and again in the exclusive subscriber portion for all those listeners that missed it the first time. Thor talks about making Church People with Stephen Baldwin. They talk about the struggle of making good Christian art and how secular movies can be just as bad. In The Subscriber Portion, Kyle and Ethan find out Thor's worst bombing story. Thor goes into how he's learned to deal with hecklers. Ethan asks how Thor tells the same joke over and over again when developing an act. Thor tries out some of his political jokes on the Bee team showing how difficult it is to do political comedy. As always the interview ends with the ever great, 10 questions.
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Brian Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
If I may, how double dare you?
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Today we're talking to the God of Thunder himself, Thor.
Shall have no gods before me, Kyle.
That's a good point, Ethan.
Thank you for bringing that up.
Heresy jar.
What day is it?
Is it Thor's Day?
It must be because Thor Ramsey's in the house.
Man, you sure seem Thor on the subject.
Man.
Should we start over?
So Thor Ramsey is a Christian comedian, an author, and he also stars in the new movie Church People.
He wrote it and stars in it.
He started in it, helped do everything with it, made it, all that stuff.
Very involved.
And he has a book called The Most Encouraging Book on Hell Ever.
Besides the Bible, or is the Bible not as encouraging as this book?
I would say the Bible is not always encouraging.
But overall, it's encouraging.
Overall, sure.
Right?
Yeah.
Unless you're like, he's saying his book's more encouraging on hell than even the Bible.
I mean, I think it's a kind of always implied that not the Bible.
Oh, you leave the Bible?
Okay, well, we'll find out if you read it.
He has a show.
He does this thing called The Protest Show that covers modern political stuff.
Yeah.
He's gotten really political since Biden won, and so he just goes off.
And it was a fantastic interview.
It was a lot of fun.
He's a really funny guy.
He pitched a bunch of jokes to us.
And you'll get to see what happens.
Yeah, you get to see what happens when you try new jokes on people, especially people who have dead, faded, withered souls like us here who hear jokes all day.
It really takes a lot to get us to laugh.
Will Patrick laugh?
You will find out.
It was a fantastic conversation.
John laughed.
And he had a great Carmen story that he didn't know.
So you all get to see it.
But what do you tell us?
The subscriber portion was meaty in this one.
It's like a really long.
You don't miss the subscriber portion.
Don't miss the subportion.
And we will see you guys in a second.
He's walking through at Thor right now.
There's a bunch of lightning coming through the door and a hammer.
Welcome, everyone, to the Babylon B Interview Show.
Thanks for coming, Thor.
It's good to be here.
Thanks for coming.
Thanks for having me.
So it's got to be a hard time to be a Thor.
Hard time to be a Thor.
Well, you know, this is actually popular Marvel movies.
It's the best time to be a Thor ever.
Because now whenever I give my cards, you know, like to pay for something, or most of the time, the Generation Z, who's not to stereotype, but generally they're the ones taking my cards.
They always comment on my name.
And I always get like, cool name, man.
That's fantastic.
So, yeah, it's been a good, it's been a good time for me.
Are you saying Gen Z is poor?
Is that I'm just saying they're the ones that have these, they're working.
That's what I'm saying.
They're working.
They're at the age.
That's what I'm saying.
It's good they're working.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah, they always give me the.
So I think the Marvel thing's helped.
It's helped for you.
Yeah.
Okay.
I mean, in terms of the movies, comic books, I mean, you know.
Yeah.
Well, he's been around forever, but he has popularized by the film.
Yeah.
So is Thori a real born name?
It is not my birth name.
It's one of those mistakes you make when you're in your 20s and you start stand-up comedy.
My sister had a friend who named her little boy Thor, and I thought, that's so cool.
I'm going to reinvent myself because, you know, you're 20, you hate yourself.
You become a stand-up comedian.
That's part of the self-hatred.
I don't know if we need this part, but anyway.
So I changed my name to Thor, but I had to change my last name too because my birth name is Jeff Sides.
And I couldn't go by Thor Sides because I would be a pun.
And you don't want to be pun and a comedian.
I thought it was Jeff Sides.
I was like, that's so weird.
Yeah.
Thor Jeff Sides.
So there was Ramsey Pontiac.
I had a studio apartment, Ramsey Pontiac, right outside.
And I go, Ramsey goes with everything.
I didn't think it through.
Like on Pee Wee, the Pee Wee movie when he just looks out the window and sees the name of the Spanish.
That was pretty much it.
That's exactly what it was.
Exactly.
Ramsey Pontiac.
So what led to Thor?
Because you're like, were you going to be a Christian comic yet?
I wasn't a Christian comic name.
I was a pagan comic.
Yeah, pagan gods.
And I had this whole bit about my parents singing, my parents being 60s hippies, singing me to bed at night like a Woodstock concert was my big closing piece at the time, which was completely fabricated.
No longer do it.
But as I was telling in the pre-show, my wife's name is Dinika, which is like, well, it's Dutch, not like it's Dutch and it's hard to pronounce.
People can't spell it or say it.
So she always took comfort in Thor and Dina.
I could step in and take the bullet.
And then, you know, because when you meet someone, it's the first part of the conversation, your name.
So Jeff and Dinica, you know, I just have to let her take the bullet.
Thor and Dinica, we can get by.
So she said, you know, I was going to go back to my family name.
She goes, you do whatever you want.
I'm going to call you Thor.
So I stayed Thor.
That's pretty much the end of it.
So you didn't think it through, though.
Now, my wife took my family name.
So she's Dinika Sides.
My kids are Sides.
I'm Thor.
It's like, what are you people?
Are you people conservatives or what?
Because it doesn't seem like, you know, so.
So you started out as a secular comic.
As a secular comic.
The clubs.
Do we have to put quotations on the show?
What was that more for the morphology of that?
