The Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Program was a Los Angeles Public Access program run by songwriter, singer and puppeteer David Liebe Hart. Spanning an impressive run of nearly 20 years, The Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Program was just that — a Christian scientist Children's Program. It featured Liebe Hart controlling a cast of animal puppets and ventriloquist dummies while delivering lectures on the dangers of alcohol and drugs, Bible hymns in which said puppets would sing, and very, very strange video editing and visual effects. It has been hailed as the most bizarre children's program ever conceived.
Each episode featured a Special Guest who would give an affirmation for kids on the dangers of drugs, and would help Liebe read passages from The Bible and sing with the puppets. The cast of puppets included "head reader" Albert Hermann, Chip The Black Boy, Teddy Eddy and several others.
According to many accounts, the show exuded a certain hypnotic charm. The puppets, as creepy and frightening as some of them were, are very funny to watch, The show itself is fun to laugh at in kind of a So Bad, It's Good kind of way, granted you can sit through the lengthy sermons and Anvilicious anti-drug sentiments read by people who look like drugged-out hippies.
Tropes:
- Chroma Key: Abused heavily, to the point where parts of cast members and puppets will be bluescreened out and amazing technicolor backgrounds used rampantly. To note, in some episodes, Liebe Hart's name isn't legible in the post-credits sequence due to the severely-dark blue background.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Liebe Hart believes the Catholic Church, mainline Protestant churches, and the Jewish people teamed up to erase aliens from the Bible
. Furthermore, he believes the U.S. government is covering up aliens' existence while also using all their technology. - Creepy Doll: Albert Hermann and Chip The Black Boy
- Drugs Are Bad: Don't do the drugs there.
- Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Underground Legend Count Smokula makes a few appearances with his accordion. The idea of a blood-sucking creature of the night who smokes tobacco on a largely anti-drug Christian show is a sizable Logic Bomb.
- Funny Animal: Though not the way they intended.
- Funny Background Event: Likely unintentional. Whenever they're not the focus, the puppets will often just stand stock-still... or in at least one case, slump against the podium as if asleep or dead.
- Long Runner: The show amassed thousands of episodes over a 20-year timespan, with plenty of topics covered and appearances by special guests.
- Melismatic Vocals: Reserved for the Bible hymns.
- Once per Episode:
- Liebe will ask the Special Guest: "Do you have an affirmation to teach kids to say no to drinking and drugs?"
- "We have the very talented ________ on today!"
- Only Sane Man: Adam Papagan was the only recurring guest to both acknowledge the absurdity of the show and question it (for example, here).
- Opera: Liebe Hart's preferred singing style.
- Special Guest: Tim and Eric from the titular series of the same name, along with various public access hosts (Count Smokula, Francine Dancer) and other media personalities.
- Stylistic Suck
- Surreal Humor: Anti-drug lectures delivered by a talking panda bear, puppets that are demonstrably falling apart, references to Hart's ex-wife and background, fourth-wall breaking comments and surreal musical performances make it unintentionally funnier than most other public access shows.
