Randy Rainbow (no that isn’t a Stage Name, it’s his actual birth name) is an American comedian and singer who publishes videos on YouTube, in which he spoofs interviews with famous figures and parodies musical numbers. His early works were fake phone conversations created by using Manipulative Editing on real audio clips. He shifted focus during the 2016 American presidential campaign, when he started making spoof interviews and musical parodies skewering the election and the candidates. Donald Trump became a favourite target of his following his nomination by the Republican party and subsequent election.
Randy Rainbow's videos contain examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Randy sometimes gets this reaction from people who don't agree with his political views, but enjoy his videos nonetheless.
- Aerith and Bob: Vice President (then candidate) Kamala Harris and her husband ... Doug. Randy is briefly bemused by the juxtaposition.
- All Just a Dream: "Hillary Wins" ends with Randy waking up to discover that Trump has won the election instead of Clinton, as most of the video was filmed and edited before the election results were in.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In "The Donald Trump Cell Block Tango," Randy tells us that Roger Stone was indicted for "lying, obstructing justice, witness tampering, and lacking basic fashion sense."
- In "Suckers," when Trump talks about how he used to get good press because of what he stands for, Randy replies "Intolerance, bigotry, and the all-day breakfast menu at McDonald's?"
- Aside Glance: Often does this after a particularly hypocritical or insensitive remark from an "interviewee."
- Author Appeal: Many of his parodies are of songs from Broadway musicals, due to Randy being a huge fan of the genre.
- Author Tract: Flamboyantly done.
- Big Eater: Randy often makes jokes about Donald Trump's love of fast food. In "Trump's Favorite Things," Randy mentions "big fat-ass buckets of fried chicken wings" and "giant hamburgers with extra covfefe" as two of said favorite things.
- Blasphemous Boast: Randy accuses Trump of doing this (and brutally mocks him for it) in "Cheeto Christ Stupid-Czar."
- *Bleep*-dammit!: The sing-along lyrics to "Desperate Cheeto" say "***ing", but you can clearly hear Randy pronouncing the F before the bleep starts.
- Bohemian Parody: In "The Sycophant Italiano", Randy briefly detracts from the "Cinema Italiano" parody to do a "Bohemian Rhapsody" reference due to popular demand (see video example below).
- Call-Back:
- In "Those Were The Good Old Days"
, Randy nostalgically reminisces about political scandals of years past, at one point remarking "Even Mel Gibson seems charming again!" and playing a brief clip of Mel's angry rant toward his ex-girlfriend - a reference to one of Randy's earliest viral videos from 2010, "Randy Rainbow Is Dating Mel Gibson". Randy also briefly references this in "Kill The Release!":
Why can't we go back to the wholesome days of Disney films, when there was a d*ck hiding on every poster and Pocahontas was dating Mel Gibson?- "Seasons of Trump" has several, given that it more or less summarizes Trump's entire term; several of the costumes are references to previous videos, and a brief clip of "Braggadocious" is shown near the end.
- In "Those Were The Good Old Days"
- Camp Gay: To a tee. Lampshaded heavily in "GAY!".
- Catchphrase: "Let's cut the sh*t." (usually when addressing Kellyanne Conway)
- "Whatever, gurl," or simply "Gurl."
- Chroma Key: Most, if not all, of his parody videos use this.
- Cluster F-Bomb: "WTF, You Guys?"
- Compensating for Something: In "There is Nothin' Like a Wall," Randy suggests that this may be one of the reasons for Donald Trump wanting to build his border wall:Nothing else would be so tall / Nothing in the world could make up for just how small his own penis is like a wall
- Confusing Multiple Negatives: The bridge of "Just Be Best" is full of confusing negatives and culminates in this:Go on! Don't not not be not more better, lest you should regret it. Best be- fuck it, just forget it.
- Crossdresser: Very frequently in his videos. Though given his Camp Gay persona, that's to be expected.
- Curse Cut Short: From "Yes! We Have No Steve Bannon":We've got a carrot, a kumquat, a Jared, this dumb t— OOF! That's not what I meant to say - sorry, mom.
- Deadpan Snarker: Frequently makes sarcastic remarks toward members of Trump's cabinet during fake interviews.Nikki Haley: Well, I think what you saw yesterday from the president was he was being honest.Randy: Maybe that's why we didn't recognize it.