You went from put some music on when you say secular bleep secular.
Yeah, it goes black and white.
Yeah, I started in clubs, did clubs for years, and then these are church people, man, got married.
Fish out the cash.
Yeah, church people, yeah.
You said much lower standards, so you moved over to the Christian side.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
Well, you know, I actually defend the, there is a Christian subculture.
I used to be critical of it, but now that I'm immersed in it, now that I've transitioned from, because I will say this, no, I'll give first the criticism of the Christian subculture.
When you go from clubs, and in clubs, you are battling the elements.
And by elements, I mean blenders and drunk people.
And so when you can make them laugh, if you can make people laugh in that environment, you know you've got, if it's a three in that environment, you go to a Christian audience and everyone, it's a wrap the tension.
It's like doing theater.
Yeah.
And you, pregnant pauses are actually pregnant pauses.
And a three is a five in that environment.
Now the danger is once you get, you know, it's the frog in the kettle.
You get comfortable in that environment, you can think you're funnier than you really are because they're laughing every three is a five in that environment.
If you're going to be a little bit more, we have a lot of the Babylon B problem.
That's why we got so successful.
Well, there's no crowd.
That's what I love now about, you know, it's like we do the protest.
We're doing our second season of the protest show, but there's no crowd.
So we write it and we just film it.
And it's like, we hope it's funny because we have no idea if it is or not.
It's like we think it's funny, which I like better.
I like going with what you think is funny rather than because the audience really starts developing your show.
And sometimes you go like, you're performing stuff.
You're really, I don't even know why people are laughing.
I don't even find this funny.
I'm not sure why you guys do, but since you laugh at it, I'll continue to perform it.
Yeah, it's another weird thing when you find a joke like that.
You don't particularly like it.
You think it's meh, but they love it.
Right.
But now, in defense of the Christian subculture, I will say that because I hear this all the time in like movies.
So we made church people, and I've heard, you hear this criticism all the time.
Why are Christian movies so bad?
And you make such bad movies.
That was my next question.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
And I will say, well, and honestly, we do make bad movies.
Yes, but there's less of us.
And we don't have as big a talent pool.
But my whole thing is it's really improved.
The quality of Christian film has improved in the last decade tremendously.
But Hollywood makes more bad movies than we do.
There's more of them.
You know, it's like that they actually make more bad movies, but do they make better movies?
Yeah.
There's a huger talent pool and there's more money.
Because, you know, people are like, how did you get these stars involved in church people?
I'm like, well, if there's money involved, you can get anybody involved.
Once there's money, people want to be involved.
It's like, do I get paid?
You do get paid.
So, you know, you just got to weigh the political ramifications now that you didn't have to weigh five years ago, maybe, being in a Christian film.
But, you know, so I think we've gotten better now.
You know, hopefully it'll continue to improve.
But there, you know, Christian films are a genre.
Right.
And when you make them, they've, you know, like every genre of film, if you're making a James Bond, if you want to talk about James Bond, I can do some spoiler alerts I just watched last night.
But the new James Bond, you can watch on Apple for 20 bucks.
But the thing about genres is you have to hit certain points.
In Christian films, you've got to hit those certain points of the genre.
Otherwise, people aren't going to be satisfied with the film.
And so that's just part of the atheist gets run over by a bus at the end of the movie.
He's got to do Jesus concert.
Yeah, he's got to come to Jesus.
That's right.
I assume that happens.
So what part did Kevin Sorbo play in Church People?
What part did Kevin Sorbo play in Church People?
Well, you know, actually in the original script of Church People, which was originally called Youth Group, there was a written cameo for Kirk Cameron in the original script.
We had a youth pastor.
Well, in the original script, I had an assistant who was always quoting Kurt Cameron, saying, my good friend, as my good friend Kurt Cameron would say.
And then he would actually, and I actually looked up actual quotes by Kirk Cameron, and we used those.
And at the end, because everyone was always giving him a hard time, that Kurt Cameron, he didn't know him.
And at the end, Kirk Cameron shows up to take him to lunch.
So that was kind of the cameo, but it got pulled for some reason.
We tried to get it with Kevin Sorbo, but we couldn't get him.
Really?
We were not at that level.
We've got a hookup.
We've got to.
Where's our sign, Kevin Sorbo?
Oh, there it is.
It's signed by Kevin Sorbo, even.
Supporter.
We have a Hercules action figure, too, somewhere.
Okay, yeah.
Oh, that is great.
That's good stuff, man.
This whole show is just me pointing out cool things.
Well, I was admiring the Carmen montage over here.
That's like brilliant.
I love it.
We'll get into Carmen Lady.
The shrine.
Yeah.
I love it.
We have some questions about Carmen Later.
So do you think I'm throwing this out there?
Yeah.
I think about this.
Do you think that the, because you want to talk about the Christian genre?
Yes.
And what that means, like it's going to have this and this and this.
And it's also, it's not going to have this and this and this.
Right.
And I always wonder: is that counter to what makes good entertainment?
Like a really good resounding piece of entertainment is real.
Like it has to have something that really resonates with this real.
This is something Christians have to come in, and it's theological because everything is theological.
But it's a theological question.
I think the problem for me, my critique of Christian art in general, is art is about telling, at least when you're talking about fiction, like novels or film, it's about a good story.
And Christians often start with the message they want to get across rather than start with a good story.
And that's what it's about.
And then you're telling your story from a Christian worldview, hopefully.
And that should have the elements of the Christian worldview.
And that's where I think that's where we need to get to.
Because otherwise, it's the same thing now when you watch any kind of secular.
I mean, I don't, you know, secularists do it too.
They do probably do propaganda.
Yeah.
And that's why the movies are getting so terrible.
Well, this is the whole thing.
It's like, okay, I'm sure I can talk about this on here.
You can cut it on if you don't want.
But it's the LGBTQ agenda.
