Girls Girls Girls

The Mormon Church

A dead-on parody of The Bachelor explores the Mormon’s early practices of polygamy. As the eager Bachelorettes discover, being wife number four isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Welcome to History Bites I’m Rick Green.  The history of America is the story of settlers searching for freedom.  Freedom of religion, freedom of choice, and freedom to better yourself.  So it’s a bit shocking to discover that one group of settlers left America searching for religious freedom.  Freedom of choice and freedom to better themselves.

In the mid-1800s the Mormons departed from the 29 States of America.  Their exodus took them to the Great Basin in the Utah Territory.  They left behind the eastern evils of drink tobacco and monogamy. 

The Mormon Church’s sacred and often secret practice of taking more than one wife made them vulnerable to arrest. persecution and even murder. 

Let’s channel surf to 1857 to see a thriving young religious community struggling
with controversial ideas in a hostile land, because where can you see a guy date 25 women and get away with it? On
television.

The Bachelor Mormon Parody

Last season on The Bachelor out of 25 women competing for his hand Ezekiel chooses Lettie for his wife and now 25 newly converted women get ready to experience love romance and polygamy as they try to win the heart of The Bachelor – before we launch into bachelor 2 let’s talk to bachelor 1 from last season.

Ezekiel did you make the right choice?  Oh absolutely uh I’m very happy.  Everything, it’s just great, he’s a really hard

worker and he’s attractive handsome and good-looking.  Any tips or suggestions for a bachelor to follow your heart and remember that the woman you pick you’re gonna be spending eternity with here on earth and in the afterlife.  And now we’re gonna take a look at this seasons bachelor.

Ezekiel Barton is a 35 year old barrel baron from Salt Lake City. His successful coopering company produces, distributes and repairs barrels for his fellow Mormon saints all over Utah Territory.  Oh welcome back Ezekiel one perfect match calls for another and another and another.  I mean that’s one of the great things about Mormonism today right, like you can marry more than one wife.  And does Lettie feel as excited as you do?

 

I’ll tell you how I feel, Oh no this is ridiculous.  Lettie this is not what we were Lettie.  Lettie can I just talk to you Lettie.

She’s great with it she really is I mean it’s not as if we’ve discussed it or anything, but you know one of the things I love about Letty is that she has a traditional view about honoring and obeying her husband and the teachings of the church and God.

Rules are simple one man and 25 eligible women.  A bevy of pilgrim beauties from Utah Territory and some new arrivals from England and Denmark.  They’ll each spend some time with Ezekiel.

And later this evening in what we call the desert rose ceremony he will offer a Utah desert rose to the women he has narrowed his choices to.

Martha Stewart Oil Parody

Firm muskmelon.  If you’ve ever done some posthole digging you might have come across this black boozy substance which we call petroleum.  Now this might seem like a nuisance but petroleum can actually be a source of income.  Bottle it up and sell it as a great home remedy for constipation.  It’s a popular laxative.

 

Promised land.  That’s right that’s right exactly you see this is the New Jerusalem and you know what I was doing this weekend in New Jerusalem? Get this, out in the Sun digging ditches.

[Applause]

You know we all have to do our part right we off the pitch in to help with irrigation or else you know it yeah.

People think the punishment is that bad. No no no come on I mean you die of thirst from you know lack of water.

Oh right. Well in my house the other wives and I have 11 children and believe me that’s enough irrigation for anyone!

Yes you know you should put them open your lawn like little sprinklers.

It must have been difficult for Mormon recruiters to convince a young woman to journey thousands of miles to the middle of nowhere and then share a husband, but hey once you’re in the middle of nowhere sharing a husband may be the least of your worries.

 

We also ask the women competing on The Bachelor to tell us why they emigrated to be on the show.  I’m so fed up with the barn scene it’s such a meat market and all the men out there talking bowl all the time a poultry.  I want to settle down I’m a settler.  I came to America with my my parents and they died on the voyage over.

I’ve had a lot of experience with hardship and heartache and loneliness and I think that’s what makes me a perfect candidate as a Mormon wife.

