NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Jackie Gleason once remarked, "Does God have a sense of humor? He must have if He created us."

How true. Don't believe it? THE GLORY BUGLES "FIRST ANNUAL 20TH ANNIVERSARY HOMECOMING REUNION CONCERT GATHERING...DO-OVER!" will make a believer out of you.

Four accomplished, award-winning performers - Wayne Gurley, Nan Gurley, Bonnie Keen and Stevan Pippin - have transformed themselves into a side-splittingly bad gospel quartet from fictional Box Springs, Tenn., that, to borrow a line from their web site, "puts the fun in fundamental."

It's the Goodmans on a bad day, the Stamps Quartet all stamped out, or (to borrow again from their web site) "Others have said that the Glory Bugles are like The Gaithers on acid. Actually, it's more like The Gaithers with acid reflux..."

Their recent shows at David Lipscomb University's Shamblin Theatre (following sold-out appearances at Brentwood Baptist Church in February) provided plenty of the holiness-gone-haywire music that appeared on the group's "Get Right or Get Left" CD earlier this year: "If John the Baptist Used the King James Version (It's Good Enough for Me),"If Jesus Walked This Earth Today (Where Would He Go To Church?)," "Hallelujah to Ya!" and "Heaven Yes, Hell No."

But this spoof, complete with outdated hairdos and painfully unfashionable wardrobe, is more than just a comedy concert. The four have developed full characters - Wayne Gurley is Farley T. Byrd, III, director of sinus affairs at the Box Springs Industrial Ammonia Plant; Keen is his wife Beulah, a baton twirler, poodle stylist at the House of Poodles and cosmetologist for the deceased; Nan Gurley is Queenie Delphine, director of the Box Springs Fine Arts Center; and Pippin is Dr. Harley E. Never, P.H.D. (Pig and Hog Doctor), an animal psychologist known as "The Pig Whisperer" and curator of the Box Springs Swine Institute, Museum, and Gift Shop. The group's bad dance moves and off-key singing seem natural to these well-drawn comic characters.

The crisply paced two-act show has some very homespun advertisements for various Box Spring businesses, a church committee meeting that involves the audience and a slide show about the group's somewhat tortured touring history. 

I won't spoil the fun for those who've missed THE GLORY BUGLES by providing details; this foursome is so good at being bad that I'm certain they'll live to play another day. Just imagine a gospel show mixed with A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, GREATER TUNA and WAITING FOR GUFFMAN and you'll be on the right track.

It should be made clear, though, that the target of this show's humor is bad theology, not the Almighty. There's also a genuine warmth to THE GLORY BUGLES that leaves you smiling as well as laughing. In this often cold and brutal world, that combination is truly Heaven sent.