Baman Piderman

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"We're best fwiends!"

Baman Piderman is a Web Animation by Alex Butera and Lindsay Small, featured on Mondo Mini Shows along with the popular Happy Tree Friends. It follows the lives of Baman, Piderman, and several others who inhabit a white, empty landscape while having surreal adventures. New episodes are sometimes featured on Attack of the Show.

Baman and Piderman are basically Batman and Spider-Man with weight gain and toddler-like intelligence. They live in separate houses, with Baman coming over to Piderman's house in nearly every episode. Their two friends, Pumpkin and Tuba, live in Piderman and Baman's houses, respectively. Later episodes introduce characters like the Basement Monsters (off-color versions of Baman and Piderman with deeper voices who live in Piderman's basement) and Baman's boss (a giant, yellow cat-like thing that comes and goes as it pleases).

Tropes used in Baman Piderman include:
  • Acrofatic: The leads are pretty hefty, but at least Baman runs (or rolls) fast. Piderman can walk on walls.
  • Anthropomorphic Objects: Pumpkin and Tuba.
  • Art Evolution: The first couple of episodes featured art that was a bit more crude than it is now.
  • Artists Are Not Architects: Baman's house has no way of moving, and Piderman's house is just absurd.
  • Basement Dweller: The Basement Monsters
  • Base on Wheels: Baman is able to drive his house.
  • Berserk Button: Do not tell Baman's boss or squib an jokes.
  • Bizarrchitecture: Baman is able to drive his house using a ship's steering wheel. It has no wheels, tracks, or any other plausible way of moving.
    • Piderman's house is two stories, but the top story has at least five stories worth of stairs up to it.
  • Blank White Eyes: Baman, Piderman, and the Basement Monsters have these all the time. Judging by Baman's eyes, they aren't caused by their masks.
    • When Baman got pupils he gained telepathic powers.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: One of the ingredients needed to make the Basement Monsters' "cookie pie" is blood.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: In "Make Da Cards", a Youtube ad appears at the bottom of the screen. They both stare at it until Piderman clicks to close it with his hand.
  • Butt Monkey: Pumpkin got carved (seemingly painfully), rotted, and is always tossed around (even after getting his body).
    • Baman's started to go toward this. Boss kicked his house, Tuba's Dad made him uncomfortable, a giant snowflake destroyed his house, and then he lost his job to Squib.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: "Happy Winter Friends" is Darker and Edgier than the preceding animations. Although that really isn't saying a lot considering how light the show is.
  • Chest Insignia: Piderman's is real a spider, though.
  • Cloudcuckooland
  • Cloudcuckoolanders
  • Companion Cube: Tuba and Pumpkin are sentient versions of this.
    • Tuba communicates by making tuba sounds. She moves by dragging herself along the ground, and drinks "Peabnut Bubber" as medicine.
    • Pumpkin can be seen moving around on his own and can operate a phone. He also functions as a video game console. After he's carved by the Basement Monsters, he can scream and later rots.
  • Continuity Nod: Baman Piderman has pretty consistent continuity.
    • For example, since "Make da Cards" Piderman's door has been shattered from when Baman came inside.
    • There have been tracks in the dirt where Baman drove his house ever since "Pwactice the Counting".
    • Looks like Baman's living with Piderman now, since his house got destroyed by that giant snowflake.
    • Piderman's spider always has only 5 legs, both the one on his chest and on his back.
    • When Piderman is writing a letter to Baman and is finished, he drops a pen into his leg and his leg absorbs it. In the first episode of season 2, he ejects the same pen from his hand and writes with it.
  • Cool Gate: The Basement Monsters' pie portal.
  • Cool Mask
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: In "Happy Winter Friends", Baman makes a snowman explode with his mind.
  • The Ditz: The two leads.
  • Depth Deception: "Happy Winter Friends" starts with a traditional opening credits set on a closeup of falling snowflakes... until you realize this isn't a close up, they're actually giant snowflakes.
  • Dramatic Unmask: When Baman takes off his mask for Pumpkin, Piderman is shocked. Pumpkin faints when he takes it off again.
  • Evil Counterpart: The Basement Monsters. They differ in that they are colored differently, and the Piderman clone is wearing a cape instead of Baman.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: The Basement Monsters have deep voices. They aren't evil, but they do like causing trouble.
  • Expressive Mask
  • Expository Theme Tune: See Ear Worm. Baman actually runs through it once when things seem amiss. ...Piderman come over da house?
  • For the Evulz: The Basement Monsters
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: Sometimes Baman loses pieces of his body, but only for a split second.
  • Fridge Logic: In "Hab Da Sleepover", just how did Piderman get that cookie pie in his mouth?
  • Good Times Montage: "Hab Da Sleepover"
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: The leads with each other, and their basement counterparts.
  • Hypocritical Humor: After Squib tears up Pumpkin's Feets Day card, Baman complains that Squib doesn't do anything, that he's just fat and lazy and sits at the house all day. Cue Pumpkin motioning towards both Baman and Piderman who have both fallen asleep on the floor, with their fat bellies sticking up in the air.
  • Interspecies Romance: Baman appears to be married to, or at least dating, Tuba.
    • See I Want Grandkids below.
  • I Want Grandkids

