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Hello
Bob,
your long time fan Melissa (A.K.A. Cyaneus) here, and I just saw
the news about your magnets on MSNBC as well. Seems to be the same
segment everyone else is referring to: a mallgoer is shocked and
appalled when he stumbles across a Jesus Dress Up set at Urban Outfitters.
Then there are a few clips of those that were shown the magnets
in front of a camera, saying how disgusting and inappropriate they
find Jesus Dress Up to be. Unfortunately MSNBC as well as the uninformed
mallgoers thought that you'd made the magnets to capitalize on the
popularity of "The Passion of the Christ," and couldn't see the
humor involved. Jesus Dress Up was long before "The Passion," if
only they knew ... they'd be even more dumbfounded.
I also
really enjoyed seeing the expressions of would-be hatemailers live
on TV! The consensus was that you're pretty sick--I couldn't help
but think what a field day they'd have with your site. Additionally,
the story on your magnets was shown right up against the one about
missionaries being murdered in Iraq. No doubt to intensify the viewer's
dislike for you, as it sort of lumps you in with the Iraqi shooters
as a Jesus-bashin' America-hatin'
My parents,
who do television news, say that you ought to talk to the folks
who interviewed you. They'll at least give you a copy of the interview,
if not a courtesy copy of the other segment. They do tend to be
awfully stingy about that kind of thing, so I'm told. I'm going
to try to tape it tonight, though, and I'll make you a copy if need
be.
Melissa
Date:
Mon, 15 Mar 2004
Subject: Dress Up Jesus
We've
been doing several stories in the Philadelphia area about the dress-up
jesus. Many locals are upset, in fact greatly offended by the magnet.
So our follow-up stories are balanced, we'd like a responce from
you and or your company. What is your reaction to the negative reactions
we've received? Our follow-up is running today at 6pm
Thanks,
Michael Pecker
WCAU-TV/NBC-10
[I will be on this show 7pm tonight]
Date:
Mon, 15 Mar 2004
Subject: interview request
I
am writing from WPHT radio in Philadelphia. As I see from your website
you know that a local TV station reported on your magnetic Jesus
product. We would like to have you on as a guest to talk about your
product for a few minutes by phone if you are available. My contact
info is below. Please get back to me when you can. Again, it would
only take about 5 minutes of your time by phone if you are available.
Have a good day.
Richard
Sacco
CBS/WPHT
RE:
The NEWS THING
Bob,
you rock it to the max (to borrow lyrics from the late Wesley Willis)
I've
been looking for the interview between MSNBC and yourself online
but they seem to be slow putting it on thier site or thier attention
span is extremely short and they've forgotten about you OR thier
website simply sucks.
I'm a
regular reader of your site from New Brunswick (in Canada... not
NJ) and this, of course is the only access I have to the 'story.'
My roommate
and I laughed ourselves silly at the first video feed we found after
I heard that you were covered in Philly. It was great, I tells you.
They were like ants in a shaken ant-farm. I thought the guy in the
story who wrote the letter to Urban Outfitters was going to cry
or something.
Keep
up the great work, Bob. You're one of the best web designers around.
I hope one day to meet with you in a professional capacity.
Mitch
Stewart
Subject:
The flaming of their life!
Damn,
Bob. I'm that insane person who sent in the "Nathan" story. I've
actually been a fan of yours for ages, and I've sent in emails before
that. I cannot believe the shit NBC is putting you through.
And Urban
Outfitters recalling their stock is just disgusting. I took it upon
myself to bestow the flaming of their life on those idiots, and
this is the result of a combination of PMS, too much caffiene and
a stuck Shift key.
"FUCK
YOU! FUCK YOU, NBC! Robert had those out years before that fucking
"Movie" came out, you just didn't fucking care then, did you?! No,
if something doesn't fit in with your fucking standards it has to
be picked apart!
You're
no better than a schoolyard bully, poking fun at the kid with pimples,
or the black kid.
You're
descriminative! You're cruel! And I'll fucking bet you're racist
too! There are only two kinds of people I can't stand- people who
are intolerant of other peoples beliefs, and the FUCKING BOB HATERS!
