"I bought a bookshelf off Gumtree recently..."
Randy Feltface (aka Randy the Purple Puppet, or sometimes just Randy) is a foulmouthed, existentialist, sober, vegan, Australian puppet created by puppeteer and writer Heath McIvor. As a solo artist, Randy has starred in a series of one man shows, skewering modern culture and the absurdities of every day life. Frequently collaborates with Sammy J, and is well known throughout his native Australia, frequently appearing at galas, on TV, and is a mainstay at the Melbourne international comedy festival.
Randy Feltface uses the following tropes:
- Adorably Precocious Child: In "Purple Privilege", we're introduced to eight-year-old Randy. He speaks with a higher voice, cracks cheesy puns, wears a striped shirt with a whale, and nervously ponders how he's not yet at the age when he can reevaluate the xenophobic beliefs the adults in his life are promoting.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: He sometimes gets distracted in the middle of a story if he finds something interesting going on amongst the audience.
- Audience Participation:
- During some of his shows, he adds the audience into his jokes, especially when he's asking a question for them to answer. Of course, this sometimes leads to Audience Participation Failure, such as one hilarious moment when he questions why people feel it's okay to slaughter animals for meat, asking what it would be like if they slaughtered dogs the same way they did pigs.Randy: And as I was asking, "how is a pig any different?" A man in audience yelled out, "Bacon!" (nodding head) Touché, sir. You win this round.
- He also frequently has to adjust his head position when trying to interact with anyone in the front row, since he technically can't see them and might be looking at two people at once, or even no-one at all.Randy: Hello there, what's your name? (long pause with no response) Am I looking right down the fucking aisle? I am, aren't I? FUCK!
- During some of his shows, he adds the audience into his jokes, especially when he's asking a question for them to answer. Of course, this sometimes leads to Audience Participation Failure, such as one hilarious moment when he questions why people feel it's okay to slaughter animals for meat, asking what it would be like if they slaughtered dogs the same way they did pigs.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Randy cites Gumtree's algorithm as having a repeated sense of inconsistency.Randy: Bookshelf, bookshelf, bookshelf, gramophone... Huh. Bookshelf, bookshelf, bookshelf, combine harvester? What the fuck?! (beat) ...That's actually a pretty good price.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Or possibly Medium Awareness, depending on your point of view. Randy has mentioned at least a few times that his eyes are not real, so that he can't see a certain person, nor can he wink because he has no eyelids. He also mentions at the beginning of his shows how he can only move a certain distance behind his desk: "any further than that, and it's gonna ruin the magic."Randy: Don't look at him! note
- Brick Joke: A staple of his routines.
- In "Randy Writes a Novel", he does a part where he mentions how Ernest Hemingway says everyone's first draft is always shit. Then after Randy tells the story of Gumtree and Morgan, he not only admits it was all fake, but also:Randy: You know the other great thing about that story? First draft. Fuck you, Hemingway!
- In "Purple Privilege", Randy talks about getting a massive brownie from some Canadian youths and gets ready for high times in his hotel room, only for it to have just been a regular brownie. At the end of the show, the final skitnote ends with this:Randy: I realized... I was still in my hotel room and there was definitely weed in that brownie.
- His "Feltopia" routine may as well be called "Brick Joke: The Stand Up Special", because numerous punchlines to various jokes are set up for much earlier in the set.
- In "Randy Writes a Novel", he does a part where he mentions how Ernest Hemingway says everyone's first draft is always shit. Then after Randy tells the story of Gumtree and Morgan, he not only admits it was all fake, but also:
- Character Catchphrase: Randy will often make conversation with the crowd at his shows, usually initiating conversation with a "Hello there! What's your name?"
- Cluster F-Bomb: He drops a whole lot when he retells a story about his reaction to when he got pulled over for a drunk test when he was sober. Upon being pulled over, Randy thought "I'm fucked", over and over again, while the test was going. He only stopped once it became clear that he was free to go.