Tuba's Dad: *in subtitles* Say Baman... when are you going to make my little princess... an honest tuba?

  • Form-Fitting Wardrobe
  • GASP: Piderman when Baman takes off his mask.
  • George Jetson Job Security: Baman lost his job to Squib pretty quickly.
  • Hell Is That Noise: Piderman feels this way about Pumpkin's screaming in "Hab Da Sleepover".
  • Leitmotif: Sometimes when the Basement Monsters are nearby/appear a faint creepy tune can be heard in the background. It's the only real instance of music in the series aside from the Christmas specials and Feets Day song.
  • Magic Feather: In "Happy Winter Friends (Part 2)", turns out the wish was literally inside of Baman all along.
  • Mangled Catchphrase: This is how Piderman is able to deduce that the Baman that comes over to his house in Revealations isn't really Baman.
  • Meanwhile Back At The: Piderman invokes this in "Happy Winter Friends (Part 2)".
  • Mundane Utility: Piderman has the same abilities as Spider-Man, such as walking on walls and the ability to shoot webs out of his wrists. He uses these for unnecessary purposes, such as grabbing small objects or dragging himself along the ground instead of walking.
  • Naughty Tentacles: The tree from Happy Winter Friends (Part 2)
    • They come to live with Baman and Piderman under the name of Squib, even taking Baman's job and ripping up Pumpkin's Feets Day card.
  • No Mouth: Piderman, his basement counterpart, Tuba, and Pumpkin.
  • Only Sane Man: Pumpkin, as he appears to be the only one who acknowledges just how strange the rest of the cast's antics are.
  • Pointy Ears: When Baman takes off his mask, it's revealed that those pointy things really are his ears... or horns... or something else.
    • They do perk up when he's surprised/in danger/excited and do the opposite appropriately.
  • Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Baman has some.
  • The Quest: Baman and Piderman go on "da Journey" in "Happy Winter Friends".
  • Rubber Man: Baman can stretched, squished, and pulled through himself.
    • If you look closely on some videos, you'll see parts of him pop off for a moment. In "Happy Winter Friends (Part 2)" he is split in half just before jumping through the window.
      • In "Frow Da Party" he oozes out of the couch, and grows more arms.
      • In "Fimd da Jobs" he duplicates, then the doubles melt back into one another. Also, when he is moping around outside, he starts flying like a bird, and his left arm pops off.
  • Silly Walk: Baman and Piderman. They rarely really walk, but just sort of roll around.
    • And when they do walk, its like watching a baby's first steps.
  • Simpleton Voice: Baman, Piderman, and the Basement Monsters.
  • Smarter Than You Look: The Basement Monsters seem to know more than they let on.
    • Baman is smarter than Piderman, but by how much we don't know.

Baman: *blows up a snowman using his mind*
Piderman: Baman!! How did you do dat!?!
Baman: It's better if you don't know...

Piderman: Baman!! Dat tree's moved!
Baman: Piderman, it's just a moving tree. Don't you remember? *flashback to watching a tree move*