Apologize
NOW, or I shall take serious action! Hell, I don't know what! A
naked protest or something.
It's
not important. Just fucking apologize. You've ruined this man's
primary source of income.
How do
you like that, NBC?! You've fucking ruined his life! Apologize to
Bob, or at least give him a fucking plug!
Show
that you're really Christians and beg forgiveness! Bob probably
has better morals than you- rodents!"
I was
kinda hoping to put "God bless you" on the end, just for the irony
aspect... but I ran out of room.
I propose
that some of the 1337 h4x0rz that visit your site should take action
against NBC. The title page changed entirely to plug here? A big
"Fuck you" in red letters? Or maybe even pictures of my nude protest!
If this shit isn't settled, I'm going to go to America and protest
in the nude. I am.
And I'll
bring a camera. Your loyal minion, Crystal.
More
publicity:
MJ
Mornng Show,
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Subject: Magnets
/ MSNBC
Hey Brutha
As you mentioned
on the phone, I just got done watching a brief segment on
Urban O. and the magnets on this guy's
show.
Your segment
was number 1 on the countdown. They zoomed in on your
whitie-tighties on Jesus and made some crack about the earliest
Jesus could have been wearing those was 1935... when they
were invented. He tried to make it sound funny, anyway. They
made no mention of NormalBobSmith. Anyway, this is the kind
of publicity that will work in your favor.... right? Are you
ready?
Gotta get to bed.
Your Brother Chris
(i recorded the segment on tape, by the way)
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Date:
Wed, 17 Mar 2004 00:59
Subject: Another Radio Show Talking about you
Hey Bob,
I just wanted to
let you know Todd Scnitt of the Schnitt show on Clear Channel
Communications 610 WIOD in Fort Lauderdale Forida: brought
your Magnets up today on his show. Here is the link to his
site where he posted images of your magnets. Worst of all
he was too Chicken Shit to even give out the name of your
site on the air. as well as making sure your copyright is
barely ledgible at the bottom of the magnet sheet.
A Fan,
Ben
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Tue, 16
Mar 2004 23:04:25 EST
Subject: You're on National TV NOW!
Bob,
I'm hoping to be
the first to tell you that you are now being criticized on
national TV. I just watched a show called Scarborough Country
on MSNBC and they all took a dump over you for about five
or ten minutes. It was great to see and I felt compelled to
get online and send you an e-mail about and play Jebus dress
up some more. Congratulations, the head
of the American Catholic League and Ed
Koch both blasted you. You should try to make an
appearance on this guy's show if possible so that those of
us not living in Philly can see the devil man in all his glory.
Extra props to Urban Outfitters too for not backing down to
these bullies.
Shogun
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Tue,
16 Mar 2004 18:14:27 -0500
Subject: Jesus Dress Up magnets
Hi Bob
As much as I don't
want to do this we need to cancel po#100020908 for 200 units
of the Magnetic Jesus Dress Up. We are not allowed to sell
this due to the extremely negative feedback the stores have
been receiving. We were told corporately all orders need to
be canceled.
Once again I am
very sorry for the inconvenience.
Thank you,
Urban Outfitters
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Posted:
Wed,
17 Mar 2004 noon
It's
official. Urban Outfitters will no longer carry my magnets.
They don't want the negative press.
You
can contact
them here.
Normal
Bob Smith
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Subject: NBC10
vs. NormalBobSmith.com
Bob, Just saw
the segment. It was about what you'd expect. They didn't mention
the web site and only played about 20 seconds of your voice.
I guess it was a busy news day. It snowed here today and the
Eagles got Terrell Owens.
They intro'd it
as a Channel 10 exclusive, and mentioned that only their station
got the interview. Big surprise; only they created the story.
After your clip, the announcer said that (paraphrasing) ³Smith
claims to be an atheist.² I guess they never looked at
the website. And they claim to be reporters.
