Mr. Deity

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Yeah, if I could stop all of these things! Everybody says, "if you could stop all of these things, why don't you just stop them?"... I got things to do, okay? —Mr. Deity.

Mr. Deity is a series of short comedy films that premiered on YouTube before moving to Crackle and then moving back to YouTube again.. They concern the daily existence of the titular Mr. Deity (Brian Keith Dalton), the Creator of the Known Universe, who is presented here as a slightly vague, thoughtless and temperamental Hollywood Executive type (with a startling resemblance to George Lucas) who, although basically well-meaning, has an alarming tolerance for various evils and unpleasantness in his creation. Assisting him in creating and maintaining all existence is Larry (Jimbo Marshall), Mr. Deity's long-suffering and nebbishy P.A, and 'Jesse' (Sean Douglas), an actor hired by Mr. Deity to portray his son, and who really isn't looking forward to that whole crucifixion deal he has coming up. On the other side of the table, Hell is maintained by Lucy (Amy Rohren), Mr. Deity's on-off girlfriend, who agreed to manage Hell as a favour to Mr. Deity and really wasn't pleased by those passive-aggressive references to her being a 'snake' in 'the script'.

As it sounds, Mr. Deity is all about spoofing organized religion, Christianity in particular, and the various beliefs and peculiarities that surround it - however, unlike many such spoofs, the shorts manage to poke fun without coming off as being mean-spirited or offensive.

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Tropes used in Mr. Deity include:

• Affectionate Parody: Of all religion.
  • At least at times. Some jokes are pretty friendly, and could easily be shared at church or sunday school, such as Mr. Deity using a clapper for when he said "Let there be light." Others are some pretty biting satire of legitimate concerns about the most common portrayals of the Biblical God, with the first episode featuring Mr. Deity allowing all sorts of horrible things in his creation, even after being told that there was no reason to do so.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: 'All the evils in the world are ideologically driven: the Crusades, the Holocaust, no third-party apps on the iPhone..'
  • This trope is present from the beginning. The very first episode had Mr. Deity deciding whether to allow the presence of evils such as Down's Syndrome, natural disasters, holocausts, Celine Dion...
• The Bible: Referred to as 'the script' throughout; one short revolved around Mr. Deity's annoyance at an 'unauthorized' version going around, with a misprint in which homosexuality is referred to as an 'abomination' owing to a mix-up.
• Buffy-Speak: The Place of Things and Stuff.
• Crossover Cosmology: While Mr. Deity is the only god to appear on screen, the Greek gods and Allah have been mentioned as existing in this universe and having offscreen conversations with Mr. Deity.
  • Technically, Allah did appear on-screen in Season 4. Said screen however, was completely black, them being in a dark matter showroom and all.
• Even Evil Has Standards: About the only consistently positive characteristic Mr. Deity possesses is that he likes gay people, and is pretty upset about how badly represented his opinions on gays is.
• God
• God Is Evil: Mr. Deity is extremely self-obsessed, loves the smell of blood, doesn't like anyone disobeying him, and, in addition to allowing in unnecessary levels of evil 'just because', created Hell.
  • Alternatively...
• God Is Flawed: Mr. Deity isn't exactly evil, but he is alarmingly lax in some areas; he'd do something about the bad things in the world... except that he just finds it easier to say 'yeah, leave it in'.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: Aversion; Mr. Deity doesn't seem to get anything but enjoyment from hearing his name used or having people pray to him. In fact, he doesn't even bother to listen to more than a handful of prayers each day - the rest, stored as voicemail on his phone, are erased.
• Hurricane of Puns: The season 4 finale. A short example:

Mr. Deity: (attempting to initiate the Big Bang with his iPhone) I'm out of battery!...I left Pandora running in the background! Larry: You opened Pandora's box? Mr. Deity: Was I not supposed to do that? Lucy: (handing him another iPhone) Here, take my Apple.

• King of All Cosmos: Mr. Deity is essentially a George Lucas parody who has control of all creation.
  • At least a significant chunk of creation, anyways. There's a mention, in Season 3, of what the Greek gods are giving their people, in comparison to what Mr. Deity has come up with.
• MST3K Mantra: "Lucy, please, this is no time to worry about continuity!"
• My Name Is Not Durwood: His name really is Jesus. Mr. Deity just keeps on mistaking it for 'Jesse'. Even a news ticker gets this one wrong on one occasion.
• Prequel: Season 4 explains how Mr. Deity got started.
• Pronoun Trouble: When Mr Deity and Jesse try to understand the trinity, complete with word counters for "You", "Me" and "I".
• Satan
• Retcon: Season 4 doesn't really fit with earlier seasons. The first blatant case of this was Mr. Deity meeting Jesus.
• Rule of Funny: The exact nature of the entities who are the main characters makes no sense unless you just accept that they run on this trope.
• Satan Is Good: Lucy is presented as quite amiable and decent.
• Shameless Self Promoter: Parodied, sort of; at the end of every short since about Season 2, Brian Keith Dalton shows up and both (a) thanks the audience for watching and (b) essentially begs for money. He at least has the decency to be reasonably funny, clever and entertaining about it, though.
• Take That: Again, to organised religion; while it's mostly good-natured and affectionate, the satire can get quite pointed at times.
• Top Ten List: The commandments.