Baman Piderman is a Web Animation by Alex Butera and Lindsay Small, featured on Mondo Media. It follows the lives of Baman, Piderman, and several others who inhabit a white, empty landscape while having surreal adventures. New episodes are sometimes featured on Attack of the Show!.Baman and Piderman are basically crudely-drawn Batman and Spider-Man knock-offs with weight gain and toddler-like intelligence. They live in separate houses, with Baman coming over to Piderman's house in nearly every episode. Their two friends, Pumkin and Tuba, live in Piderman and Baman's houses, respectively. Later episodes introduce characters like Dese Guys (off-color versions of Baman and Piderman with deeper voices who live in Piderman's basement), Baman's boss (a giant, yellow cat-like thing that comes and goes as it pleases), and Squib (a mass of green tentacles that acts like a Tsundere towards Pumkin). The show is mostly absurd humor wrapped around occasional hints at a much darker subtext... that usually turns out to be more absurd humor. Unfortunately, the series was Cut Short, with "Play Da Concert"being the final episode.
This series provides examples of:
Acrofatic: The leads are pretty hefty, but at least Baman runs (or rolls) fast. Piderman can walk on walls.
Art Evolution: The first couple of episodes featured art that was a bit more crude than it is now. Piderman gains more weight over the course of the series, his head becomes more triangular, and his eyes go from vaguely resembling Spiderman's mask to elongated elipses. At the beginning, he actually looks like Spiderman.
Berserk Button: Do not tell Baman's boss or squib a joke.
Bizarrchitecture: Baman is able to drive his house using a ship's steering wheel. It has no wheels, tracks, or any other plausible way of moving.
Piderman's house is two stories, but the top story has at least five stories worth of stairs up to it.
There's a floor under that one that can only be accessed through a trap door in Pumkin's bedroom, and the only exit is through a hallway too long to exist inside the house that leads to a laundry chute to the basement.
Even in-universe. During a tea party, they offer Baman some stew.
Baman: What kind of stew?
That guy:BLOOD stew.
Baman: Eeeeeww.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: In Make Da Cards, a Youtube ad appears at the bottom of the screen. They both stare at it until Piderman clicks to close it with his hand.
Butt Monkey: Pumkin got carved (seemingly painfully), rotted, and is always tossed around (even after getting his body).
Baman's started to go toward this. Boss kicked his house, Tuba's Dad makes him uncomfortable, a giant snowflake destroyed his house, and then he lost his job to Squib.
And "Play da Concert". Explanation included this time.
Cerebus Syndrome: Happy Winter Friends is Darker and Edgier than the preceding animations. Although that really isn't saying a lot considering how light the show is.
It gets better again afterward.
Chest Insignia: Piderman's is real a spider, though. Baman uses his as a storage shelf.
Companion Cube: Tuba and Pumkin are sentient versions of this.
Tuba communicates by making tuba sounds. She moves by dragging herself along the ground, and drinks "Peabnut Bubber" as medicine.
Pumkin can be seen moving around on his own and can operate a phone. He also functions as a video game console. After he's carved by the Dese Guys, he can scream and later rots.
Continuity Porn: Virtually everything that happens has lingering effects and consequences, even the smallest of things, and the show retains pretty much perfect continuity.
For example, since Make da Cards Piderman's door has been shattered from when Baman came inside.
There have been tracks in the dirt where Baman drove his house ever since Pwactice the Counting.
Looks like Baman's living with Piderman now, since his house got destroyed by that giant snowflake.
Piderman's spider always has only 5 legs, both the one on his chest and on his back.
When Piderman is writing a letter to Baman and is finished, he drops a pen into his leg and his leg absorbs it. In the first episode of season 2, he ejects the same pen from his hand and writes with it.
The cereal that turns you green makes a reappearance in Happy Winter Friends (Part 2).
The ghost that appears at the end of "Weirdy Feeling" came out of Baman's wish wand when Red Squib broke it in "Play Da Song".
When Pumkin walks past the spooky mirror that shows everyone's skeletons in "Ghost Night", his skull resembles the face that the Dese Guys carved into him at the end of "Guess da Number".