Gary Waltrich
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Subject: MSNBC
Those bastards
found your magnets at Urban Outfitters, freaked out, and gave
all the credit to them! The funny part was that they were
so offended that they bought one! Then took it to the street
to offend other people on camera! One guy claimed it was cashing
in after the passion movie, while the final coment was "it
seems pretty harmless". I wish you had got a plug.
Love your site
Trevor Lee
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Date:
Tue, 16 Mar 2004
Subject: More news for you!
OK, I don't know
if you know this yet, but the NBC stations in Florida and
Texas have taken up the story as well. They posted them
about an hour ago. Crazy, huh?
You're just SO
popular. I would recommend forgetting Texas though.
There's another
clip on your Jesus Dress Up. Wow, Bob. This was a four panel
discussion. They said some crazy shit. They were talking schmack
about a dress up Muhammad or some crap. In all it was pretty
rude and guarantees about a million more hits for you. Idiots.
Anyway, I forgot
to tell you that on Scarborough last night while they
threw their bitch-fest about your magnets, one guys starts
to raise his voice about Urban Outfitters. He said when he
called them to tell them to stop selling them UO told him
no. He said that showed how much they don't care about the
American public or some crap. Bonkers is what it was. So,
either this guy is lying, or UO lied to you. I can't wait
to find out which! Both are jerks either way. And I think
it's funny they were all so pissed about the devil outfit
and the hula skirt..you'd think it would be the coconut bra.
But what do I know?
Those crazy bastards
will hang your ass.
Love, April
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Date:
Tue, 16 Mar 2004
Subject: Jesus Dress Up on MSNBC
I'm not a regular
visitor of your website but I was watching TV earlier and
recognized the Jesus Dress Up magnets from your site.
Just to let you
know, in case you already don't, that the NBC report about
the Jesus Dress Up magnets was apparently picked up by MSNBC
and shown on "MSNBC Live" at about 3:30 or so eastern
time (where I saw the report). I only caught the end of it,
so I don't know if you were even referenced as the creator
of the magnets or not. I emailed both MSNBC and NBC10 in Philly
to complain about the report. I won't bother retyping those
emails, but my complaints were mainly in regards to the report's
false implications that the magnets were created post-passion
of the christ, the selective interviewing by the reporter,
and the MSNBC anchors' feigning mild shock at the story.
Benjamin Halladay
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Letters of support sent to NBC Philly
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Mr. Shimmel,
I saw your news
clip today about Jesus Dress-Up. I thought there were a few
things you should know before you try to makes news out of
something.
Jesus Dress-Up
has been around for AGES! Seriously. I have played it for
about 2 years now and I know others have played it for much
longer. It was a website before it was a magnet, did you know
that? After watching your "news" clip/interviews, I thought
I should point a few things out so the next time you get it
all right.
Also, when letting
others compare The Passion of Mel to a Jesus magnet, please
note that Mel's Christ is covered in gaping wounds and blood,
while Jesus Dress-Up is only covered in silly outfits. It's
called perspective, see? I thought maybe you could use a little
of it to keep your news coverage "fair and balanced". Or is
it true that only FOX cares about that stuff?
Please visit Jesus
Dress-Up at jesusdressup.com. Research what you are talking
about before you actually commit it to tape. You'll look a
lot better on air in the long run.
Thank You,
April
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Date:
Mon, 15 Mar 2004
Bob,
I would like to congratulate you on this scale of publicity.
There is no such thing as bad publicity. I wrote the following
response to NBC-10 in Philly after reading your update about
the news story. Then I was poking around on their site and
found this: http://www.nbc10.com/news/2922892/detail.html
Just wanted to make sure you saw this. They even have a gallery,
displaying images of your Jesus DressUp magnets, bordering
on, if not racing across 40 packed in a pickup truck, copyright
infringement. Well, here's my message to Channel 10. I'll
let you know if they reply:
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Hello, I
saw your broadcast on the Jesus Dressup Refrigerator
magnets carried by Urban Outfitters. I was horribly
disappointed to see people blaming the creator of the
magnets as trying to cash in on the ridiculous wave
of publicity surrounding Mel Gibson's, "The Passion
of the Christ."
