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Author’s note: This is an edited version and a retake of the story Faith Buddies. Some of the text is taken from the originally story and is changed to have a newer context as well as the rest of this story being mostly original. Please read the original story first to give due credits to the original author.
The landscape of late-night and early-morning television is often a lonely, desolate place. You know the kind — it’s the hours between the midnight hour and dawn when most of the world is asleep, but you’re wide awake, your mind buzzing, restless. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve found myself glued to the screen, flipping between channels with an eerie mix of detachment and curiosity, watching infomercials about things like “boner vacuums,” overpriced facial cleansers, or miracle weight-loss pills. I’d sit there, slack-jawed and half-conscious, my brain in that hazy limbo between waking and sleep, thinking, “Why am I doing this? What happened to me?” You feel a little bit like you’re trapped in the equivalent of a digital wasteland, a place where nothing good or meaningful can exist.
The worst part? You can’t even turn the TV off. It’s like you’re pulled into a hypnotic trance, unable to look away, as the mind-numbing content unfolds before you. And in that odd, dreamlike state, the things that should be strange or funny end up feeling… not exactly real, but still profoundly unsettling. It’s hard to explain, but it’s as if you’ve crossed over into a parallel reality, where nothing has quite the same sense of gravity or meaning.
Television, especially late-night TV, has become more and more sterile in recent years. The days when you could stumble across something that made you question everything — those are long gone. The world is controlled by sponsors, the content regulated by a narrow set of rules, and nothing feels truly subversive or dangerous anymore. Everything has been sanitized, packaged, and sold with the same corporate precision as any other product on the shelf. The networks no longer take risks. There's no space for the bizarre, the uncomfortable, or the unnerving.
But on rare occasions, if you’re willing to dig deep enough, you still find something — a show, an image, a moment — that leaves you unsettled, like a splinter under your skin that refuses to be removed. I stumbled upon one such show years ago, and it’s haunted me ever since. It was called Faith Buddies.
To understand why Faith Buddies left such a lasting impression on me, you have to know a bit about my childhood. I grew up in a Protestant family, just your average, suburban Christian household. We went to church every Sunday, prayed before dinner, and lived by the values taught in the Bible. But when I was about ten, everything changed. My parents decided to move us from the bustling city to a small town in the middle of nowhere — a town so deep in Calvinist territory that it felt like stepping into a strange, self-contained world.
The town had the air of something out of a dystopian novel, a place where life seemed to follow an unspoken, rigid set of rules. The kind of place where every conversation, every relationship, and every event seemed filtered through the lens of predestination. It wasn’t just a Calvinist town; it felt like it was Calvinism. The people here believed, with a near fanatical certainty, that everything — from the smallest detail to the grandest cosmic scheme — had been determined long before birth. Your fate was sealed from the moment you took your first breath. Some were chosen for heaven. The rest? Well, they were destined for hell. There was no room for doubt, no room for questioning. You either accepted it or you left.
At first, my family tried to adjust. My parents were trying to be good, committed members of the community. But soon, we found ourselves out of place. At church, everyone was constantly measuring their own piety, comparing their salvation like people measuring their wealth. It wasn’t enough to just be saved — you had to prove it, every day, in every action. I remember the pressure. The constant sense of surveillance, the unspoken rule that if you didn’t toe the line, you risked being shunned, judged, or worse, abandoned by God.
The most unsettling part of living in this town was the air of inevitability that permeated everything. People spoke of life with an eerie calm, as if nothing really mattered because it had already been decided. And while that might sound comforting to some, for me, it felt like I was living in a glass cage, constantly aware that I was being watched, both by my community and by God. There was no escaping the suffocating weight of it all.
My classmates at school seemed to know their place already. They could talk about sin and salvation with the same ease as discussing the weather. The children at the playground would compare their chances of going to heaven, making bets about who would be chosen and who would burn in hell. In a way, it made me feel like a prisoner in my own mind. As a kid, I couldn’t fully grasp the implications of what I was being taught. But I could feel the walls closing in.
I didn’t talk to anyone about how I felt. I didn’t think anyone else would understand. So, I retreated inward. When I wasn’t at school or church, I would wander around town by myself, avoiding the all-knowing eyes of my neighbors. That’s when I first discovered Faith Buddies.
I can still remember the first time I stumbled upon it. It was a Sunday morning, and I was alone at home, skipping church for reasons I can’t quite remember. I had flipped on the TV out of habit, clicking aimlessly between channels until I landed on the public access station. The colors were murky, the picture grainy, but there was something strangely captivating about the puppets on the screen. The show was seemingly filmed in our local area.
