Douglass Smith

J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and The Church of the SubGenius

What started out as an inside joke amongst two self proclaimed weirdos in Ft. Worth, Texas soon becomes much more than they bargained for. Frustrated by the rising consumer-driven culture, out-of-work pals Douglass St. Clair Smith and Steve Wilcox decide to turn their conservative southern ideology on its head and invent a new religion all their own. Spurred on by the overreach of religion and zealous televangelists of the day, the pair concoct religious monikers (Reverend Ivan Stang and Dr. Philo Drummond), a newly minted prophet (J.R. "Bob" Dobbs), and devise a crusade to expose the conspiracy of normalcy by using humor as the ultimate weapon.

God's Cartoonist: The Comic Crusade of Jack Chick

A documentary about the world's most published and controversial comic artist: Jack T. Chick. His cartoons, conspiracies, and controversies are revealed for the first time on screen. Both critics and supporters give a complete view of this mysterious recluse, the invisible mastermind behind the Chick empire.

Something New to Die for

Portrait of The Church of the SubGenius in scratch, which means high speed cutting, media manipulation. Contains clips from the Arise, the Church's own film about itself (recrutment video), the SubGenius MTV productions, and TV interviews with sacred scribe Rev. Ivan Stang, intercut with a barrage of weird clips from movies and television.

Arise! SubGenius Recruitment Film #16

A brain-crushing collage of music and video presented in the form of a religious recruitment video. The topics covered (in deadpan narration) are basic psychology, the origin of the human race, spiritualism, religious dogma, UFO's, the end of the world, and the group's figurehead, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.

Let's Visit the World of the Future

A travelogue inviting viewers of today to come visit the future. The person who found this mysterious 16mm film in his basement in 1973, Rev. Ivan Stang, later ran The SubGenius Foundation, the Slack Prophecy religion devoted to Texas cult religion salesman J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.