The creator
of these magnets, who goes by the Moniker Normal Bob
Smith, is a brilliant artist, who created the Jesus
Dressup Magnets long before Passion of the Christ was
ever a gorey mind pollutant across the cinemas of this
nation. Bob's websites, JesusDressUp.com and NormalBobSmith.com
have become a web sensation thanks to the popularity
of the web-version of Jesus Dressup. It has earned Bob
much acclaim, earning him name brand recognition and
an inteview on Mancow's syndicated radio show, to mention
one achievement. To consider Jesus Dressup exploitation
of the popularity of the ghastly snuff of Mel Gibson's
violent filmmaking is not only absurd, it's obscene.
I for one would appreciate a follow-up story on this
magnetic phenomenon, for clarification for the public,
and for the artist's sake.
~Chris
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Date:
Mon, 15 Mar 2004
So much for balanced coverage, eh? Of course the magnets
get a bad review if you ask people leaving The Passion of
the Christ--those are the people so 'religious' that they
find the experience of watching the man brutalized and killed
an awe-inspiring good time. Since the game was available for
sale long before The Passion came out (I got mine last fall),
the effort to connect the things together seems to reflect
the station's desire to cash in on The Passion itself, boosting
ratings by figuring out a way to bring it up.
Lake talks about
the "outrage over a sacred symbol sold for laughs." Would
he talk about the outrage of a sacred animal being turned
into hamburger? For the people actually buying Jesus Dress-Up,
Christ is no more a sacred symbol than cows are a sacred animal.
Shimell goes on that "it may seem kind of innocuous...until
you actually buy one of these things and sit down and study
just exactly what is depicted here." Again, it is obvious
what it is when you look at it--if people don't like it, they
don't buy it. I didn't notice anyone around shoving it into
unsuspecting shoppers' bags.
Thanks to freedom
of speech and religion, we don't all have to have the same
interests, buy the same things, or find the same things sacred.
Those are the freedoms the press is supposed to enjoy and
support--not trash, by inferring that anyone with a different
view must be sick.
Christian Walther
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Subject: Dress
Up Jesus
Hello there,
I watched your
segment on Normal Bob Smith's "Dress Up Jesus" toy on your
website (http://www.nbc10.com/). I found your report biased
and rather ironic in a number of ways.
First of all, who
is bandwagoning here? The Jesus Dress Up site has been around
for almost four years, yet you're only reporting on it now
in wake of the popularity of "The Passion"? Perhaps in the
future you should do more research before airing your news
reports.
Secondly, how is
the bloody, violent depiction of the crucifixion popular in
the past half-millennium or so any better than Jesus Dress
Up? When I was a child, one of my Christian relatives gave
me a children's bible containing graphic images of stonings,
beatings, and Christ dying on the cross. To me, this is just
another example of the hypocrisy of Christians, who apparently
believe that NC-17 level violence is okay to show to children
as long as it supports their own agenda of religious brainwashing.
I would rather
my children play with Jesus Dress Up (which, in fact, they
have) than watch a film which would be rated NC-17 if it was
about anything other than Jesus Christ.
Lisa Krause
Huntington, MA
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Hate
Mail for the fans! I don't have time for these right now! Feel free
to answer them yourselves!
(Yeah, it's a
contest or something. Who fucking cares?!?)
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Subject:
JESUS DRESS UP
Bob - you
are sick when you chose this subject to dress in those
idiotic outfits! Stick to your usual silly stuff and
don't desecrate Jesus! cjm
carojmacy@netzero.net
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Subject:
JESUS DRESS UP
Bob - you
are sick when you chose this subject to dress in those
idiotic outfits! Stick to your usual silly stuff and
don't desecrate Jesus! cjm
carojmacy@netzero.net
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i know you
think this is funny, but i know its not right. is there
any reason to make fun of the begotten son of God? give
all people who believe in God and Jesus and the Blessed
virgin mary out of satans little world...we do not need
it.
Thanks
God Bless and may God have mercy on your soul.
