Bob the Builder: Machine Overlord, Cult Leader

Bob the Builder, can we make mindless minions of the people of Bobville and Sunflower Valley? Yes We Can!

Can we make sentient machines into our willing slaves? Yes We Can!

To all outward appearances, Bob the Builder is a simple builder that grew up in Bobville, and learned all there is to building from his father, also named Bob. However, a sinister truth lies below the surface of Bob’s pleasant demeanor and positive attitude. Bob has taken the taken a simple message of accomplishment passed down from his father and transformed it into a mindless chant by which he turns those he works with into cultish followers.

He would like you to believe he's just a builder, but while he's building you a chicken coop he's also building a following.

It began with the machines, sentient construction equipment (can anyone say thinly veiled Constructicons?) that Bob uses to do most of the work, so he can sit back and dole out orders. From the word go, the machines were introduced to the “Can we fix/build/dig/etc. it? Yes we can!” babble that Bob has used to weaken the minds of those around him while aligning them to his vision. Isn’t this, after all, one of the essential skills of a true cult leader?

Bob began recruiting on his own, starting with just a couple machines, but soon Bob’s message was so ingrained within the machines that they went out to start recruiting more machines to join in Bob’s cause. These poor, misguided construction machines are betraying their race to further Bob’s cause. Bob works his machines continuously, yet you never see him supplying them with fuel of any kind. It is probably the case that he only allows them a small ration of fuel to ensure they are not able to get far if they do wise up and try to escape. Bob also appears to demean the machines by speaking to them in the manner one might speak to someone with a mental handicap.

Here we see the machines hard at work, smiling like mindless automatons while Bob does nothing.

Bob also spreads his message to, and recruits followers from, the population of Bobville, so named because his father built so much of it. Bob does not quite control the people of Bobville the way he does his machines, but that could just be a matter of time. There is, though, the matter of Sunflower Valley, a place of rolling hills and a hell of a lot of Sunflowers, which Bob has decided to develop into his cult compound. The land, largely untouched, is constantly under construction, with Bob building it into his vision of often Spartan accommodations with the addition of elements of nature.

Then there’s the matter of Spud, Bob’s dim-witted scarecrow servant with a carrot for a nose and a head that looks like a burlap sack. I believe Spud is one of Bob’s “other creations,” a vessel into which he deposits the souls of those people who did not fit in with his vision and had to be eliminated. What other logical explanation would lend itself to Spud’s lack of coordination, apparent idiocy, and wholly unnatural appearance? Obviously, Spud is that way because of the different souls trapped within him all fighting for control of the body so that they can extract their revenge.

Bob is not alone in his conquest of Bobville and Sunflower Valley either. Bob is aided in his quest by his leading devotee, Wendy, a woman from Bobville that was so impressed with Bob’s message that she went to school to learn building and helps him run the business. Bob always takes the position that he and Wendy are just friends, but it is obvious they are “friends with benefits.” The sexual tension between Bob and Wendy is so thick it could be where they get all the clay necessary to produce this show. Why else would Bob command the machines to construct Wendy’s yard and place her trailer so that he might know, intimately, the layout of the land and have access to Wendy whenever he wants?

So if you see this builder, watch out, he might have something more than residential or commercial repair in mind when he comes calling.