- Delusions of Eloquence: Randy accuses Donald Trump of this in "Braggadocious!":He found a word that sounded smart and used it all day long / But even Webster's dictionary said he got it wrong
- The Diss Track: "A Very Stable Genius" is a parody of the Major General Song about how Donald Trump claims to be a "very stable genius", but his actions suggest otherwise. It also claims that he has a Teeny Weenie and an even smaller brain.
- Don't Try This at Home: "A Spoonful of Clorox" makes fun of Trump's infamous statement about injecting cleaning fluids to cure COVID-19. At the end of the video, Randy flashes a warning on screen advising against actually drinking them.
- Downer Ending: "Hillary Wins"
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Randy's early videos are drastically different from the political song parodies he has become known for. He would satirize other topics besides politics (such as Mel Gibson's violent, racist outbursts toward his ex-girlfriend) and most of his videos featured him walking around his apartment having phone conversations with edited recordings of various celebrities, with little or no singing. Shortly thereafter, he began experimenting with JibJab style Clip-Art Animation in videos such as "Rick Perry and Randy Rainbow: The Xmas Album." One of his earliest song parodies, "Adele Dazeem," pokes fun at John Travolta's mispronunciation of Idina Menzel's name at the 2014 Oscars.
- Freudian Slip: In his fake interviews with Kellyanne Conway, he sometimes refers to her as "Kellyanne Conartist" or "Kellyanne Conjob" before correcting himself. In "Just Be Best!", he tells Melania Trump that "you always have the best taste in fascists— fashion."
- Fun with Acronyms: In "DACA Shame," he says that DACA stands for "Donald's A Cold-hearted Ass-face."
- Future Me Scares Me: Done via Manipulative Editing in "Suckers" when Randy plays a clip of Lindsey Graham condemning Trump's rhetoric from 2015 against a clip of Graham praising Trump several years later.
- Hurricane of Puns: "Commander of Cheese" is mostly comprised of cheese-related puns.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- From "Desperate Cheeto":Every time you give a ***ing speech, the censors have to bleep-o
- Similarly, in "The Sycophant Italiano" he brings up Anthony Scaramucci's vulgar statements about Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon, asking him "Is that kind of language really ***ing appropriate?"
- In "The Muller Blues," he exclaims "Holy shit!", then says "I'm sorry to curse, bitch."
- In "Before He Tweets", Randy interviews Kellyanne Conway and tells her that women's voices everywhere are being silenced. He asks Kellyanne, what would she say to them regarding Trump's misogyny?Kellyanne: Well, it's just not fair-Randy: Oh, shut up.
- From "Desperate Cheeto":
- Implausible Deniability: Comes up a lot, with many songs focusing on the Blatant Lies of Trump surrogates, as well as Trump himself. He skewers them for it, naturally.
- Ladyella: Cruella DeVos, of course casting Betsy DeVos as the villain from 101 Dalmatians.
- Last-Second Word Swap:
- In "WTF, You Guys?!", he gestures toward a photo of Ivanka Trump while singing "You see how this feckless coun...try is coming undone."
- Also done in "That Don!":But this time he vows it's America first, and that's why he's relying on you...kraine
- Long List: At the end of "That Don!", Randy lists off several of Donald Trump's weak points, including his impeachment, misogyny, racism and narcissism, before sarcastically adding, "You know, this is never going to fit on a t-shirt."
- Lyrical Dissonance:
- "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?" features Randy singing about the terrifying possibility of nuclear annihilation... to the tune of "Maria" from The Sound of Music.
- Similarly, "Buttons!" is about the nuclear buttons in the hands of Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump. Its tune is from the fairly upbeat The Patty Duke Show theme.
- A parody of a song from South Pacific is happy and bouncy... and about how Donald Trump is in love with Kim Jong-un ... "And We're All Gonna Die".
- Lyrical Shoehorn:
- The chorus of "Desperate Cheeto" features words like "bleep-o" and "creep-o" to make them all sort of rhyme with "cheeto" and fit the meter of the song. There's also a verse containing the line "stop smoking marijuania" to make it rhyme with "Melania" and "ya".
- "A Very Stable Genius" has "penius", "vaginias" and "subpoenias".
- In "He's Just a Gurl Who'll Quid Pro Quo," he pronounces "fallacy" as "fahl-acy" to rhyme with "policy."
- Major General Song: "A Very Stable Genius" parodies the Gilbert and Sullivan original.
