
"I may have a burnt face, but that doesn't mean I can't fight crime!"
Crime is a shit that needs wiping up!
From David Firth, creator of Salad Fingers and Spoilsbury Toast Boy, comes a (far less creepy) Flash cartoon about the adventures of the eponymous hero, who possesses a badly burnt face, some superpowers, and... not much else. His life is miserable, and (with the exception of one crazy stalker) most everybody hates him. His foes consist of the equally ineffective Bastard Man and Man-Spider, and much of the cartoon follows our hero as he battles the forces of "evil".
Burnt Face Man provides examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Burnt Face Man's biggest (and possibly only) fan, a small Asian man who seems to be in love with him.
- Accidental Misnaming: Villains calling our hero things like "Burnt Plate Man" or "Burning Face Man" verges on a Running Gag.
- All Just a Dream: An alternate ending for an episode reveals that the hero's real name is Burt Faceman and that he works at a boring office.
- Always Someone Better: Slightly Bruised Man plays this role to Burnt Face Man until Taps Man murders him. He's got a much bigger penis than BFM, plus he made it into the Top 50 Most Shiny Hunks of the Year as voted by Cosmopolitan magazine!
- Ambiguously Gay: Burnt Face Man strenuously denies being gay, but has an Aaron Carter poster in his house (although he claims it isn't his) and tells James Van Der Beek he loves him in the movie trailer.
- Affably Evil:
- Parodied with Have a Nice Day Man. Despite, or rather because of being a villain in name only, his idea of a specific theme for his crimes is literally just him being a polite and pleasant person to just about everybody he meets, as he has a pleasant, albeit one-sided conversation with our eponymous hero.
- The people of the Planet of Shifty Characters are a more straightforward example of this, despite being openly and proudly shifty, as they're polite enough to warn Bastard Man that they might not pay him for selling the Earths air to them, not counting out that they could pay him for the Earths air, as they are, by their own admission, "a bit shifty".
- Art Evolution: The 10th episode has more detailed and fluid animation, as well as more "cinematic" camera work, due to David Firth improving as an artist and animator in the 11 year gap between episode 9 and 10 and changing to After Effects.
- Animal Wrongs Group: PETA tries to kill Burnt Face Man soon after the introduction of Burnt Face Dog, who was mutilated by the cartoon's narrator in an inexplicable attempt to frame Burnt Face Man for animal cruelty.
- Beast with a Human Face: Man-Spider is this, being a giant talking spider with the head of an older man with blond hair and a mustache. Or is he a person with the body of a spider?
- Big Creepy-Crawlies:
- In one episode, Burnt Face Man kills a giant snail that turned out to be sacred.
- There's also Man-Spider, who is literally a man's head on the body of a giant spider.
- Berserk Button: Don't call Burnt Face Man gay.
- Butt-Monkey: Burnt Face Man is constantly mocked, humiliated and physically assaulted.
- Continuity Nod: Several crop up from time to time in the later episodes. Have-A-Nice-Day Man and Taps Man are seen playing Barcode Battler in Bastard Man's base, and Rockhead Rumple is seen bothering people in Episode 9. Episode 8 features the man who requested piping hot grape juice in Episode 5 going insane and shooting people when recruited by Burnt Face Man to use the knockback from a pistol to move Burnt Face Man's car.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Rockhead Rumple kills a man just for crossing his path about 10 seconds after claiming that he's not a villain, he's just a regular guy. Burnt Face Man, however, does nothing except add him to his list marked "Villains".
- Face–Heel Turn: Burnt Face Man briefly turns evil and decides to "swear up a fucking storm!"
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Common gag in early episodes (the Flash version, of course), where bodies of text too small to be readable without pausing and zooming in are hidden in odd spots, or Bastard Man's name tag."Text that is too small to read without zooming in. This will probably be very important and should be reported to your local 'BFM hidden meanings group' If you want a free bag of David Firth's piss then email him with the following phrase: 'I don't smell of vinegar you big prick!' Chips and chithers"
- Harmless Villain: Pretty much every villain in the series is either completely harmless like Have A Nice Day Man, who merely has polite conversations with other people, or a nuisance, like Bastard Man and Man-Spider, who go around annoying and pestering other people, with their favorite target being Burnt Face Man himself. Some of the notable exceptions are Rockhead Rumple, who point-blanks a man in the face for crossing his path, and Taps Man, who somehow manages to kill Slightly Bruised Man.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Burnt Face Man tries to do the right thing, but this doesn't stop everyone thinking he's a crappy hero.
- Hot-Blooded: Literally - Burnt Face Man cures himself of AIDS by setting his bloodstream on fire, simultaneously gaining the (otherwise useless) power of having really hot blood...for a few minutes.
- Idiosyncrazy: Parodied.
- Bastard Man and his sidekick Man-Spider's idea of a theme for their crimes is to simply go around being a pair of massive jerkasses and pains in the ass to everybody who isn't them.
- Have A Nice Day Man's theme is also, even by the series already abysmal standards, as he doesn't even do anything illegal. He just goes around having polite and formal conversations with everyone, and doesn't even insult Burnt Face Man, he just makes him mildly confused and leaves politely.
- Taps Man discusses this, as he says that he'll splash people with water and erode metal over a period of time.
- Interactive Narrator: In one episode, Burnt Face Man manages to kill the narrator. Too bad he already released a tape of prerecorded snark.
- Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb: Anger Man's purpose is to scare our eponymous protagonist.
- Laughably Evil: Done intentionally - most of the villains are more hilariously odd than anything else.