Crapsaccharine World: The show always maintains a bright and goofy style, but darker elements are introduced over time (even if they do eventually revert back into the goofiness).
Cut Short: Much to the chagrin of the creators, the series will end in a relatively low-key normal episode with no Grand Finale or Sequel Hook.
A recent twitter post suggests they may have worked something out, considering Lindsay's excitement. No promises at this point, though.
Cute Ghost Girl: The specter that was haunting Piderman is revealed to be this in "Ghost Night."
Depth Deception: Happy Winter Friends starts with a traditional opening credits set on a closeup of falling snowflakes... until you realize this isn't a close up, they're actually giant snowflakes.
Dramatic Unmask: When Baman takes off his mask for Pumkin, Piderman is shocked. Pumkin faints when he takes it off again.
Drone Of Dread: In That Guy's and The Other Guy's first appearances, there is a very subtle drone playing in the background.
Early Installment Weirdness: The first two episodes are less episodes of show and more pure, distilled idiocy in animated form. Character Development starts in "Make Da Band", when the theme song is established and Tuba is introduced. The episodes before "Guess Da Number" are much more nonsensical, being barely comprehensible piles of Mind Screw and Baman and Piderman are just barely a step above The Unintelligible.
Evil Counterpart: Dese Guys. They differ in that they are colored differently, and their costumes are switched except for the masks. The mask shows who they're the counterpart for. More mischievous than evil though.
Expository Theme Tune: See Ear Worm. Baman actually runs through it once when things seem amiss. ...Piderman come over da house? Piderman also makes Baman recite it when Baman's acting not himselfto prove it's him in Revealations.
Dese Guys get one as well. Less catchy than the original, but funnier.
Freeze Frame Bonus: Sometimes Baman loses pieces of his body, but only for a split second.
In "Squib Week", the book Pumkin is reading is shown to be Pride and Prejudice.
Funny Background Event: In "Frow Da Party", Tuba is seen near the beginning jumping into the pie-pizza-portal-thing, and later one of the doors in the background of Piderman's house mysteriously has a new sticky note attached to it in every shot.
Hostile Show Takeover: Dese Guys want to sing their theme song instead of the shows in the beginning of "Weirdy Feeling."
Hypocritical Humor: After Squib tears up Pumkin's Feets Day card, Baman complains that Squib doesn't do anything, that he's just fat and lazy and sits at the house all day. Cue Pumkin motioning towards both Baman and Piderman who have both fallen asleep on the floor, with their fat bellies sticking up in the air.
Hell Is That Noise: Piderman feels this way about Pumkin's screaming in Hab Da Sleepover. invoked
Leitmotif: Sometimes when Dese Guys are nearby/appear a faint creepy Drone Of Dread can be heard in the background. It's the only real instance of music in the series aside from the Christmas specials and Feets Day song.
There's one that plays during Squib's interactions with Pumkin.
Mundane Utility: Piderman has the same abilities as Spider-Man, such as walking on walls and the ability to shoot webs out of his wrists. He uses these for unnecessary purposes, such as grabbing small objects or dragging himself along the ground instead of walking.
The Quest: Baman and Piderman go on "da Journey" in Happy Winter Friends.
Rubber Man: Baman can stretched, squished, and pulled through himself.
If you look closely on some videos, you'll see parts of him pop off for a moment. In Happy Winter Friends (Part 2) he is split in half just before jumping through the window.
In Frow Da Party he oozes out of the couch, and grows more arms.
In Fimd da Jobs he duplicates, then the doubles melt back into one another. Also, when he is moping around outside, he starts flying like a bird, and his left arm pops off.
And in the introduction sequence of one episode, having dealt with Dese Guys stealing the spotlight, he walks through a wall to get back to his previous position.
Baman is smarter than Piderman, but by how much we don't know.
Piderman: Baman!! How did you do dat!?! Baman: It's better if you don't know...
Spell My Name with an S: The pumpkin's name, Pumkin, is actually only spelled with one P, similar to how both Baman and Piderman are missing a T and an S respectively.
is a Web Animation by Alex Butera and Lindsay Small, featured on Mondo Media
0 reviews