- Culturally Religious: In "Randy is Sober", he says he was raised Catholic and now considers himself a "pragmatic agnostic". He does mention in some of his stories of when he went back to church one time or picked up a Bible to read a verse when he was avoiding drinking alcohol.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Randy tells the audience how he used to just go through life without truly absorbing anything, going through the motions until he bumped into something and then returned to just "bobbing along". It was only after he told a friend his story on a children's birthday party that went wrong that soon led him to becoming the comedian he is today.
- Divorce Assets Conflict: In the story about Gumtree, the bookcase, and Morgan. In the story, Randy is buying a bookcase from a man named Morgan, who has to sell it because he caught his wife cheating on him, but she's making him move out. After accidentally dropping the bookcase, Morgan goes Laughing Mad and begins smashing everything he can in the house to spite his soon-to-be ex-wife.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Practically says this to the audience when he gets nervous during "Randy Writes a Novel".
- In "The Book of Randicus", when he has trouble turning pages of his bible and a woman offers to help him, he tells her to "don't fucking patronise me".
- Fanboy:
- He's a fan of Neil Gaiman's works, and in a video where he goes into a bookshop, he recommends to a customer that they should read Good Omens.
- In "Randy Writes a Novel" he has a segment about his fascination with Ernest Hemingway. Not so much because of any of the man's works, but because the things that Hemingway went through are so fascinatingly bizarre that Randy can't help but be entertained. When regaling Hemingway's life, Randy has several "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer statements that all of the crazy things that Hemingway did — such as tracking Nazi u-boats with a machine gun and a pile of hand grenades — are completely real.
- Feel No Pain: Discussed. He tells a story about his crazy uncle, who can't feel anything in his left hand due to a shoulder injury. This inadvertently leads to said uncle fusing his hand to the tailpipe of a motorbike, because the uncle couldn't tell that it was hot.
- Forgot the Disability: Played for Laughs. A Running Gag is when he brings up that he's just a puppet, thus he can't do complex hand gestures or has non-functioning eyes.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Randy's hands have three fingers plus a thumb each. Justified since he's a puppet.
- Groin Attack: In Feltopia, Randy takes a bus, only to have two wasps go down the front of his pants, including stinging him in a testicle. This prompts Randy, in desperation to get rid of the wasps, to start punching himself repeatedly in the genitals. Afterwards, he decides that this is a good metahpor for American politics.
- Hypocrite: Played for laugh in "Randy is Sober". He states that, when he first became a vegan, he would still eat fish and chips. He describes as being a "fish-and-chipocrite".
- Laughing Mad: In the Gumtree story, Morgan starts giving out Mirthless Laughter after a bookcase tumbles down his staircase, smashes a light fixture, plows through a freshly-painted wall, and leaves a cut on Randy's face. Randy describes Morgan's laughter as "some sort of demonically-possessed baritone kookaburra".
- Locked Out of the Loop: The reason Randy isn't invited to parties is not because of his weird philosophical and surrealist tendencies, but because he doesn't use the internet or social media enough to stay informed on other people's lives. He cites an example where a female friend introduces her six-year-old son to Randy, and Randy comments that he didn't even know she was pregnant.
- Loophole Abuse: In Feltopia, Randy announces that he'll be a candidate in the 2024 American presidential election. He mentions that he's Australian, and this normally should disqualify him — under America's Constitution, only people born in America can be elected President. However, Randy mentions that several of his parts were made in America, therefore it's a loophole he can exploit.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Played for laughs. He tells the story of his uncle who got him into comedy, inadvertently. The uncle couldn't feel pain in one hand, which ended up fused to the tailpipe of a motorbike because it was hot and the uncle couldn't tell. Upon reaching the hospital, the uncle walked up to the counter, with the motorbike still attached, and said "I've done a mischief".
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: In Feltopia, he mentions a woman named Phoebe he met at a bus stop, who has a "Twitch-streaming, cosplaying, cupcake-baking, pronoun-flipping, D&D-on-Ketamine, gig-shiek, bubble tea thing going on" with her. He could tell this not only because of her loud style of dress, but the fact that she had an emotional support guinea pig. After he accidentally kills the guinea pig on a date, Randy and Phoebe bury the guinea pig in a park's rose garden, prompting Phoebe to start singing "Candle in the Wind" by Elton John, making Randy realize he dodged a bullet.
