Funny / The Protomen

"Panther tries to remember the name of every robot master and has to start over a few times."

''The Protomen songs: an interpretation at 2 in the morning

• At one of their concerts, they had Gumby dance on stage while playing "Highway to the Danger Zone".
  • Five years later, it got a call back in the Sons of Fate clip "Gumby VS The Protomen."
• Right before they played "Total Eclipse of the Heart" live, there was this exchange:
  Fan: Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto!
  K.I.L.R.O.Y.: I'm not sure how to say "You're Welcome" in Japanese, so I'll just say... De nada.
• The circumstances behind the release of the "Breaking Out" demo. A fan poked somewhere he wasn't supposed to go and ripped a low-quality MP3 of the song, posting it on the forums. The Protomen edited out his post, then released a high-quality version in their newsletter, reasoning that if everyone was going to have one they may as well have it in good quality.
• This fan interpretation of Act II's second half. Every single word.
  Lasergoose:
  "Climb... Climb to the tooooop of the world... And when you staaaaand tall, you will see..."
  Joe sings, breathlessly, between swigs, as he nears the top of the tower.
  Then he forgets the rest of the words, and starts over.
  Six times.
• Due Vendetta has this:
  "BUBBLE MAN!"
• In this video, the crowd gets a little too into The Sons of Fate. Two words: Nerf gun.
  "These people watched you die..." "And apparently they're trying to kill me as well. Now you see why I hate all these dicks!"
• At a 2008 Greenville show, the fans built their own Mega Buster, which Panther used to kill Protoman. After the killing blow, he said this.
  Panther: ...You built the weapon that destroyed your hope. Way to go, Greenville.
• "Beard's Going Nowhere." The song is not only extremely unexpected coming from a band as dark as The Protomen, and it quickly goes from an "I Want" Song/Silly Love Song to Dr. Light using his beard to fly into space with his lover.
  • Special mention goes to the monologue at the end.
  Girl, it's time for me to go...
  Where only a man can go.
  My heart is on fire, and if I don't feed it fast,
  It'll just burn up and fade.
  I love you, girl. You've got to know that.
  You'll be so proud of me.
  You'll watch me hop on my pegasus, girl.
  Ten thousand angels singing for me as I ride my pegasus through the city,
  To the edge of the city and then out of the city and into the fields...
  Fields thick and strong like the beard that I'll grow.
  You'll watch as I ride through the night.
  You'll see, I'll set the night on fire with my burning heart and my glorious man beard!
  And everyone will love me, and I'll finally be a man!
  I'll finally be a man!
• Tons of things from the news posts, especially the random tangents Commander and Panther get into at times, as well as an occasional message from Murphy.
• This post hilariously outlining both albums.
  • "Canonized" by the band via their Twitter.
  • Since the Queen album's version of Due Vendetta, looking pretty accurate.
• Get Down From There, Reanimator. It's just as funny when someone other than Reanimator does it, like Scartoe, Turbo Lover, or Panther.
• The Ascended Meme of Panther doing a mostly Wood Man Due Vendetta at the August 23 2012 West Hollywood show, with plans to save the all Wood Man song for another time.
• The most common technical mishap in live shows is one or both "Sons of Fate" helmets not working. This is often lampshaded in-character.
• The band's worship of Shark Week; once they were asked how Doug Fetterman died, and they responded by saying a shark ate him over a week and that's how Shark Week began.
• When Scartoe and the Keymaster left the band, the Protomen commemorated them both and said all who have gone would play on an eternal stage of glory... except the Keymaster, who'd be a pharmacist.
• At MAGFest 2013, the band reconvened in Jamspace, after their main stage show was cut short, to play Due Vendetta on a meowing plastic cat keyboard christened "Freddie Meowcury". It was equal parts funny and awesome.
• During the Magfest 2011 performance, the climax of "The Sons of Fate" quickly shifts from heartwrenching to hilarious.
  Protoman: That was a keytar... right... in my junk. I'm okay... no, I'm not. Goodbye, world! *limps off stage*
• One news post opened with the image of Protoman's head on a dollar bill a la George Washington.
• At the 2013 Cleveland show, the Protoman helmet cut in and out during "Hope Rides Alone."