It's like somebody sent out a memo in Hollywood, and I really think they did.
Matter of fact, I talked to a guy who was a set designer.
He says, don't tell, I'm not, I will never admit this.
He says, but there's, they're actually called the gay mafia.
And they go from production company to production company.
Basically, what's the term I'm looking for?
Well, they're activists going, it's like, so put a gay moment in your movie.
And it's like, you see that all the time now.
It's almost, imagine if that was, all right, what did I just see?
Oh, the new James Bond.
I'm going to do this spoiler.
So who's the guy that does?
Is it Q that does the gadgets?
So Q, Q, there's just a little moment where Q is revealed as being, that's it.
They just reveal him as being.
He's got to throw it in there.
Yeah.
I just, I got a guy coming over for dinner tonight.
It's been a long time.
No, if every imagine that was like, hey, I got a Bible study group coming over.
It's like, that's it.
It's the same thing.
They just, it's propaganda.
It's propaganda.
And we all resent it.
You're shoving it down our throat.
Now, when I watch them, you know, sometimes we endure it because they really do great character development, stuff like that.
And sometimes, I can't tell you how many Netflix series I've watched, and I'm three series in.
I'm like, I'm done.
I'm just done.
You're shoving it down my throat.
This has nothing to do with anything.
And there it is.
Boom.
I'm done.
You're losing me.
That's boring.
We can call it.
Me and my wife, we can call it from the first episode.
You know, we're like, that character is going to come out by the end of the first season.
It's like, pools.
It's boring.
This is not good storytelling.
I thought, I was watching.
Well, shout out to Say Goodnight Kevin.
I was watching his review of Batman versus Superman.
And there's just a moment where, like, I think Batman's just walking up some stairs and he just happens to pass by like two gay guys kissing.
And it's like this, this brief thing.
I don't even remember that.
So he just like, he like zooms in and he goes, gay.
It's so funny imagining what's going on in that on the set.
We're like, hey, can you get the gay guys over here?
Just to make sure the movie has some gay in it, you know, just throw that there.
But it is, it's, and that's what we, but when we do that as Christians, too, we got to realize two people will have the same reaction.
You can't propagando.
It's not, here's the thing: God has ordained a means for getting the message of the gospel out, and it's never changed.
It's through the preaching of the gospel based on the scriptures, and you can do that one-on-one or through a group setting.
Or even with a dude like this, it's still that same means.
And film and television are not the, you know, or fiction, or not the means for that.
Now, could there be, you know, depending upon what your subject matter is, it can be in there, but you can't make the movie for that purpose.
Otherwise, again, it, it, uh, it's, you know, movies have a different art has a different purpose.
Right.
Yeah, that's the hardest thing about it because I think that a lot of Christians have, you know, they think that it's not spiritual.
Not spiritual.
It's not right.
If it's not answering the question nail on the head.
Yeah.
And I don't know how you communicate that.
I don't know what it is, why liberals and the secular world was always so much better at it.
And they are getting worse at it.
It is getting cringier.
It is getting a lot more on the nose.
Like Disney has been good at it for decades, not really telling this specific message, but still delivering this worldview, just by telling a good story.
Yes.
I think it's because, well, liberals now, I mean, I think this is not.
I say liberals, atheists, same thing.
Leftists.
Let's say leftists.
Because I applaud classic liberalism.
I mean, I grew up in a good democratic home, but the way I learned classic liberalism was you want to hear the other guy's point of view.
Put yourself in someone else's shoes.
It's that kind of thinking.
Whereas leftists now, they're much more, well, it's religious.
And I think this is why Christians have not been good at art.
Well, it's just the same reason that Christians don't get satire very well, because satire is about saying the opposite of what you mean.
And Christianity is all about say what you mean.
Speak where people are the truth.
Speak the truth.
So you can't be subtle about it.
You've got to speak the truth forthrightly and that type of thing.
And I think that's why a lot of the leftist stuff now comes across as propaganda because that's what they're doing.
They see the world a certain way and they've got to, you know, there's no subtlety in their message.
You know, there's no nuance.
But also, like, you know, Jesus used parables all the time, but he wasn't telling parables about people coming to Christ or coming to faith.
He was using these stories to make an analogy.
And that's the hard thing is I think Christian art most of the time isn't made for the lost.
It's made for Christians.
Well, I think that is the Christian genre.
It's not a parable.
It's made for Christians.
And how does that line up with being, because this is one thing I sort of as an artist, like in the world, but not of.
That's the calling, right?
Yeah.
We're in it, but we're not of it.
And it feels like we're flipping it as Christians.
We want to feel like we're of it, but not really be in it.
So we insulate and create subs.
We create our own music.
We create our own entertainment and we hide in there.
And it's our thing.
Which is deceptive because you feel like it feels unworldly, but it's the same values.
It's the same production.
It's the crappy knockoff, too.
It is exactly.
Well, I used to use this analogy.
I don't use it anymore, but since we're here and you can't get it back.
Bring it back.
We're bringing it back.
It's like, well.
Oh, this is live.
It's like the porn industry years ago.
We're in the porn industry, they take a popular movie.
I'm not going to use it, you know, because you can take pumps on popular movie, and they would do the, you know, the euphemistic stuff.
Steve College did that too.
And like, you see this in Christian films a lot of times.
Like, this is the Christian version of.
And you can name the secular movie.
I go, it's the same, it's not creative thinking at all.
Well, maybe that's business thinking, but again, that's the problem with art and commerce a lot of times.
You know, the commerce takes over.
Who would win in a fist fight, Joey Fatone or Stephen Baldwin?
Stephen Baldwin.
Okay.
Yeah, Joey Fatone's got more girth, but Stephen would take him down.
I'm almost positive.
Oh, okay.
I'm pretty confident.
Yeah, I am pretty confident.
