Past Projects > Jerungdu > Barneezlebub
Barneezlebub: A Hillbilly Porn Opera is yet another original Jerungdu script written by Michael Donahue, Newt Skink, and Friends.
Don't let the title fool you. This is a "morality" tale. Many actors passed up roles in this show because of the content. That's only because they didn't plow through to the last page of the script where the moral of the play is encapsulated in one line: "The road to the gates of Hell is paved with shit bricks of bad taste... VERY BAD TASTE."
On the surface, this is easily Jurungdu's most offensive play... but it's also our most accessible. Every show we performed was sold out and every review was glowing. (See the reviews.)
The story features a seven headed purple creature based on a combination of the beast from Revelations and Barney the Dinosaur. We follow the paths of four children who appear on Barneezlebub's perverted kids show and watch them grow up to become strippers, porn stars, S & M freaks and meat fetishists until they ultimately appear on the Jerry Sprung Show.
I have a theory about kid shows like Barney. They are intentionally made to be utterly insipid and lame so that adults can not stand watching them. That makes them the perfect vehicle for brainwashing young, impressionable children with whatever kind of subliminal, Satanic programming the producers want to inflict upon them. And they can do it without any parental intervention whatsoever because adults can't tolerate watching it for more than two seconds. Adults will wrongly and blindly accept the marketing campaign assuring them that it's clean, wholesome, family oriented entertainment. This theory also applies to any and all Disney programming. That is basically the central theme of Barneezlebub.
A Funny yet true story: The first workshop performance of Barneezlebub happened at the Art Jones Gallery in Minneapolis in the Spring of 1998. One of the performers (who shall remain nameless) purchased $200 worth of psilocybe mushrooms before the show and gave them to several dozen of the audience, band, and cast members. Imagine half of the audience livid at the content of the show while folks next to them were laughing to the point of tears and the rest not sure what to think. That's Jerungdu in a nutshell. Barneezlebub normally produced that sort of reaction without the aid if psychoactive chemicals. The mushrooms only made it's target effect more intense.
Read the script.
Music Tracks:
This particular version explores what a string quartet and a barber shop quartet would sound like on acid and/or Viagra. It is also the first track on Jerungdu's second release The Pink and Brown Album.
A gay football anthem by the world's second best homoerotic football band (Queen is #1 in the power ranking). It was described by music writer Jim Meyer as "mad genius". This tune also appeared in Barneezlebub and is track 7 on Pink and Brown. This version is a new mix. I added stadium stomp clap samples from the original Queen song so it sounds less wimpy (yet somehow more gay).