4 Reasons Pat Robertson Is Our Greatest Living Storyteller
Unless you remember the War of 1812 in vivid detail, you've probably never sat through an episode of The 700 Club. For those of you not between the ages of "get off my lawn" and "resurrected pharaoh," The 700 Club is a syndicated TV show that's been on the air since 1966. The program is usually hosted by 83-year-old televangelist, 1988 presidential candidate, noted Lich King Pat Robertson.
Most of what happens on The 700 Club doesn't make for riveting television -- it's just a talk show with a fundamentalist Christian slant that lost its cultural cachet years ago. But boy howdy, does the media love itself some motherfucking 700 Club.
You can add this to Geraldo and Donald Trump under "'80s icons the media mistakenly think people still listen to."
That's because every so often, Robertson tromps in front of the camera and yells zany shit like the 2010 earthquake in Haiti was caused by a Satanic pact, and gay people are responsible for hurricanes and 9/11. The news loves this because "Pat Robertson Says " is a story that writes itself. The 700 Club probably loves this because they get to pretend to be relevant again. It's win-win for everybody and nobody!
And Pat's chestnuts have become weirder as he grows more wizened. In the past month or so, Pat's made the headlines for his musings on everything from transgender people (they're sort of OK) to practical haunted house advice (burn it down, just kidding, but for real, move) to video game murder. ("If you're murdering somebody in cyberspace, in a sense, you're performing , whether you like it or not.")
This essentially makes all you Pokemon players worse versions of Michael Vick.
But what the press has yet to suss out is that Pat's comments aren't simply off-the-cuff remarks made by a Sith Lord clone of your grandfather. No, Pat Robertson is stealthily pitching the greatest action movie of all time. The man isn't preaching -- he's spitballing.
Does Pat even realize he's doing so? Unclear, but the evidence is all there if you connect the dots, the give-'em-hellfire-or-high-water Pat Robertson way! Simply behold four of Pat's greatest hits ...
It Never Hurts to Exorcise Sweaters from the Thrift Store
Earlier this year, a viewer asked if her Goodwill haul secretly harbored the spawn of Baphomet and Baal. Pat was on the case:
"Can demonic spirits attach themselves to inanimate objects? The answer is, 'Yes.' But I don't think that every sweater you get from Goodwill has demons in it It never hurt you to rebuke any spirits that have attached themselves to those clothes." -Pat Robertson, February 2013
Which suspiciously sounds like a line from The Mystery Method: The King James Edition.
Of course, Pat was mirthfully skeptical that the Whore of Babylon was possessing used Big Dogs pullovers. But in the same breath, he solemnly told the story of a witch in Thailand who enchanted a ring with a demon and sold it secondhand. We can combine this anecdote with his next quote ...
The Gay Illuminati Spreads HIV with Rings
And earlier this week, Pat got into hot water when he announced the gay people are evil Green Lanterns:
"You know what they do in San Francisco, some in the gay community there, they want to get people. So if they got , they'll have a ring, you shake hands, and the ring's got a little thing where you cut your finger really. It's that kind of vicious stuff, which would be the equivalent of murder." -Pat Robertson, August 2013
"Boom! One more victory in the gay war on friendly straight people...or, whatever this is."
Incidentally, the folks at Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network deemed it prudent to edit Pat's remark out of reruns (likely out of fear of retribution from this homosexual cabal with almost assuredly haunted assassination jewelry).
In any case, we now have our villains of The 700 Club: The Movie, but they're not nearly diabolical enough. Also, we lack a big-money Hollywood star! Fortunately, Pat dropped the following truth bomb in 2007 ...
Martial Arts Masters Huff Demons for Super-strength
" took ghetto kids and made them very fine citizens. So teaching martial arts in that context is a very good thing But if you get into that business where those who are involved in martial arts before they start are actually inhaling some demon spirits -- some of them do that by the way -- that all-enormous strength comes not from a human source, but a demonic source." -Pat Robertson, November 2007
"It was in a documentary I saw. Their bodies were all glowing and stuff."
We're pretty sure Pat stole that quote from a GZA song, but that's neither here nor there. We now have the ultimate nemesis: gay ninjas with cursed mood rings that insufflate poppers filled with brimstone. If he didn't find the game demonic, we'd assume that's Pat's very own Dungeons & Dragons character class. (Note: Pat finds everything demonic.)
"Guidance from Satan's hand" would go a long way toward explaining the movie.
Additionally, Chuck Norris, aka the star of the straight-to-VHS classic Forest Warrior, reforming a gaggle of Coolio worshippers affords us a formidable second-tier protagonist. But for our action hero, there really is one option ...
Pat Robertson, He Who Can Leg Press 2,000 Pounds
Back in 2006, when Pat Robertson was marketing his very own protein shake, he stunned the world by announcing he could leg press one ton. This wasn't like the time Andy Rooney vowed to lose 20 pounds in one month and nobody was sure if he was joking or not. No, the then-septuagenarian Robertson was dead serious about his personal best, never mind the fact that A) no one ever saw him do it and B) the strongest of football players press 600-plus pounds less.
"But I'm powered by God and old man and dad strength."
So there you have it -- a Herculean Methuselah, and a rough treatment for the greatest story ever told since The Greatest Story Ever Told. Sure, today's youth wouldn't know Pat Robertson from It's Pat, but all that will change should The 700 Club: The Movie ever hit theaters. Those no-goodniks will put down their twerking and smash some Buddha statues, like upstanding citizens do.
Cyriaque Lamar is an editor here at Cracked. You can find him on Twitter.