 

Yeah I was married. God told my first husband to trade me for the wife of another gentleman.  She was younger. Thirteen.  Then my second husband he died on his 93rd birthday too, but you know as they say third time’s a charm.

He’s good-looking although a bit arrogant, kind of effeminate but then you look at the other guys you can afford plural wives. They’re old and they smell.

It’s just the Deborah is fit I mean she is extremely fit and I mean you know I’m fit too.  I mean I’m not saying the other girls aren’t fit but it’s just the Deb, you know she she makes it a priority.

We were at my dad’s farm.  I was showing him how I Drive the oxen with the till I think that really impressed him.  I mean a lot of girls think they can handle a til.  You got a plow in a straight line or your cornrows are all wonky.

Crossfire Parody of The Mormons

Tonight lovers in dangerous times.  After negotiations break down between the government and former Utah governor and polygamous Brigham Young the president is sending in US troops to quell the Mormon uprising.  2,500 soldiers will make their unwanted advances on the women loving Mormons.

 

Now Young has said his militia are prepared to fight.  It appears God has commanded the Prophet to make love and war.

 

All right my question is why are we persecuting people with different beliefs?  Does the phrase freedom of religion ring a bell?

Does the phrase manifest destiny ring a bell?

Regis & Kelly Parody

Absolutely, do you have any new plays coming up?

John Thomas Caine (parody) well you know we’d hope to mount Seven Brides for one brother but the thing is they’re closing the theater.

 

Regis Philbin (parody) Oh hosing down the only theater in Salt Lake City? I’m guessing that’s because of the approaching US Army?

Yes. Now as you know the US is sending 2,500 troops here to remove our god-given governor Brigham Young.  That separation of church and state thing so we have to get this city ready for a siege.

 

[Applause]

Nobody loves a good bloody war more than me but if the US government thinks it can get rid of Brigham Young then I say no to theatre and yes to war!

 

A lot of us feel that way and that’s why I have joined up with the Mormon militia.

Is that right wow!

Bill Clinton Parody

Well Ezekiel it’s been a week have you got any sense of the other girls yet or are you just exhausted?

Oh I am tired oh yeah I mean I mean first I had to winnow through all the applications you know? Are they Mormons? Can they cook?  Would they survive a winter and childbirth? but now that I’ve met it I mean they’re so nurturing, and with so many women’s feelings involved you know people could definitely get hurt here.

Like Lettie?

Letty which one?

Your first wife?

Oh Oh Lettie yeah oh yeah she’s a great little lady yeah yeah oh yeah this is all about her feelings for sure?

Kelly Ripa Parody

What does your husband do Nancy?

Whatever required, you know farming and building and lately sabotaging the US military’s advance on our territory.

 

Great like blowing up railway line yeah like that?

Right and interrupting their food supply, burning and destroying everything so the American troops only captured scorched earth.

 

I heard about that.  Okay today’s prize is four tickets to the Brigham Young theatre to see John Thomas Kane.

So here’s your question.  When the angel Moroni gave Joseph Smith the gold plates with their mystical inscriptions he also gave him something else to help him read them.  What was that thing?

A pair of magic spectacles?
Yes!
[Applause]

The Mormons who headed west in the middle of the 19th century were seeking safety and shelter.  They wanted a new land far from the hostility and violence that they’d faced in the East, but despite their best intentions Mormons are fallible too and their new community soon developed its own share of homegrown hostility.

 

Regis Philbin Parody

If you’ve been reading the news following a story of the planter wagon train, terrible.

Yeah those guys were bad, they passed through our territory without permission, insulting us Mormons, poisoning our water supplies, real ruffians. You know you don’t really believe things that you hear about outsiders until you hear it from somebody who actually knows something about what they did.

Sure, anyway, well I guess they got what was coming to them because a few days ago the entire wagon train died.

It is so weird isn’t it it’s so hand of God.

Yeah well uh hand of God assisted a little by the hands of some friendly Indians.

Friendly?

Well you know friendly to us!

They are something those Indians.  You know, they’re the Lost Tribe of Israel.

That’s right anyway and you don’t mess with the Israelis they’ll smite ya.

