Satire
In 1985, two men began distributing a video they compiled lampooning Tilton and his ostensible conversations with God. The video exploits Tilton's facial expressions and preaching style. Entitled Pastor Gas, the video featured a medley of footage from Success-N-Life overdubbed with well-timed sound effects of flatulence. Unofficial VHS copies of the video circulated in the United States through the late 1980s under such titles as Heaven Only Knows, The Joyful Noise, and The Farting Preacher. After the hosts of The Mark & Brian Show, a radio program in Los Angeles, mentioned the video on the air, the video's authors saw the market potential and began selling official copies of their creation. Similar videos have since been made in more recent times using more recent footage of Tilton and are distributed throughout the internet, all under the Farting Preacher name. The video distribution (including digital bootlegs distributed online) expanded public awareness of Robert Tilton and his controversial television ministry.
The stand-up comedy material of Ron White also includes mention of Robert Tilton. In the opening to White's act in the first Blue Collar Comedy Tour movie, Ron claims that "while sitting in a beanbag chair naked eating Cheetos," he finds Tilton on TV and believes Tilton is talking specifically to him: "Are you lonely?" "Yeah." "Have you wasted half your life in bars pursuing sins of the flesh?" "This guy's good..." "Are you sitting in a beanbag chair naked eating Cheetos?" Ron gapes in horror before squeaking, "...Yes sir!" "Do you feel the urge to get up and send me a thousand dollars?" (pause for effect) "Close! I thought he was talking about me there for a second. Apparently, I ain't the only cat on the block (who) digs Cheetos!"
In the early 2000s, the Trinity Foundation put together a number of news broadcasts, including the initial Primetime Live piece, from the years surrounding the investigations into Tilton's ministry on a DVD entitled The Prophet of Prosperity: Robert Tilton and the Gospel of Greed. The DVD also includes segments from The Daily Show's "God Stuff" (hosted by Trinity Foundation member John Bloom, a.k.a. Joe Bob Briggs), excerpts from the Pastor Gas videos, and a number of mocking music videos, as well as moments from Success-N-Life showing Tilton's more outrageous claims of "visions from God."
A comedian on BET's ComicView once made fun of Success-N-Life, mainly because BET usually aired it immediately following their explicit music video show Uncut.
Read more about this topic: Robert Tilton
Famous quotes containing the word satire:
“What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word politic, which now for the ages has signified cunning, intimating that the state is a trick?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Comedy has to be done en clair. You can’t blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)