Because Joey, I mean, Joey's a sweet, Joey's a sweet guy.
He was a, and, you know, I think Church People was only his second film.
He did My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and then I think we were his second film.
And he did a great job.
When he came with his lines memorized.
Sorry, Joey.
If he would watch it.
He's a huge fan.
I'm sure he is.
Yeah, no, but it was.
I thought he did a great job, though.
He was my favorite character in the movie.
He was my favorite character in the script.
And then he ended up being, he just, he delivered it.
So I ended up really liking him.
Got any cool stories for making church people with always?
Cool stories.
Well, I think the cool story.
Well, I can share some of those.
I heard you have a good story about how it got made.
It actually got made.
You know, so Christopher Sean Shaw, who's the director who is the director of Church People, we've been friends for years now.
And we were doing short films at the time.
We're making these 10-minute films.
And in 10-minute films, you'd basically shoot for three days, but you'd have a lot of times the same casting crew that you would on a 21-day shoot of a major feature.
So we made a few of these short films.
And so I'd written this script called Youth Group at the time.
And we basically culled together a group of industry professionals that we knew asking favors for because you're working for pizza, basically.
And we took one day and we took scenes out of the script and we shot these scenes.
We basically put together a two-minute trailer.
And so, and then Christopher started, you know, just blasting it on social media to the point it was just almost embarrassing.
You know, sometimes you can go overboard and it feels embarrassing.
It's like, stop including me in these things because now I feel embarrassed.
But I actually had a youth conference call me up, wanting us to come there and show the premiere of the movie.
And I had to tell him that no movie existed.
There was only a trailer.
So I'd be happy to come to the conference and show the trailer.
But, you know, with the trailer was to get funding.
But that's actually how we got funded.
Stephen Baldwin actually saw it online.
Okay.
Called us.
We had a phone meeting.
Then we met with him live on the top of some hotel in Los Angeles in a suburban neighborhood.
It was very bizarre.
It was really surreal.
You know, if that's not your world, meeting Stephen Baldwin at the top of a hotel and then his like Batman.
It was, it was, because then his, we had a bunch of kids from, this is, you know, like, I'm going to say how many years ago, this is probably six years ago, but we had a bunch of kids from, I'm trying to think of the series, Hannah, Montana, some of the stars from Hannah, Montana.
Because his, I think it was his daughter was friends with, but they come up and they're all headed over to Will Smith's son's house.
Name drop.
So it's just surreal.
And then he just came from a meeting with Mel Gibson that afternoon.
Name drop.
Kitchen.
So Mel is trying to get some Viking movie made.
Do we still have the name drop sound clip?
Yeah.
That's what it was, but it wasn't.
Well, that's why it was so surreal because you're like, it was just this weird, you know, it was literally like walking down the street and you see somebody who's on a pogo stick bouncing, playing a tambourine and a ukulele at the same time with a kangaroo next to him.
You're just like, did that just, did you just see this?
Because that's just how it felt being there that was surreal.
Mel Gibson was playing the Australian.
Yeah.
Kangaroo.
Yeah.
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So when you were a secular comic and you were turning into a Christian comic, was there like a crossover period where you were like doing dirty jokes at the club and then going over the church and doing like nice jokes and then like were you like both for a little while?
No, I didn't do that, but I did go through a period as a secular comic where the funny bone in Schaumburg, Illinois, the manager said, I can't have you back.
You're too dirty.
You're too dirty.
I was too dirty.
And then I did an event in Orlando, Florida.
They had an amphitheater there that Disney had bought the city.
And they had bought this amphitheater for the city.
But their rule was when you have events, you can't, you know, it was Disney still at the time, had their standards and there could be no swearing.
So we had, there were five of us secular comics that were all performing there that night.
And it felt like 1,500 people showed up for this thing, but none of us could swear.
So every single one of us were backstage like, do we have acts?
You know, do we have anything that we could actually perform for these people?
And I remember performing that night, and it was literally ages 8 to 80.
And I performed, and it was like, we were each, we were all doing like 15 minutes.
So that's why we could get by.
And but I remember just, it felt great to reach that broader spectrum of people.
And after that, I actually, that's when I started cleaning up my set and started working cleaner.
So by the time I transitioned and came back to Christ, I didn't lose my whole act.
I know guys who came to Christ and I was like, they didn't have an act.
Yeah.
Like, I came to Jesus and I'm no longer a comedian because I don't have a show.
I burn it with their secular CDs.
Yeah.
So it seems like a good segment or a good transition to our segment.
We wanted to look into where the line with where's the line with Christian audiences on language topics.
We're going to throw some topics and things at you.
We've had it in a recent internal debate.
We had a recent podcast where I think we may have said, we used words like gosh and geez and a lot.
And Dan censored them all.
So it sounds like we're swearing like drunken sailors.
And so, you know, so we realize there's different the other day, Brandon was in there and I was talking about that.
And he's like, well, I'm way more legalistic than Dan is about that.
I go all the way.
Like anything is a swear word that has any sound of God in it.
And while he was telling me this, he's eating a bag of these little cheese crisps.
And the name of them was Oh My Gouda.
So that was a little contradictory.
A little hypocritical.
Yeah.
Total hypocrite.
But so what do you think?
Apply it to your language.
Apply it to your phone.
Do you have that?
Do you ever get in trouble of saying gosh, or do you think gosh is over the line?
Well, I mean, here's, I take it this way.
So I've gotten in trouble before.
I remember back in the day when the Left Behind series was like preeminent.
It was grossly popular.
And I mean that it was grossly popular.
Disgustingly popular.
I mean grossly.
And so I did a bit on the Left Behind series.
And it was my closing bit because people loved the series.
And I was, I, I actually did a bit on the movie because I never actually, I read 60 pages of the book.
