Red Sea

From The Joe Frank Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Red Sea[1]
Series
Somewhere Out There
Original Broadcast Date
April 28, 1996
Cast
Joe Frank
Format
Absurd Monologue, 59 minutes
Preceded by: White Moon
Followed by: An Enterprising Man

There was a time when I was a televangelist. I had my own cable TV show.

Red Sea is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Somewhere Out There. It was originally broadcast on April 28, 1996.

Also see Red Sea (A Compilation).

An excerpt is available on the Joe Frank channel of YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kAaDHiyd2s

Synopsis

Joe tells of being a televangelist. He invented a new religion, wrote his own revision of the Bible, was on TV around the clock,[1] became immensely popular, got tired of it, drove off one night, ran out of gas in the desert, his car exploded into flame but was not consumed; later, he got in, drove back to his compound.

14: "10 × 10" by 808 State

15:10: Joe tells of a man cursed with eternal life.

20:40: "Go Faster" by Propellerheads

21: Joe tells of rich man who wants to keep his daughter away from a beggar, so he recruits a prince to come to marry her. He falls in love with the prince so he chucks his daughter into a wood chipper and lives happily ever after with the prince. No one could find a moral in this story.

27:40: Joe tells of a learned rabbi who, because of his failure to find a moral in the story above falls in love with Dixieland jazz, moves to New Orleans.

31:50: Joe tells us the story needs no explanation, 'explains' this in doubletalk.

33:30: A cantor sings prayers (in Hebrew) over "Go Faster".[2]

37:20: Joe tells of a rabbi's (a different one than the one at 27:40) wife who sleeps with everybody in town. When the rabbi confronts her, she takes offense, packs all her stuff and leaves.

43:40: Joe tells of a hermaphrodite and eunuch who share a hotel room. The hermaphrodite happily makes love to itself; the eunuch reads and goes for walks. They disapprove of each other. The eunuch buys a ticket to Minsk; the rabbi's wife gets on the train.

47: Joe asks what we learn from this story, offers some parody morals.

48: Cantor sings prayers over "Go Faster".[2]

52:30: Joe tells us people take pills; he tells us he takes the 'gos-pills'

53: "10 × 10" by 808 State

54:10: Joe describes what's on the Red Sea, including rowing crews from Harvard and a yeshiva.

57:10: "10 × 10" by 808 State

Legacy Synopsis

Joe is a televangelist whose life is broadcast continually. A man is cursed with eternal life. The story without meaning: a rich man kills his daughter who is in love with a beggar in order to run off with her fiance. The unfaithful rabbi's wife. The eunuch and the hermaphrodite. Taking the gos-pills, boats on the red sea.

Music

Additional credits

The original broadcast credits state: "Created in collaboration with David Rapkin. This program was recorded by Scott Fritz and Theo Mondle, and edited and mixed by Theo Mondle. Music looping by Bob Carlson. Special thanks to Jennifer Ferro and Esmé Gregson."

Footnotes

  1. perhaps inspired by Gene Scott, a wacky minister who was on TV in California 24/7 for some years
  2. 2.0 2.1 'the Shabbat morning Amidah. Specifically, the third paragraph of the Kedushat haYom (the blessing for the special day)' wrote a correspondent in Reddit's Judaism forum.