The show looked to have a low-budget, and was religious children’s program that aired at strange hours, typically either on Sunday mornings or evenings throughout the rest of the week. The characters were simple — three puppets: Pinky, the pink, an oddly shaped creature with small eyes that kind’ve looked like Kermit the Frog, Berty, a dim-witted blue hippo, and Gerta, a fuzzy green bird. The premise was simple: the puppets would encounter moral dilemmas and turn to Pinky, the “wisdom figure” of the show, for answers. As I watched, something felt off. There was a strange tension in the way Pinky spoke, something cold and distant, not like the warm, gentle characters in other kids’ shows I’d seen.
Pinky wasn’t kind, and he wasn’t patient. Instead of comforting the other puppets, he treated them with a harsh, almost cruel condescension. If Berty or Gerta asked a question, Pinky would answer in a flat, almost dismissive tone, as if they were stupid for not already knowing the answer. I don’t know why, but I found myself drawn to it. It wasn’t the puppetry or the storytelling that held my attention. It was Pinky — the way he was so unfeeling, so blunt, like he was trying to teach lessons, but in a way that didn’t feel right.
Pinky’s way of answering questions was particularly unsettling. There was no gentleness, no attempt to soften the hard truths of faith. His answers were terse and pointed, like he was teaching lessons that were meant to be uncomfortable, to make you squirm. I remember one episode where Berty asked Pinky why bad things happened to good people. Pinky’s response was chilling: “Don’t question God’s ways.” There was no discussion, no further explanation. Just a cold statement that left Berty, and me, in stunned silence.
This was very evident in the "Homosexuality" episode. Yes, they had an episode about gays and the “Lavender Scare”. And this delicate subject was treated with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer hammer on glass. Sodom and Gomorrah, drawings of bearded men french kissing, Leviticus 20:13, dubious statistics regarding AIDS among other things, the whole shebang. Pinky went so far as to suggest that prison rape was a mass conspiracy concocted by Satan to turn men gay. Yeah I know crazy shit for what was supposed to be “Children’s television”.
It was funny up until the end when this little girl was talking to Pinky about her older brother who had recently come out as gay to his family. Pinky proceeded to shriek and scowl at her about how he was a "sinner f***** destined for hell", leaving the poor girl on the verge of tears.
That was when I first started to really question what the intent was behind this show. It was always a little odd, but the latter episodes had become quite vile and mean spirited. It almost felt like satire since half of the stuff these characters were saying felt unrealistic.
Along with everything else, even the way Faith Buddies started an episode was strange. It would feature Pinky asking questions like "how do you feel about ___?" before saying "Today we're going to talk about" followed by a black title card showing a word like "Guilt" or "Forgiveness" in white font on a coloured title card.
But what really caught my attention were the Bible stories. This wasn’t a sanitized version for children. There was nothing cute or fluffy about them like you’d see in film adaptations of the Bible stories. When they told the story of Cain and Abel, the screen didn’t shy away from showing the blood, the violence. When they spoke about Noah’s Ark, the drowning people were shown in graphic detail. The plagues of Egypt weren’t just a lighthearted tale — they were depicted with a frightening intensity. Pinky would talk about God’s wrath with a zeal that made me feel uneasy, as though I wasn’t supposed to be listening to this, it was some kind of cult initiation.
It was the tone of the show that lingered with me, though. The sense of something darker beneath the surface. Even as a child, I could sense that something was wrong, that the lessons being taught weren’t just about faith and salvation — they were about control, about fear.
Years went by. I grew older, moved out of the small town, and distanced myself from religion. The memories of my childhood — of the oppressive atmosphere in that town, of Faith Buddies — faded into the background. I put all of it behind me, or at least, I thought I did.
It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties, living in a small apartment in a city where no one knew my name, that I found Faith Buddies again. It was a late night. I’d had a few too many drinks and was chilling out in an area not far from where my old home used to be channel surfing, mindlessly flipping through the stations. Something about the static of the public access station caught my eye. Without thinking, I clicked on it.
There it was. Faith Buddies. The same strange puppets, the same grainy visuals. But this time, I wasn’t a child. I was an adult, more cynical and world-weary, but still, I couldn’t look away.
The episode was about predestination, a key teaching in the Calvinist doctrine of Christianity. The word flashed on the screen in stark white text. It felt like a warning. I watched in silence as the familiar scene unfolded. Berty, Gerta, and some children were asking questions about predestination. Pinky’s voice was colder, more assured than I remembered. The children asked, “What does it mean to be predestined?” Pinky answered in that same emotionless tone: “Some are destined for heaven. Some are destined for hell.” He went on, saying things like, “You won’t know for sure until you die, but you can feel it in your heart.”