- Lethal Chef: The small Asian man makes Burnt Face Man some pâté from his own nasal hair...and yeast.
- Lighter and Softer: When compared to Salad Fingers and other David Firth's works. Don't worry! There's still plenty of weirdness and black comedy to go around.
- Malicious Misnaming: People who don't like Burnt Face Man tend to call him things like "Turd Gay Man".
- Major Injury Underreaction: Burnt Face Man doesn't seem fussed about the fact his leg was shot off, as well as having his skin stolen.
- Meaningful Name:
- Bastard Man. His "crimes" are simply being a massive Jerkass to everybody as well as bullying Burnt Face Man.
- Slightly Bruised Man, at least in the context of him and Burnt Face Man. Having a face that is slightly bruised is infinitely better than having a burnt face, so it makes sense that Slightly Bruised Man would be a superior version of Burnt Face Man.
- Medium Awareness: Burnt Face Man is aware that he's in fiction (at the least), and regularly comments on the events of the episode. He even attempts to exploit this by trying to write his own episode and requesting the animator to cut the scene back to his house, leaving behind Observation Boy, who was annoying him.
- Mistaken for Gay: A Running Gag in the series is Burnt Face Man being mistaken for a homosexual, which he always denies.Burnt Face Man: I am not gay! I've got a calendar with naked ladies on it...at home.
- Mistaken for Pedophile:
- The Narrator accuses Burnt Face Man of fondling two children while rescuing them, leading to him being accosted by several angry passers-by.
- In Episode 10, Burnt Face Man goes back in time and sees a young Bastard Man and Man Spider planning to poison everyone in school with a concoction. He tries to intervene, but because he's an adult manhandling children, some people think he's molesting them (with them framing Burnt Face Man for grabbing them in uncomfortable areas) and he gets sent to prison. 35 years later, he gets out, goes back in time again, and gets arrested for the same crime.
- Named in the Sequel:
- While Bastard Man appears in the first episode, his name was not mentioned until Episode 2.
- Burnt Face Man's real name is given as "Burt Faceman" in one of the episode 7 endings (although this probably isn't canon), and "Stanley Sage" in the movie trailer.
- Nice Guy: Have A Nice Day Man, whose idea of a specific theme for the crimes he pulls off is to merely go around being a pleasant and polite person to everybody.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Burnt Face Man is very prone to this. For example, the scene where he rescues some children, only to be accused of fondling them by a passerby.
- Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Parodied in the scene where Detergent Dan and Non-Bio Bruce make insulting observations about Burnt Face Man's clothes.Burnt Face Man: You'll never get away with saying things to me!
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Taps Man manages to kill Slightly Bruised Man, albeit offscreen.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Taps Man killing Slightly Bruised Man.
- Pac-Man Fever: Played for laughs.
- The washing machine video game.
- Pretty much all the technology shown in the series fits this trope, such as Bastard Man's crime generator and Burnt Face Man's Crime Monitor 2600 with their 8-bit graphics and tinny sound.
- Planet of Hats: Bastard Man tries to sell Earth's air to a Planet of Shifty Characters.Shifty Character: We probably won't pay you for this, Bastard Man, as we're a little bit shifty.
- Precision F-Strike:
- "I don't do two-part episodes, and I don't have a fucking partner!"
- "I'LL RIP YOUR FUCKING ANKLES OFF!"
- Psychopathic Manchild: Downplayed. Both Bastard Man and Man-Spider are older-looking men, and they spend all their time acting like a pair of juvenile bullies and delinquents, insulting and harassing everyone around them, but they're not particularly dangerous.
- Rage Against the Author: It's clear that Burnt Face Man does not like the jabs the Announcer makes at his expense.
- Sarcastic Clapping: God does this to Burnt Face Man after he indirectly causes the deaths of several people.
- Schmuck Bait: When Burnt Face Man turns evil, he asks what his part is in Bastard Man's plan to steal the sun. Bastard Man's reply? "We need you to go and get it."
- Shout-Out:
- Anger Man's introduction references the intro screen for the robot masters in Mega Man 2. He also looks a bit like Ryuk.
- Man-Spider is clearly a play on Spider-Man.
- Spider People: Man-Spider has a man's head on a huge spider body. He doesn't appear to have any other spidery powers or characteristics, though.
- Soul-Crushing Desk Job: In episode 7's All Just a Dream ending, "Burt" is shown working at one.
- Super Zero: All over the place, with both extremely lame heroes and villains alike.
- Suggestion Boy wears a superhero-esque costume, but doesn't appear to have any powers other than making lame suggestions (and being able to fly).
- While his intentions are genuine, Burnt Face Man's effectiveness at super-heroic chores leaves a lot to be desired.
Woman: Help! Help! My baby is falling from that tall building over there!
Burnt Face Man: Fear not, for my laser eyes will catch her!
(the baby hits the ground and gets spattered across the pavement)
Burnt Face Man: Wait, no, I don't have that power. I don't...have many powers. Well, bye! (flies off) - Toilet Humour: A fair few examples.Burnt Face Man: Hm, dry dog mess. A crunchy treat!
- Visual Pun: When Burnt Face Man asks the animator to cut to him at home, a pair of scissors literally cuts his body into pieces, which fall to the floor in a heap.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Man-Spider doesn't have many lines, but when he does speak, he has a strange, vaguely Eastern European-sounding accent.
- Words Can Break My Bones:Bastard Man: Now that we've made you weak with fear, we shall call you NAMES UNTIL YOU BLEED!
Burnt Face Man: Nooooo!