Yes Peter, that’s the rumor, but even if Brigham Young didn’t conspire with the Native Americans to wipe out this wagon train. The human bones gnawed by wolves and charred by fire do send a very strong message to outsiders who are considering crossing the Utah borders.  Especially during this period of martial law imposed by the governor Brigham Young.

After the hundred and twenty men and women in the caravan had surrendered and been shot dead.  If that’s what happened because you know I really have no idea and I I don’t speak Navajo or Hebrew.   17 small children were left orphaned, yeah orphaned.

 

They’re backstage and these kids are adorable I mean a little shell-shocked but cute as all get-out.

And these little guys are looking for adoptive parents right Galman? Well geez look at Galman he’s hyperventilating because there’s gonna be kids on the show!

Continue Martha Stewart Oil Parody

Or anal retentive like me, you might find a little swig of this oily stuff keeps you in touch with nature.  I like to fill up these little glass bottles and sell them to my neighbors and friends for some extra cash.  It’s not much but it takes something worthless, petroleum and turns it into something valuable.

Continue Bill Clinton Parody

When you only have one wife well folks make fun of you.  You know they go oh look at Mr. one wife, look at mister monogamy, look at Mr. monotony, so there’s all kinds of pressure there.  Plus I’m also doing it for her because the rules say that when you get to heaven and you only got to one wife because you’re not a polygamist, well that one wife you do have will be taken away from you.  So yeah I’m doing this for her.  Well for for both of us or, however many.

So Shannon did he kiss you?

I’d rather not say.

Come on we all saw you going behind the chicken coop together, I think there was more than just eggs being laid back there.

You are so not going to win!

Some ex-saloon girl like you is.

Scooby Doo Parody

This Indian massacre is odd, very odd, if it weren’t for the arrows and bullet holes I’d say these settlers had starved to death.

They should have eaten their oxen ha, you said it scoot?

Why is it odd Zama?

The Paiute Indians don’t use these kind of feathers or these kind of bullets.

Or these kinds of tomahawks?

Rick Green: Eyewitness accounts describe the horror of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but forensic testing in 1999 told an even darker tale. Denied the supplies they needed from the Mormon towns the men women and children in the doomed wagon train had been starving for weeks, and when they died it wasn’t in a frenzied gunfight against attacking Indians.  Many were shot at point-blank range not so much a battle as a mass execution.

So you got right in there and you pulled the arrows from your mummy, boy amazing too bad you couldn’t pull out the bullets!

And then did you run away from the Indians?

What’s that I can’t hear what you say? White men had guns too?

White man I think she’s a bit mixed up.

The Morman’s saved you sweetie.

I think the Mormons…

I don’t think the Mormon’s killed daddy honey.

Kids  I’ll tell you they say the darndest things.

Coming up we’re gonna teach these orphans to sing the Mormon Hancock song.

[Applause]

Continue Scooby Doo Parody The Mormons

There’s the real villain.

Like it’s Mr. Dithers.

He was trying to scare off new settlers.  Mr. Dither;s scalped anyone who came into Utah.  The headdress meant everyone blamed the Indians.

I would have made it too if it hadn’t been for you interfering kids.

That explains the box of makeup we found.

Like yeah and this crazy wig.

Jinkies Shaggy, that wasn’t a wig.

Oops like I think I just scalped the scalper.
[Music]

I mean are you glad you emigrated here?

No I absolutely hate it here don’t you?  Everyone seems so guarded, and you kind of feel like like people are spying

on you all the time.

I’ll tell you I do certainly not feel that way, I mean I love it here in Utah and especially the fine rules implemented by our leader Mr. Brigham Young.

 

Oh him, what was it he said?  You commit a sin you will pay in blood? I mean what does that mean, I suppose he wants us to kill people?

 

Fiona, nobody kills anybody here except God, and his duly appointed deputies.

 

Americans are really gun mad it’s just crazy what are they thinking?

 

Fiona isn’t afraid to speak her mind I’ll give her that.  I’ve never really met a woman like that before you know, at least not out here.  No.  Well there was one but she well but you know I really am attracted to her yeah I think Fiona might be the one, but then again I think I am gonna talk to my bishop about what she said about the Prophet.