• The band's 10th Anniversary Show featured a pinata shaped like Doug Fetterman. According to witnesses, Commander hit its head off.
• In one performance of "The Hounds," Wily threw his hat out to the audience pretty early on in the song. Towards the end he forcibly took it back. Because he's EVIL!
  • Sometimes he'll climb into the crowd while singing and deliberately bump into people. Hard.
• This Sons of Fate clip has Protoman calling the rest of the band back out for an encore to fight... by calling them sissies and insulting the audience.
  • Later, Panther gets revenge by ordering him crowdsurfed all the way out the door.
  Panther: That's what he gets for trash talkin' the Protomen.
• During their 2013 Australian tour, the band had to rent a tour bus for two weeks to ride around in. What they got was this◊. This caused some mixed emotions between the highly questionable paintjob and the low price they had to pay to rent it. The file name being "Stupid Van" makes it even funnier.
• Commander rides an electric skateboard to awesome music.
• In the Light up the Night music video, the first thing Joe does upon meeting Light is ask for a drink. Joe being a huge alcoholic is a popular interpretation of him in the fandom.
  • KILROY's first inclination on waking up is to greet the citizens like he usually does at shows, then realize he doesn't know where he is.
• This interview reveals the ups and downs of the band's touring life, including a time where they almost died to Wii Bowling.
• The store description for the wrist protectors is chuckle-worthy
  Protect your wrist as you throw punches to an ignorant civilization. Choose between two phrases from "The Good Doctor". Or get one for each wrist so they don't become jealous and you don't become asymmetrical.
• This forum topic about how much Dr. Light's life sucks, written before Act II was fully revealed, turns from sad to hilarious with one line.
  The next morning, Light pours a bowl of cereal, and it bursts into flames.
• Halfway through the Live in Nashville version of "The Hounds", Turbo Lover says "...Dramatic pause..." during a dramatic pause.
• In the Steve Snyder Cut of Tenacious D's vaccination-themed parody of a Ramones song, the Protomen step out of their tour bus to get vaccinated with dramatic music playing...that soon switches to Yakety Sax and sped-up footage as the same members keep pouring out of the bus. Then, after a timeskip, the same music plays as they climb back into the bus and drive off, with a "Three Seconds Later" time card after the bus door is closed.
• When the band's 2021 New Year's Eve show was postponed to April 9, 2022, the Protomen pretended the actual year was postponed as well.
  I don’t exactly know how we’re supposed to tell the whole world that 2022 has been postponed by 4 months, but I guess the word will get out. And hopefully there won’t be any kind of Y2K stuff going on with toasters and lawn mowers becoming sentient and such.
• A 2022 mailer reminding readers about the then-upcoming European tour went on a tangent about boats solely to segue from a previous paragraph, then to Makeup and Vanity Set's fictional fear of boats just to run with the previous theme, before finishing up with a reminder that the whole boat thing was just for narrative convenience.
• When Protomen affiliate John DeLucca posted about a manga where Mega Man became a dentist after defeating Dr. Wily, the Protomen jokingly scolded him for spoiling Act III for everybody.
• In preparation for their first tour in two years, the Protomen made a playlist of Panther getting the band together via pagers, which included hilariously mundane activities along the way. Sir Robert Bakker was enjoying a nice latte, the Gambler was relaxing in the tub, Murphy Weller was feeding cows, Panther was busy trying to contact KILROY and called himself on the phone, Commander was mowing the lawn with a Brick Joke of the lawnmower moving on its own, Reanimator was interrupted playing video games, Shock Magnum was reading novels on the beach, and it turned out KILROY had been stuck inside the tour bus for two years straight and hadn't answered the pager cause his had died. Meanwhile, tour mascot Roomba McEntire, a Roomba, also answered the call and scooted off-camera dramatically.
• Their first Very Professional European Tour video had Panther fail to realize the mic wasn't on, and as soon as he got it working, the video ended.

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