- Mood Whiplash: He can talk about a lot of raunchy or hilarious stories, and then the next moment become sentimental about life and the meaning behind our very existence. He even lampshades this in "Randy Writes a Novel."Randy: Now, I'm aware that this was billed as a comedy...
- Motor Mouth: He can sometimes talk very fast during a story.
- Muppet: Randy appears only with an upper body as a purple human-like muppet.
- Nested Story Reveal: Discussed. After telling the story of Gumtree, a bookcase, and a crazy divorcee named Morgan, he reveals that he made it all up. Randy then asks why learning that the story was entirely fictional somehow robs it of impact now that the audience knows that.
- Never Work with Children or Animals: He used to work as a children's entertainer, and he was the poor soul made to look after the kids after they were given a "shitload of lollies". He admits that he acquired a few skills from that, but acknowledges that it was a less than pleasant experience.
- New Technology Is Evil: Downplayed. Randy isn't a fan of smartphones or social media because of the obsessive nature of their users and what he considers the vast library of unnecessary functions within them, but still evidently has a phone regardless for essential communications and useful services.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: In his Ernest Hemingway segment, whenever he goes into or describes something batshit crazy that he found out Hemingway did.Randy: Got pneumonia, moved back to Cuba, and spent all of his spare time on his boat, tracking Nazi U-boats with a machine gun and a pile of hand grenades! I am not making this shit up!
Randy: (later in the same bit) Had a file opened on him by J. Edgar Hoover. Left a bunch of shit in a safe in Cuba and moved to Idaho, paranoid that the feds were following him. Which they were, because he spent most of the 1940s working for the KGB! Again: not making this shit up! - Oh, Crap!:
- His entire reaction during his story when Morgan starts to get "hungry for more destruction" and yells at Randy to "mind your own fucking business!"
- After delivering a Mercy Kill to his date's guinea pig, he realizes that she just saw him do it, and Randy now has to very quickly explain himself.
- Recovered Addict: Mentions in his shows that he used to drink a lot. He even has a show titled "Randy is Sober", where he also mentions how he used to smoke, but quit that around the same time he quit drinking. That being said, Randy also mentions that he hopes he gets pulled over by the police once he quit drinking, because he loves acting like he's wasted while being stone cold sober just to confuse the cops after he takes a breath test.
- Ridiculous Procrastinator: In "Randy Writes a Novel" he talks about how he heavily procrastinates just to avoid doing something. One of the jokes for his show was that he dedicated a lot of his time for writing his book to instead doing research on Ernest Hemingway to put off writing. The main joke of the show is also that he's supposed to be reading from his novel, but keeps putting it off to tell jokes. And the show ends just as he finally decides to read it.
- Running Gag:
- During his brief history about Ernest Hemingway, Randy always summarizes Hemingway's multiple instances of adultery as "Cheated on his wife, got divorced, married the other woman". He's also quick to point out that he often suffered a debilitating injury or disease relating to either his anus or genitals with a call of "Karmaaa!" in relation to either his game hunting or said adultery.
- In Feltopia, Randy mentions that Phoebe is an onomatopoeia for lots of very whimsical things, as he fell in Love at First Sight with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, such as what a bunny says when it sees a butterfly, a baby duck sneezing, or a fox's tail brushing past a Nintendo Switch.
- Sadistic Choice: In Feltopia, Randy accidentally runs over his date's guinea pig with his car, but doesn't kill it, leaving the animal suffering. Randy mentions that it was a hard choice for him as a vegan: he can't bear to kill an animal, but he also can't stand to see an animal suffer. Randy ultimately gives the guinea pig a Mercy Kill by smashing its head in with a rock, only to look up and realize that his date just saw him kill her pet guinea pig.