 

But despite his he kills feelings tragedy strikes and the desert rose ceremony is delayed because Fiona has disappeared.

 

I don’t like it.

 

Look what happened to Fiona was for the good of everybody including Fiona.  She obviously wasn’t fitting in she was trouble.  Now we have a better chance at

surviving.

When we return the competition heats up as The Bachelor starts to look more like fear factor.
[Music]
The Mormons who settled in Utah left behind persecution and hatred and they gained desert.  Turning this salty
landscape into productive farmland would require incredible effort and lots of labor.  So Mormon missionaries scoured
America and Europe recruiting young people to the faith and then bundling them off to Utah with promises of heaven

on earth.  You can imagine their surprise when they arrived and they found out that heaven was parched, flat, and heavily salted.

 

I loved our days at the tannery I hope you did too.  If you gave me a Desert Rose I wouldn’t spit on it.

 

I want to remind you about what I said about how many children we could have together. I want to have lots of children and I think you want that too.

 

Ezekiel when I first came here and converted to the church I didn’t know much about polygamy, but now that I’m here, in the middle of nowhere, nowhere to go, I’m really hoping to

give it a try.

Well Ettie I  think I finally got it narrowed down.

 

Hallelujah.

 

Yeah, to the ten on the right.

HollyWood Squares Parody

I’ll pick Joan Rivers to block.

 

Hello Joan. I hear your book about the Mormon pilgrims and their journey west is out now.

 

Yes it’s called ‘Can we Walk?’ seriously my daughter she’s become a Mormon and she’s gone out there, out west she’s married she’s third wife, and I’m telling you she’s gonna be

number one, there’s no stopping her.

Joan in 1838 a horrible thing happened to the Mormon community.  What was that horrible thing?
They ran out of chores to do.   No they’re talking about the horrible Horns Mill Massacre, awful down there in
Missouri, the governor’s extermination order and some vigilantes massacred like 17 or 18 Mormons just terrible.
Absolutely I’ll agree.

All In The Family Mormon Parody

Arch! America was built on immigrants why should it be any

different here in Utah? No immigrants have been coming to North America for hundreds of years seeking freedom.

 

Oh that’s just my point, the first ones you get are the good ones, they’re neat and sanitary and they work hard like
us.  Now you’re getting your leftovers, there too sloppy lazy ones.  Well just take a look at the great Platte River rolled out there meathead, a beautiful trail through the West and now it’s just one long garbage receptacle,  littered with hundreds of dead horses there, discarded stoves.

Oh what kind of junk.

I heard the reason the immigrants leave things behind is

that they’re exhausted, stoves are heavy.

You see that lazy, worse than Indians.

Now if Ezekiel should offer you the Desert Rose you are not obligated to accept it, but remember we are surrounded

by a hundred miles of desert mountains, undrinkable water and vultures.

 

Okay let’s get started. Amanda. Amanda will you accept this Desert Rose?

 

Yes I will.
And I’d like to make a second selection if I may. Deborah.

Deborah will you accept this Desert Rose?

I’ll just take them all, I mean that’s legal right?

 

The American government kept up its pressure on the
Mormons to give up polygamy, and the Mormons kept resisting.  Mormons wanted Utah to become a state but the American government wasn’t going to let that happen while Mormons still allowed multiple wives.  Finally in 1892 the

Mormons officially abandoned polygamy.  Today the Church of the latter-day saints is still a huge force in Utah with much to its credit, but like most religions that have to fight for their right to be different it has a checkered in turbulent history and History Bites.

 

How’d you like to pull a hand cart over hundreds of miles over thousands of miles of wilderness?

First of all I wouldn’t be pulling no hand cart meathead I’d use mules.  These Danes and Limeys they’re all financially

incontinent.

If they was better with their money they’d used Conestoga wagons like a normal guard field.

 

Daddy the reason they don’t have any money is cuz they donated it all the Mormon Church before they came here.

 

Then when they get here they they have to work like slaves for the American bosses.

 

Well boohoo they don’t want you they can pack up their hand carts and go back to Scramdinavia