Saul of the Mole Men

Saul of the Mole Men is an American live-action/puppet/animated hybrid comedy television series created by Craig Lewis, former writer on Cartoon Network's The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

The series first aired on the channel's late night Adult Swim programming block on February 11, 2007.

Lewis' primary inspirations behind this homage to 1970s-era Saturday morning live-action television were Sid and Marty Krofft (Land of the Lost), Doctor Who (Tom Baker-era), and the Planet of the Apes franchise.

Following the promo, the crew is shown aboard STRATA's huge ship, which is burrowing deep under Earth's surface.

Saul becomes the sole survivor of the main team when rocks begin pummeling the rest of the STRATA team, and crippling their ship; the only other survivors are a Robot controlled by a human brain, and the vapid pop musician Johnny Tambourine, who is conscious but trapped in a hibernation capsule.

Saul soon finds himself in an underground world populated by "Mole Men" and "Bird Bats" as well as unexplained characters like "The Floating Pancake" and "Chinacula", a cape-wearing Chinese vampire.

The intelligent stone inspires Saul to lead the Mole Men, who themselves are turning to a popular vote in search of a new king.

Saul meets Fallopia, a female and one of the most horribly mutated of the Mole Men (when revealed, she actually appears to be a beautiful human woman).

Eventually the plot links the Mother Rock, a war between mole men and bird bats and a prophecy involving magical gemstones, the end of the world and Benjamin Franklin.

In the season 1 finale, Saul, Clancy, and Stromulus Guandor team up to defeat the Rock Assassins, which are actually Jim J. James and Jen.

His love interest is introduced as a creature perceived by locals as hideous and nearly beaten to death by the Mole Men.

The Mole Men's perception of Fallopia's appearance is not unlike the Twilight Zone episode "Eye of the Beholder".

Pondering where his daughter, Princessa, has gone, we find her and King Johnny Tambourine in a secluded forest grove, both expressing their love for one another.

A Birdbat soldier arrives to report that war with the Mole Men is imminent, and the Leader demands that Princessa return immediately.

Saul is about to hand over the stones when Clancy stops him and explains himself; some two hundred years ago he found a letter and dug his way to the surface in colonial Philadelphia to deliver it.

He made friends with its recipient, Benjamin Franklin, who was the custodian of the two stones, the key to the power of the Gabro Maternicus, the mother rock.

With a burst of pleasure, the third amber stone shoots out of Saul's growth and into the slit, and falls underground and perfectly into the third empty space in the lower Mother Rock, powering it up.

As Saul continues to talk to the slit rock afterwards, Clancy climbs on top of it and moves apart the moss growing on top to reveal that Otnip, the evil Mole Men devil made of lichen and moss, is actually the Mother Rock.

Luas then appears and chants the same message he did in episode ten, which Saul then realizes says backwards "This pyramid is a spaceship".