The children became visibly uncomfortable. You could see the fear in their eyes. One boy asked, “But how do we know if we’re chosen?” And Pinky, his face unnervingly still, answered, “You can’t know. But it doesn’t matter. You are either chosen, or you are not.”
After stating this, the camera panned to Pinky’s face as he turned his head around a bit to face the camera and glare at the viewer, before suddenly being cut off.
And then it came — the moment that would change everything. A title card flashed on the screen on a blackish red backdrop: “THERE IS NO REDEMPTION FOR THE DAMNED.”
What followed was a slideshow — disturbing, almost surreal. People burning in hell, their faces contorted in pain. People chained, devoured by monstrous creatures. The camera zoomed in on Pinky, his face an unblinking mask of joy. “This is the wrath of the Lord,” he said, as the screams of the damned echoed in the background. The gnashing of teeth and prying away at metal chains could be heard in the background, as well as the repulsive howling and snorting noises that came from the demons in the background.
Whatever they used to make those puppets I couldn’t tell you for the life of me if they were even puppets in the first place. The twisted forms resembles something born from the deepest caverns of a fevered mind. Standing just over seven feet tall, their bodies an unnatural assembly of gnarled, brittle limbs, each joint unnaturally articulated like a twisted marionette, yet with the semblance of raw, crude stitching that might belong to an unholy creature of old. I couldn't even tell if the thing was a puppet or costume anymore, or something worse…
Theirs faces—oh, their faces—commands attention, a horrifying mask of raw, pig-like brutality. Their skin was slick and rubbery, resembling an oiled boar’s hide, mottled in shades of dark, bruise-like purple, filthy gray, and sallow yellow. Thick, coarse black hair sprouts in patches along its brow and neck, clinging to the skin like an afterthought of some malevolent god’s design.
The eyes—huge, bulbous, and sickly yellow—bulge outward with an unnatural intensity, slit-pupils dilating in unsettling ways. They gleam with malevolent intelligence, a predatory gleam that pierces through the dim light, as if watching, calculating. The nose is a grotesque snout, not flat, but swollen and cavernous, with two large, flared nostrils that twitch with every shift of the puppet. A long, jagged set of tusks—yellowed and cracked, sharp as daggers—curl out from the sides of its face, resting almost menacingly against its bloated cheeks. The tusks glisten with something dark and sticky, perhaps oil, perhaps something worse.
Their mouths an open cavern, filled with rows of needle-thin teeth, each one too many for the puppet’s own face, its lips twisted in an eternal sneer, like it was mocking the very idea of mercy. Drool hangs in thick strings from the corners of its mouth, hanging like sinister threads ready to drop.
The rest of what was on screen was no better. A slideshow of illustrations appeared, but there was no Bible story, context or even a moral this time, just a glimpse of what the viewer has in store for them if they're not chosen;
- A man and woman hugging each other before being scorched alive all whilst being chained to a brimstone and coal covered floor.
- People with their feet chained to the ground being mauled by marauding demons whose mouths span their entire body, their bodies being ripped from their feet.
- People being impaled on spiked pillars by flying devils.
- People in the lake of fire having their bodies burned and regenerated forever.
- Several men and women being crucified on upside down crosses dangling above large metallic cauldrons full of fire.
The accompanying music is spliced with sounds of screaming and painful wails, with intermittent quips from Pinky such as "This is the wrath of our Lord" and "It makes me happy to see sinners get what they deserve".
As the images became more grotesque, more nightmarish, something inside me snapped. This wasn’t just a children's show anymore. This was something darker, something that went beyond religious propaganda. It was a warning, a ritual, something designed to instill terror.
And then, as the credits rolled, something even more unsettling happened. The scene shifted. A man in a black hood and robe entered the set. He stumbled around for a while before suddenly dousing everything in gasoline before setting the puppets on fire. The camera pulled back, showing the lights, the crew, the set. The show was over.
As I stared at the screen, I felt the cold, empty void that had been gnawing at me for years come rushing back.
The man in the hood — he wasn’t just destroying the set. He was destroying something much darker. The faint sound of police cars was also heard too.
The TV clicked off, and the room went dark. I sat there, shivering, unable to move, feeling like I had seen something I wasn’t supposed to see. Something that wasn’t meant to be found.
And I knew, in that moment, that I would never be the same again.
No one can ever unsee what I saw that night. However, one thing has always stuck with me upon retrospect. The show ran on a shoestring budget and often relied on making its own props and sound effects half the time. I’d hate to imagine where the screaming sounds came from…
Written by Djdeadpig 6934