- Say My Name: Overlapping with an interesting variant of Skyward Scream due to him leaning back while doing so:Randy: But I am holding the full weight of a bookshelf halfway down the set of stairs, and Morgan is the only thing stopping that bookshelf from caving my face in! I was like, "Morgan! MORGAAAAAN!"
- "Shaggy Dog" Story:
- Played for laughs. He tells the story of his uncle who got him into comedy, inadvertently. The uncle couldn't feel pain in one hand, which ended up fused to the tailpipe of a motorbike because it was hot and the uncle couldn't tell. After taking his uncle to the hospital, Randy sat in the waiting room, saw an episode of Seinfeld, and decided "I wanna do that". The uncle had nothing else to do with it.
- Invoked at the end of the Gumtree story, about meeting a soon-to-be divorced man named Morgan to buy a bookshelf, only to have Morgan go Ax-Crazy and destroy his ex-wife's possessions when the bookshelf went through a wall. After this happened, while Randy is tying the bookshelf to his car, Morgan ends up destroying the house and jumps into Randy's car. Terrified, Randy speeds away, only to have the bookshelf fall from his car and burst into a million pieces upon impact. However, right after that, Randy admits that he made up the entire story. He then posits the question of why that suddenly makes the story less interesting or have less impact, knowing now that it was all fake.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: He is quite the foul-mouthed puppet. Purple Privilege brings this up in one bit with a woman who was dissatisfied with a previous set and left (but not before clipping her fingernails).Randy: After the show, my theater staff told me that she said she left because she thought there was too much swearing in the show... I mean, to be fair, I did call her a cunt, but... [shrugs]
- Straight Man: In an inversion of the typical "humans interacting with puppet/costumed characters" comedy formula, Randy is often the one to take the role of this trope, left constantly bewildered by the strange happenings around him.
- Straw Vegetarian: In "Randy Writes a Novel" he says he's vegan because he doesn't approve of the process that goes into making meat, and jokes that it gives him an excuse to be an asshole at parties.
- Suddenly Shouting: Sometimes during his act he'll be calmly telling a story and then raise his voice if he's angered or to emphasize something.Randy: Name me one blue food.
Audience member: Blueberries!
Randy: BLUEBERRIES ARE FUCKING PURPLE!! - Thrill Seeker: In one of his stories after he quit drinking, he recounted a time where he got pulled over for a breath test but obviously passed. But because he enjoyed the rush of being pulled over and then let go, calling it "the closest thing to being drunk since I quit drinking", he then deliberately starts to look for cops and pretend to be drunk. He then adds that he took it so far that they ended up taking him to the station to do a blood test.Randy: Gets addictive when you get to that stage.
- Two-Timing with the Bestie: Morgan ends up coming across this when attempting to share his live home computer footage from over in Dubai.Randy: Now, those of you who are familiar with the Photo Booth app will know that how it works is it accesses the built-in camera in your computer, and with the click of a button, (pop) takes a photo of you when you're standing in front of the screen. And if you know that, you'll also know that if you leave that application open, the camera also stays open, witnessing whatever may be happening in front of the computer in real time! Such as your wife... in your home office... fucking your best mate. OOOOOHHHHHHHHHH NNNOOOOO, MMMOOOOORGAN, NNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!
- Vitriolic Best Buds: His typical interactions with Sammy J. involve Randy upstaging or embarrassing him.
- Wham Line: After telling an absolutely insane story about Morgan and his trials buying a bookshelf from the man, he reveals the true nature of the story: "I just made it up. Yeah, it's not true. There is no Morgan". Randy does this as a way to question how knowing the meta reason that he told the story somehow robs it of the impact it had just moments before he said that.
- What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: This seems to be on play with Randy's veganism. While he opposes eating animals for ethical reasons, in "Purple Privlidge" he strongly considers fumigating his car because "what kind of man has ants in his car?". In "Randy Writes a Novel", he stomps on a cockroach that was stuck in an abandoned coffee mug.
"Walking to Skye, Chapter 1. (inhale–)"