I couldn't, I didn't get through the book, but I was able to watch the movie and I did a bit on the movie.
And I was talking about this scene.
So not to do the whole bit, but Buck.
To do the whole bit, huh?
Yeah, to do the whole bit, but I'd have to remember it.
I'm trying to, the character's name was Buck something.
And I couldn't remember his name.
Yeah.
So I said Buck, whatever his name was, Buck Naked, was the joke.
That's the joke.
That's a throwaway line.
And I had people come up to me after the show, and it was like, that was over the line for them.
That's ear porn.
It was ear porn, Buck, that I said Buck Naked.
Right.
So it was, you know, and it's funny the stuff.
I did a Walmart bit that offended people because I felt like I was making fun of poor people.
Okay.
And, you know, so it's the Christian audience can be temperamental.
So I've taken the, you know, and when you're younger, you like rat.
I know how old you guys are, but when you're, I'm older.
Can you guess?
So I'm going to guess you're 38.
Haggard.
I guess I'm haggard too.
Too old.
No, guess him.
Too old.
Well, I was going to say for him, about 38.
Wow.
Hey.
A little high for Kyle, a little low for Ethan.
Okay.
Oh, is that a little high for you?
Oh, yeah, I'm 34.
Oh, that's not too bad.
So four years off.
So 30s.
I would have said mid to late 30s.
And then how old are you?
41.
Okay, so I almost got you.
But when you're younger, you like rattling cages.
So I liked rattling cages when I was younger.
So I hosted a comedy show.
We did four seasons, only three aired called Bananas back in the day.
And when I first got that as the host.
It's at my parents' house.
Well, I have 20-somethings come up to me.
I used to watch you when I was a kid.
Oh, man.
But they offered to put my name in the title, Bananas with Thor Ramsey.
And I actually turned them down.
I said, no, don't put my name in the title because I was embarrassed of the show called Banana.
I was embarrassed of the title, Bananas, because I kept trying to get them to call it something else.
But they were sold on their, they had a little tag nine, appealing comedy for the whole year.
They were sold on that.
But had I done it, had I not been like my older self now, I would have embraced being square.
And that's what I should have done.
You've got to embrace it.
These are your people.
This is your audience.
You have to embrace it.
So now I adopt.
And I think it's biblical too.
I try not to do what will unintentionally offend someone.
So I just avoid, you know, I know that there's some people that they equate gosh and geez as just variations of, you know, using the Lord's name in vain.
So I just avoid that because if I needlessly offend them, then why do it?
But I know sometimes when you're younger, we want to make a point and we want people to rattle their cages a little bit.
Well, we've got a bunch more words here and we're just going to throw them at you.
Sassafras, don't use it anymore.
Sassafras.
Sassafras.
That's a Christian cuss word.
They're a bunch of Christian cuss words.
Hell.
Can you say hell at a Christian show?
Well, no, here's a true story.
This was a secular comic.
Well, no, I think he might have.
I'm trying to think of his name now.
He wrote for Roseanne for several seasons for the sitcom before she was canceled.
And I'm trying to think of his name right now.
But he was a professing believer.
Never did the Christian market, though.
But they were having a call-in radio show and they were asking for names for their new Christian show.
And it was supposed to be a Christian radio, a comedy Christian radio show.
And he called in with a suggestion, that's funny as hell.
And it was just phone lines lit up and couldn't go.
So I think context makes the difference.
I would hope.
All right.
Christians, you never know.
Yeah, yeah.
How about naked?
Oh, you already covered naked.
I covered naked.
Gosh darn we kind of talked about OMG.
OMG.
Saying the abbreviation, yeah.
I think some people would go over their heads, depending on their demographic with the texting.
I had to think of it for a second myself, even.
We'll find out what Jane thinks at the end when this is all it says.
Oh, wait, no, Patrick Edson.
Well, if you go that way, if you use OMG, then I know you get in trouble just going that SOB.
You'd get censored for that.
So I would assume.
Fart.
Oddly enough, farts okay.
It is.
Yeah, because every four-year-old boy doesn't even, they don't even have to be indoctrinated into laughing at farts and burps.
I've got a four-year-old myself, and he's right away.
It's just, he loves the poopy farty, anything with that, and he's on the floor.
That's comedy gold.
My wife and I were in bed together.
Thank you, having choked me.
You're saying that this is the.
Can you say that?
Is that okay?
Is that too far?
Can you make a joke?
My wife and I were in bed together.
Well, we're talking.
If we're talking depends on the context of the joke.
It's like, if this is a honeymoon bit, maybe not.
But yeah, if you're just discussing something.
Now, you know, it's funny, though.
So I've got, like, if I do couples, like, you know, sometimes you'll do a couples, it's all couples.
So I've got a whole bit on Victoria's Secret that I do that I don't do when it's 8 to 80.
Gotcha.
So that's how I've started, you know, but I can talk about things there that you wouldn't talk about.
And I don't think it's anything over the line.
It's just age-appropriate, I guess.
You know.
All right.
What about OJ Simpson jokes?
OJ Simpson jokes.
You can get fired.
You know, I get like updates on the news, and I just haven't seen him.
He's not.
He's just not topical anymore.
Yeah.
You know, I think.
He is on Twitter.
He tweets random stuff now and again.
Yeah, about football.
It's pretty funny.
I didn't know that.
So now that would be funny to follow.
So that's the whole thing.
That's why I'm not.
I just like the idea of going in front of a church audience.
You're like, so OJ Simpson.
Well, you know, in the context of OJ, you know, because it is one of those things where you should be able to talk about anything that's true from the platform, I would.
And if OJ's tweeting things, then I think he's fair game, huh?
He's fair game.
Absolutely.
Okay, now I don't even know if we can say this word, but I'm fascinated by the word donkey because it's in the King James line.
It's in the context.
Yeah, it's in the King James.
