Professor Joe Butcher is a character from the James Bond film Licence to Kill; he was played by Wayne Newton.

Wayne Newton as Joe Butcher in ‘Licence to Kill’.

Butcher is a televangelist based in Isthmus, who has a television fundraising programme that acts as a cover for informing Franz Sanchez’s main drugs distributors across the United States of the latest trade prices, and receiving their orders. His remote meditation sanctuary is actually the main processing distribution centre for Sanchez’s drug operations.

Butcher’s hokey ‘Cone Power’ mysticism and catchphrase, “Bless your heart!”, provides some light relief on several occasions. He never meets Bond during the film but is got the better of by Pam Bouvier, when he tries to force himself upon her when she is posing as an awestruck convert to his ministry. He is last seen fleeing the burning complex as Pam and Bond escape to pursue Sanchez and his convoy of cocaine-filled trucks. The character was inspired as a parody of two contemporary controversial televangelists, Jerry Falwell and Jim Bakker.

See also:

• Bond henchmen