Angelhon011479@aol.com
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I am absolutely
appauled with the dress up Jesus game that you have
created. You are making a mockery of a religion, and
may I remind you that in doing so you may be excersing
your freedom of speech, but you are also offending MANY
people's religion,(which are grounds for a lawsuit in
the US.) You are offending a majority not a minority.
I'm sure that you would love to entertain the idea that
Christians are a thing of yesterday and the new homosexual
liberal way of thinking is taking over, well guess what
buddy your'e absolutely wrong, and ya know what, you
dont make Christians mad, you make them STRONGER, and
we will overcome, because with God all things are possible.
THANK YOU,
and God Bless,
Shawnie
jesussaves2003@msn.com
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Subject:
Jesus dress-up magnet
I assume
you have no fear of God. This is the height of mockery
and blasphamy. Do you have any spiritual beliefs? I
will pray that God will open your spiritual eyes.Beware,
by creating and selling this you not only mock our God
and make mockery of His sacrifice, but are also causing
others to make mockery of God. You, are on a very dangerous
path!! I will pray for you.
Yours in
Christ,
Joan Price
JMPrice52@aol.com
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hey there.
look i didn't appreciate what you did. Not only did
you offend me but you offend over 4 million other christians,
catholics, prostestants .etc... How would you like it,
if someone exposed some disturbing pictures or creating
such an object that offended your personal beliefs,
or maybe even your family....well i hope not...but its
not fair to everyone who has there beliefs..And haven't
you ever heard of respect?! i don' think so...So exactly
what i said if someone would expose the same thing to
you..well im sure you wouldn't admire it..i just hope
you'll understand...May God Bless your soul.
Sincerely,
Connor MacLeod
bklyn8221@yahoo.com
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Subject:
Hello Fuckface
I just witnessed
your website on a local television station. First and
foremost, I would like to congratulate you on your honesty;
not many aids-infested losers can rise to the occassion.
I think you
should have your penis sliced off and then we can dunk
you in rubbing alcohol. We can feed your penis to the
dog; as an appetizer.
In closing,
tell you mother I need my money. And tell you father
he gives great headache.
Sincerely,
Fuck you and yours,
Ritchie the Bitchie
Richard Armstrong
r90@webtv.net
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Subject:
Gosh
You are one
sad Fuck. Forget Jesus, forget ignorance, you're just
arrogant. I would probably ejaculate upon hearing of
your death. I can only wish you misery, poor health,
poverty and continued ignorance. I have an idea for
a new doll.
It's called
"Let's Do Bob". The doll looks just like you and it
comes with the following accessories; a bat, a gun,
a hammer, a knife, a tire iron, a crowbar, a rifle,
a hachet, a lead pipe, a tazer, a switchblade, an ice
pick, an anvil, heavy duty chains, a scalpel, a syringe
(for lethal injections only), and a bible, to pray your
ass into hell when the game is over.
We should
meet sometime for coffee, Ritchie the Bitchie
Richard Armstrong
r90@webtv.net
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Subject:
Dressup Jesus?
Yes you area
total nutcase. Takes a total nutcase to post something
as blatantly blasphemous, as doggedly disgusting as
your website. Can't imagine someone getting pleasure
of any kind from doing what you're doing.... not anyone
of a NORMAL mental faculty. I just hope parents are
monitoring what their kids are doing on the computer
so they aren't influenced with garbage like your website.
Don't bother responding - you'll be filtered as spam.
FLCATZ@aol.com
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I suppose
you create these websites solely for the controversy.
You can never please all people but is anything sacred
anymore? I guess not.
I can't expect
anyone else to hold the symbols or centers of my faith
as respectful or as valuable as I do, but I can at least
share my belief that it is disrespectful to most Christians.
If it isn't offensive to all Christians it should be
since we are called "Christ"ians because of the very
Jesus you cast ridicule upon on the jesusdressup.com
site.
I just wanted
to drop a note to say I'm praying for you and that the
Jesus you put humorous clown suits on loves you and
died for you too.
Tonya Hatfield
thatfield@gnosf.org
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Subject:
hey
i hope u
go to hell for this stupid shit
speedwagonkid@hotmail.com
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