You can use it in a different context.
So I can say three different sentences, and two won't be censored, one will, or maybe two will.
Let's find out.
But donkeys.
Well, I think donkey.
That guy's a real donkey.
Yeah.
Let's see.
We'll find out later which one's got which one's got censored.
Well, I think it's the problem is we've gone from a well, in a more sophisticated culture, but we live in a Beavis and Butthead culture.
True.
So it is, and now I don't know how many people need to be educated on Beavis.
Beavis and Butthead are kind of a classic now.
They are classic, but Mike Judge is extremely funny at satire.
I think he is.
He's brilliant.
And Beavis and Butthead are really satirical characters if you watch them.
I think a lot of people when they first watched them didn't realize they were satirical.
It was in middle school.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, you should take them seriously because in Beavis and Butthead.
Yeah, somebody's reading the Bible, the King James Version, the jawbone.
Donkey?
You get the Beavis.
Yeah, exactly.
And so I think that's why we can't say it anymore.
That's the mentality.
So ruined by Beavis and Butthead.
Yeah.
Okay.
Can you say the word vagina?
Never.
No.
I can't even say it in front of my wife.
Yeah, I don't know what you guys are thinking.
We had the word vagina in an article and we had someone write us and say that we were publishing pornography.
Because you used the word vagina.
Well, so print is different, though, I think.
You know, I think you're not saying it out loud.
No one can hear except in your own mind.
So, and again, context, because yeah, if you go to the doctor, I think the one time that, you know, I'll say that.
Even in front of my wife's doctor with my wife there, I couldn't say that word.
But the doctor could say it to us in that context.
And yeah.
What word could you not say?
He's not going to say it.
That's funny.
Do you have any favorite replacement words?
You know, I wrote a bit on replacement words years ago.
I don't remember it.
But, you know, I tried to come up with a bunch of, I think it's pretty standard now for Christians to come up with like a list of Christian cuss words, so to speak.
But I used to use some, and believe it or not, in my real life, I used to have my substitutes, and my wife would reprimand me.
So I couldn't use them anymore.
So I got out of the habit, but I had a habit of saying a few things.
But in old age, well, I've got a four-year-old now, too.
So, and I have, you know, to be honest, a four-year-old boy.
And in private, once in a while, actual cuss words come out of my mouth now.
Oh, yeah, I got a four-year-old too.
Yeah.
So I had two girls.
We have three kids.
Agers between our kids because we're good planners.
But with my two girls, I thought I was more spiritually mature than I am.
And I had a four-year-old, and God shows me I have an anger issue.
And still, what comes out of the mouth reflects the heart.
And so I still got a long way to go spiritually.
But my four-year-old is revealed to me.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's with my four-year-old and still driving.
Sometimes I still, it gets me.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
The real me comes out, I guess.
So here's a deep dive for you.
Okay.
Mike Warnke.
Mike Warrenke.
Who knows who that is?
The king of Christian comedy.
King of Christian comedy.
I met him.
I met Mike.
He was big time, right?
So he claimed to be a Satanist.
He said he was in a satanic cult with Charles albums, like comedy albums.
Yeah, full albums.
He was the team.
He was the first Christian comedy I ever heard, a Christian comedy album I ever heard of.
I saw him in concert twice before the controversy.
We'll call it the controversy.
Probably to fill a lot of listeners in.
Yeah, so Mike Warrenke, when you go back and probably about the late 70s, when Christian music was on the rise, Mike Warnke was involved with, I think he was opening for some Christian bands.
And one night, somebody said, let me record this.
I think it was opening for like second chapter of Acts.
Why not?
Barry McGuire or somebody like that.
And you have to Google all these people.
But they recorded his set.
I said, let's just put it out as, you know, and then they put it out as an album.
The thing became a bestseller.
And so he was drawing.
Well, he was the Tim Hawkins of his day.
And I know Tim.
This is nothing.
I'm Tim.
Great guy.
Good, funny, funny guy.
But he was, I had to say that to say that Warrenke was drawing like 2,500, 3,500 people to a single night sellout performance at a convention center or whatever you, you know, some venue that could handle that many people.
And so, and then there was a little known magazine.
This is a great Christian history.
Great Christian.
It's kind of a, you know, it's like take a, we should, you should make a sheet, email it out to people, and then they can mark the things as we talk about this, the things that they actually know about.
Come around, children in here.
Yeah, it's like gather around us through our teaches us about Christian subculture from days yours.
Yes.
But so his thing, his album became a big hit.
And then there was a little-known rag.
He had these crazy stories, right, about being his first album was his testimony, really, with jokes on being a Satanist high priest.
He had been a Satanist high priest.
High Satanist high priest was the thing.
And so there was a little rag, a little magazine in Chicago called Jesus People USA.
And they really did what, well, I mean, some people will can push back on this, but I don't think Christians are good at journalism, investigative journalism.
Okay.
It's like we're not doing journalism that's investigative.
We're like, you know, hey, what are your points?
You know, let me, you know, it's like, let me.
Yeah.
A lot of journalists are just promoters.
Newsboys have a new album now.
That's exactly it.
And how do you become such an amazing Christian?
Yeah.
And so they did investigative journalism on his story.
And they did, and they ended up writing a book on it called, because Warrenke had a book out called The Satan Seller.
And they wrote a book called The Selling of Satan.
And it was really facts.
It was really, I thought.
They went in and like interviewed people from his past.
They found photos of him back when he said claimed to have hair down to his ankles and piercings and normal.
Yeah, saying supposedly when all these things were happening, when he was flying around, you know, the you know, LA on a broom.
Hanging out with Manson?
Yeah, exactly.
These things weren't actually happening.
So, and that's not to say there may not be elements, you know, so I think there's always that shade of people are complex.
Yeah.
And so everybody spices up their testimony once in a while.
