Richard Burnish

“"Being a Christian simply doesn't cut it anymore. That may have got you to heaven in 960 a.d. when there was lots of room, but you know what? It's like a full SATA 2 hard drive. God doesn't wanna make a hardware upgrade because he is a compulsive gambler, and he has lost a lot to Satan." ” — Richard Burnish

Richard Burnish
Status	Active
Role	Host of The Ark Co-Host of Jesus Chatline (Formerly)
Appeared on	Jesus Chatline (Co-host) The Ark (Host)
Portrayed by	Dustin Horrock

Richard H. Burnish is the author of the Neon Bible and Intermittent Fisting, and host of The Ark. He formerly hosted Jesus Chatline together with Steven Chilton. He is portrayed by internet comedian Dustin Horrock.

Having co-founded the Chatline to spread the gospel of his Neon Bible, Richard is a devout Christian with a flair for technology and the future, though his knowledge of technology and computers is limited. Known as a warm engaging personality, his naivety is often abused by joke callers, leading to much distress and bursts of anger throughout the life of the Chatline.

Out of character, Richard was known to break character often, and would oftentimes deliberately steer into obvious prank calls for a laugh.

After the end of the Chatline, Richard did not accompany his former fellow co-host Steven on his later liveshows Rumbled Feathers and Haulin' Ass, and seemingly vanished from the public eye. However ,in 2018, he returned to give his condolences to the death of Steven Chilton. In 2020, Richard reprised his role as host of the successor to the Chatline; The Ark.

History

Jesus Chatline

While not much is known about Richard's childhood, it is known that he was born and raised in the city of Montclair, California, and was raised in a Christian household. Richard's father left while he was a young boy. It is revealed that his father went out to the store for some Dad's Cream and never came back, though after hearing of Richard's success on the Jesus Chatline, he reappeared and reconciled with Richard and appeared in one of the episodes. While as a teenager, Richard was into classic rock, one of many things he and Steven bonded over as it is hinted in various episodes that both used to like rock and metal music, especially Steven because he was a trucker at one point. While in his early to mid-twenties, Richard was overcome by the "temptations of evil" in where he was known to drink a lot of alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and take bong rips out of his grandma's ass, but through the power of Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, Richard was able to defeat his temptations by reading the Bible, drinking Dad's Old Fashioned Cream Soda and praying multiple times a day. While known for his success in Jesus Chatline, he can also be credited for taking bong rips from his grandma's ass, as stated by Leroy. Richard has returned in 2020 with his new show after the death of his friend, Steven Chilton. A sequel to the Jesus Chatline called "The Ark" premiering on twitch in April of the same year.

2012-2019 Absence

Following No Monetary Compensation, Richard vanished from the public eye and did not join Steven Chilton on his own shows. Wild rumors began circulating that Richard had died, presumably of cancer. Howeve,r in 2016 Richard held an Ask Me Anything on Reddit's /r/RichardBurnishAMA subreddit proving these rumors wrong. He further stated that a falling out between himself and Chilton deteriorated their friendship entirely, and as a resul,t he was not invited to the show nor able to make amends with his former co-host.

Following the end of the Chatline, Richard did some soul-searching preparing himself for when the time would be right to return. During this time, he got into Christian mixed martial arts (MMA) to become hard, gain discipline, and learn how to fist.

File:IntermittentFisting.png

Intermittent Fisting by Richard Burnish.

Richard ended his absence when he hosted an Instagram stream in 2019 in which he discussed the Jesus Chatline as well as new show ideas. He reminisced about past episodes and funny characters. He announced that he was looking into reprising the Richard Burnish character and hosting a new show.

The Ark

In early March 2020 Richard posted a series of teasers using the Jesus Chatline theme. Finally on March 14 he revealed The Ark, his new show with a premiere date of April 2020. On April 7 he posted a 1 -inute long video to his Instagram. Speaking with the classic Richard persona, he announced that The Ark would premiere on Easter Sunday.