Yeah, sure.
Once in a while.
Got to make it interesting.
And so that became a big scandal.
And I think, well, this is back in the day when a scandal would actually hurt your Christian career.
They pulled burn people.
They pulled everything out of the bookstores and everything.
And, you know, he's had a little bit of a resurgence again, though.
Oh, really?
Well, I mean, I think he's still around?
Still around, absolutely.
Yeah.
But not to where he was, of course, not selling out, having bets.
Because I think he had three best-selling albums.
I don't know what that is in terms of gold.
I found him in my parents' after they divorced.
My mom had a box of my dad's cassette tapes and it was in there.
When I became a Christian, I was like looking for things to listen to, and I found his box of preaching cassette tapes.
So there was like some Chuck Swindall in there and some, I can't remember who else, but then, yeah, there's this Mike Warnke.
I can't remember the name of it.
Oh, hey, Doc.
Oh, hey, Doc.
That was his Vietnam experience.
Yeah.
So you got him being, so you got out your pencil and rewound the thing back in the thing where everybody listened to it.
Yeah.
Yeah, the next time I Googled him, I was like, oh, oh, man, okay.
He's fake.
Or apparently.
Or at least according to Cornerstone Magazine or whoever it was that did that.
Jesus people.
You like to talk about the topics of the day.
You got a new show you're doing called Protest.
The Protest Show.
The Protest Show.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Some people would say that I had somebody say this to me the other day.
They felt like the last couple of elections brought out what people actually already were.
Like if you're very political, it just made you more political.
I don't agree with that at all.
Because I was not, I mean, I always, I always felt your politics, you know, I tried to inform my politics with a Christian worldview and vote accordingly, but I think our culture has changed dramatically in the last decade.
And because I'm like, so I grew up, you know, like, I don't want to date myself because ageism exists, but, you know, I grew up as I was in grade school during the 60s.
You're older than 38.
I'm older than 38.
And in the 1960s, and I still remember the riots of the 1960s, late 60s, early 70s, and Berkeley and all the different riots.
But the emphasis was on speech.
That they wanted to be free to speak.
And now it's literally mind-boggling to come from that mindset with that emphasis, where people were being then assassinated because of the things they were saying.
Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., they're being assassinated because of what they're saying.
And it was horrendous to society.
And then you come into our present day and freedom of all of a sudden freedom of speech is, people are being canceled for what they're being, you know, for what they're saying on Twitter.
It's like I had from, I quoted you guys.
I used you guys in a joke that was on what happened to you guys, I think, in 2020 when Twitter canceled you guys because of a quote you had about, I think, and I'm paraphrasing now.
I've actually got it in my phone here.
I can look it up if you want.
But I think your fake headline was, Antifa given the Nobel Peace Prize.
And you were censored on Twitter for that.
And I think the joke was, it's like, it's because it's hard to recognize satire when you're living in one.
Right.
And that's where our culture is now.
It's like we don't even get satire because so much of the thinking today is satirical by nature.
Yeah.
So, but the protest show came out of Biden being elected, to be honest.
I said to my wife, I've got to do something because this is just, this is an outrageous time we're living in.
I can't believe this, you know, I don't believe, you know, it's like, I don't want to get off on voter fraud, but I believe voter fraud happened.
And so I'm like, I got to protest somehow.
So that's where the protest show came out of.
And I didn't do political comedy before that, but the entire show is just political comedy.
So we're going to start season two in about a week here.
So you're more left-leaning?
Is what I'm gathering?
Yeah.
I lean left when it comes to all my beverages.
Got it.
I only drink Starbucks.
You voted for Biden five times.
Voted for Biden.
Well, yeah, I helped with the unmarked ballots coming in through the back door.
All the Sharpies.
Use a Sharpie so it can't read you and then we can recalibrate.
So why don't you just kind of let loose on a few things that are going on right now, like Rittenhouse trial?
Well, I didn't, so I brought some stuff here.
Yeah, I came ready because you're asking me, you know, again, age, you're asking me to come up with stuff off the top of my head.
Yeah.
It can't be done.
But I actually did.
So this is from the, this was a headline from the Rittenhouse trial.
Judge and Kyle Rittenhouse trial dismisses firearm possession charge.
So my question is, isn't it difficult to be charged with murder if you're not charged with carrying firearms?
I mean, it just seemed a little, you know, it's like, I thought one kind of went with the other there.
I never heard of that.
Yeah.
And that joke's probably not going to make it in the original episode since no one laughed here at it.
And that's the thing I'm saying about we do this just in front of a studio like this.
And so we're just like.
You can try your jokes out here.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
I should try them out here.
Now I'll know if some of these.
But I did bring some of my best of season 20, the first season.
So some of that aren't as topical that might last a little longer.
But yeah, go ahead.
Speaking of the way that things, you can't tell if they're parody or not.
There's this meme that went around.
This girl created this top 11 ways fascists are defending Kyle Rittenhouse.
And I can't tell if this is real or not.
Number one, and these are all quotes people say to that.
You can't tell if she's joking.
I can't tell if she's joking.
And I went through a Twitter trying to figure out if she's, and she seems like, I can't tell.
So these are things people say, and you can tell they're fascist because they say this.
He was acting in self-defense, defending property.
Two, he was crying real tears.
Three, he deserves due process.
What you can tell is a fascist because he's crying real tears.
You say he was crying real tears.
If you say he's crying real tears, you're a fascist.
Yeah, she's serious.
This isn't about white supremacy.
The victims were white.
And the girl, by the way, her pronouns.
She has her pronouns.
She, her.
They're she, her.
But anyway, it goes on.
Put yourself in his shoes.
The victims were no angels.
So what do you think?
Paired ear.
The facts of the case.
The facts of the case, dot, dot, dot.
That's how you can tell you.
That's a sign of facts.