Along with the new show, Richard revealed that in his absence he became a Christian MMA fighter and this would be one of the core topics of the new show, as referenced by the quote;

“	The Ark; Where feet, fists and faith collide!	”
	~ Richard

He also revealed the release of his second book after the Neon Bible. During the show, old characters like Hans and Sinclair came back to harass him. Richard's show also comes with the concept of faxes where viewers can pay to have their messages read out and maybe with some photos.

Personality

Richard often speaks in a calm and friendly manner, welcoming calls, and trying to make friendly conversation with them. Richard is not as rigid as his co-host, though breaks character very often by laughing or smiling, especially when talking to more eccentric callers. He often combats this by positioning his head off the screen and excuses himself, stating that he has 'crunched' himself (where he squashed his testicles between his legs.) This action in itself has become a staple joke of the Jesus Chatline.

If bombarded with too many obvious or pathetic attempts at trolling, Richard is known to get frustrated and even angry, scolding the audience for their apathy and leading to moments such as Richard smashing his own birthday cake in anger during a live stream. Despite his low tolerance for 'trolls,' it is obvious that callers using clever or otherwise realistic personas are welcomed, such as Randall Stevens and Hans Peter Schwanzlutcher, two callers with eccentric accents and personalities who generate their comedic value through quirky dialogue and discussion with the hosts, not by yelling profanities. He has recently gotten some violent tendencies to throw plates or "colby" troll fax messages.

While Richard's main friend is Steven, he usually talks about various situations with characters that call in frequently. It was revealed in Episode 1 that eccentric gay caller Randall Stevens had a sexual encounter with Richard. Despite Randall's insistence, Richard rejected his advances and confirmed they were just friends. The two discussed their intimate moment under the belief their microphones were muted, where in reality their conversation was being streamed.

In his new series, the Ark, Richard has been shown to display sexist comments about women. He is often accused of soliciting his intern, Casey, for devious deeds. In other portions, Richard has told his viewers to do what they want with her for women, in general, are meant to serve and obey.

Richard also has fought with his helper Chad who appears to be incompetent and plain stupid at times forcing Richard to turn off his profane music that comes up on the air from time to time. Richard's relationship with his friend is a rollercoaster as Chad has been fired from the show before only to return some episodes later.

Like Steven Chilton, Richard is a con artist as it can be displayed through the series, scamming viewers for money. He would later play up the false death of his son, Thomas Burnish, with his ex-wife in order to collect insurance money. All of this amounts to making Richard Burnish a controversial "hero" in the series from a holy man spreading God's love to a crook trying to scam people for money.

Behind the Persona

Richard's real actor appear to be a genuine lygood person. During his shows with "Steven", it appears more that he was the more inexperienced spoke man for the show as he appears to "crunch" more compared to Steven. however, Richard would appear less during the end of the show as it appears that he was getting used to how it worked. During a stream, Richard's actor would later confess that he did not feel comfortable with being on screen compared to his partner. It is evident that Steven's actor did not want to stop this type of comedy and went off to run his own show, Haulin Ass, portraying himself as T. Rucker.

During his absence from the internet, Steven's actor, unfortunately, passed away from cancer. In 2019, during an Instagram stream, Richard's actor expressed a possibility for a sequel to the Jesus Chatline. When it finally premiered, it was evident that Richard borrowed some inspiration from Haulin Ass, apparent in his fax report read offs. The Ark's first episodes appeared wonky at first but slowly they found what kind of show they were trying to be. The audience began to catch up to how to better adapt to the safer reality that YouTube had become and the jokes were less racial and explicit compared to the Jesus Chatline. When the topic of Steven comes up, both Richard and the audience take the issue seriously as jokes about him are seen as going to far and Richard appears to be very affected when thinking of him during his show.

Compared to Jesus Chatline, the Ark series appears to be more formal as Richard's experience prior to it has shown in his social media posts. Richard has spots on Instagram and Twitter. He also has a tier list for Patron and mods looking after the live chat of the show.