You can't tell because that's a sign of fascism.
Say that you're a person who relies on facts.
Right.
You're a fascist.
Right.
So that is, yeah, that is frightening.
Fact, because the word fact is in fact almost.
We could actually write the satirical version of what she's doing right now.
It wouldn't be identical.
Have you heard of sea lioning?
That might be really good satire.
Sea lioning.
Sea lioning.
How is Kyle racist?
How is this white supremacy?
How is he not acting in self-defense?
Other incessant questions.
Was it like a seal or a sea lion?
Sea lion.
Was a sea lion the same thing as a seal?
Do they do this?
I was trying to figure out that.
Is that a puffin?
How is Kyle racist?
Not you, Kyle.
Oh, I'm not.
Yeah.
How is this white supremacist?
I'm going to look up sea lioning right now.
Sea lioning.
Yeah, I've not heard of sea lioning.
But these are jokes freshly written yesterday.
Okay.
So pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence and repeated questions while pretending to be civil.
That's sea lioning.
It's like what about this?
Pretend to be civil.
How is that sea lions or no names?
Hey, man, it's so good to see you.
Such a faker.
Well, I think it's like phone someone on Twitter and being like, well, what about this?
And then they answer something else, and then you just ask another question.
Well, what about this?
I think I've been sea lioned before.
Yeah.
Are you okay?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, people don't like questions today.
Hey, I bet you've been itching and wondering about becoming a subscriber to the Babylon Bee podcast.
I mean, we're always prodding and poking you to do it.
Well, here's another poke: 10% off.
How's that sound?
Just enter the code podcast next time you go to that BabylonB.com backslash plans page.
You go there, backslash plans.
You put in P-O-D-C-A-S-T, 10% off a whole year of Babylon B bliss.
We'll see you there.
So, Kamala Harris is, this is a true fact.
So, this is, so I'm a fascist.
That's a true fact.
Kamala Harris is more unpopular than Vice President Dick Cheney, but we need to rest assured Oliver Stone will not make a movie about her.
Good-natured chuckle.
Thank you.
That's all we want.
The good-natured chuckle.
We'll call that a three on a scale of one to five.
Although, I'll have to let you know that he would do better than tracks up at everything.
Patrick does.
He's the perfect Christian audience.
And he's Catholic.
Not even a number.
Well, it is disappointing because I've written a screenplay about Kamala, her time in office.
It's called Searching for Mexico.
It's the story of Harris's intense belief that the country has no borders.
So intense is this belief that she never visits the border because it's not really there.
You only got a little snort out of Patrick's snow.
That's the problem with political humor.
It is tough.
Political humor has always been like, I remember when I was doing the secular clubs and there was a guy named, what was his name?
Will Smith.
No, it wasn't Will Smith.
He was a political.
Will Durham Wallace?
Anyway, he was a political comic that never became nationally known, clearly.
And because it's like he did political comedy, but it was always just kind of a chuckle.
But he had actual content.
Well, the hard thing about it, you don't know which news stories people are following, and they have to really know the details to get a lot of the jokes, and that's something we run into.
It's like we don't know which ones.
You got to go.
People know this one.
You almost kind of have to give them, like I did that.
I tried to make a joke or rapid fire.
A tweet going about.
You give them the context first.
You have to give them the context first and then make fun of it.
You know, like the tweet going around about Kamala Harris and she's a great part of the team.
Oh, Soccer Jinzaki's tweet.
Yeah, the Jen.
That was fantastic.
Saki or Pasaki.
Did you see that?
What's that?
I think it's Saki.
I don't know.
I'd say it like the Japanese drink.
Fucking.
That's okay.
Out of nowhere.
Jinzaki goes.
Actually, Kamala Harris is great and a wonderful person.
She just said that.
She's like, I don't know.
Like on Twitter.
She's not reliable.
That's why we've given her, you know, we've given her control over the border crisis and over voting rights and then unstable internet connections.
I'm not sure how that falls in there, but yeah, they put her over broadband somehow.
It is fun to watch all the politics and stuff.
And it is so hilarious on its face.
It is such a clown world, you know.
It is a clown world.
It sounded depressing, but I think if you can laugh about it, it's good.
Did you put the, was it you that quoted, you had a quote from the Rittenhouse trial of the prosecutor?
Because the, I can't remember the exact quote, but your final line was, said the man in the clown.
Was that you?
I didn't write that.
No.
You didn't write that.
Okay.
But that came from the Babylon B.
Yeah.
Okay.
Someone else wrote the card.
All right.
All right.
Joel, good job.
Good job.
He liked your joke.
You probably wrote that.
Well, are we ready for subscriber lounge?
Yeah.
Let's dive into the subscriber lounge, which we're already sitting in.
We'll put on our rolling.
We're going to put on our smoking jackets.
Yeah.
And we're going to deep dive.
Worst bombs.
Worst bombing stories.
Oh, I've got a good bombing story.
Aside from this one about the political humor today.
Yeah.
Second worst bombing story.
And then we're going to get all the skinny on Christian celebrities, all the dirt about them.
Yeah, talk about Carmen.
I wanted to get through these, though, so I could see which ones are going to be funny.
But anyway, give us the last couple of weeks.
And we're going to do more on the subscriber portion, too.
We'll do it more on the subscribe.
Okay, we'll save it for this.
If you want to see more hilarious political jokes, you got to subscribe.
Red to you.
Live.
Will Patrick laugh?
Will he force a little more air out of his nose?
We're going to find out.
All right, here we go.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
Tell us about one of the worst moments of your life when you bombed horribly on stage.
Bombed horribly, yes.
Some of the greats, you are a connoisseur of great comedy.
Well, I think at least you'll have a new bombing story to tell next time.
A new bombing story.
Well, I don't even have to tell the bombing story.
You can watch the bombing story yourself.
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Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.