- Making a Spectacle of Yourself: Has a pair of pink cat-eye glasses that he frequently wears during fake interviews, to the point that they've become one of his trademarks. Occasionally he wears a red pair of the same type of glasses, and also wears a pair of oversized star-shaped glasses while impersonating Elton John in "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?"
- Malicious Misnaming: He refers to Donald Trump as "Donald Jessica Trump" and Attorney General William Barr as "Roseanne."
- Manipulative Editing: Played for Laughs whenever Randy uses creative editing to make spoof phone calls and interviews.
- Motor Mouth: Several of his songs parody raps and Patter Songs with rapid-fire wordplay.
- Nose Nuggets: The video for "Bunker Boy" includes a still of Trump with his fingertip up his nose.
- No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Discussed in "Before He Tweets". Randy says "And the next time that [Trump] tweets, it better not be at me", and then changes his mind because he "could use the publicity".
- Nuke 'em: Discussed in "Buttons!", which is about Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un having access to nuclear weapons. Randy wouldn't trust either of them to nuke responsibly.
- Patter Song: “A Very Stable Genius” (a parody of “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance) and “Don’t Tell Donald He’s NOT RE-ELECTED TODAY!” (“Getting Married Today” from Stephen Sondheim’s Company). Both put his Motor Mouth abilities to the test.
- Perfectly Cromulent Word:
- "A Very Stable Genius" describes Trump as the "Mussoliniest" of all US presidents.
- "Covfefe: The Broadway Medley" gets a ton of mileage out of Trump's infamous Twitter typo.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: "Sycophant Italiano" portrays former White House Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci as someone who used to oppose Trump, and later became a sycophant in order to get ahead. It didn't work — he was infamously fired only ten days after getting the job.
- Real Joke Name: "Randy Rainbow" sounds like the perfect Camp Gay stage name; it is in fact his real name. His website even includes a "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Two of his videos have had their endings changed at the last minute after an unexpected political shakeup: "Hillary Wins" (mentioned above) and "The Sycophant Italiano" (due to Anthony Scaramucci's sudden firing).
- Rhymes on a Dime: Impressively, he even has a rhyme for "Kellyanne"note . Even more impressively, it's "Machiavellian."
- Running Gag:
- Saying Trump has small hands.
- Referencing Trump's "covfefe" tweet.
- Mocking Trump's tan by saying he looks orange.
- Referring to Trump as "Donald Jessica Trump."
- Sarcastic Clapping:
- In "Border Lies" and "That Don!", Randy imitates Nancy Pelosi's memetic "applause" at Trump's State of the Union address.
- In "Poor Deplorable Troll", after Trump refers to COVID-19 as the "China plague", Randy abruptly starts clapping, complete with an applause track in the background.Randy: I love that one.
- Self-Backing Vocalist: Many of his song parodies feature a chorus of identical backup singers, all of whom are him.
- Shout-Out: While "Andy!" mostly parodies "Sandy" from Grease, the backing lyrics include a brief reference to "I Won't Say (I'm in Love)" from Hercules.
- Skewed Priorities: "Before He Tweets" accuses Trump of prioritizing Twitter over important political issues.
- Song Parody: His songs are parodies. For instance, "Desperate Cheeto" is a parody of "Despacito".
- Song Style Shift: "Lock Him Up Yesterday" frequently changes tempo, and "Life's a F***ing Fantasy for Santos" mashes up parodies of "Jolly Holiday" and "Georgy Girl".
- Sound-Effect Bleep: Conversed in "Desperate Cheeto" when Randy says "every time you open up your mouth, the censors have to bleep-o". Played straight when a similar line mentions Trump's speeches and contains the word "***ing" later on.
- Special Guest: Randy duets with Patti LuPone in "If Donald Got Fired".
- Stage Names: Averted - believe it or not, "Randy Rainbow" is his real name.
- The Stinger: Nearly all of his videos end with one (sometimes a repeated sound bite from earlier in the video).
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: From "Voting!":Why not be responsible instead / Whether you vote blue or you vote blue
- He also subverts rhymes to avoid saying "fucked." From "Rudolph the Leaky Lawyer," we have this:
Oh how the whole world mocked him
Though he kept his dress shirts tucked.
He couldn't tell poor Donald
"Pack it up, 'cause Babe, you're failing to overturn this election."- And from "Donald in the John with Boxes" comes this:
Picture his ass in a bright orange jumpsuit
Brought to the justice he tried to obstruct.
Thought he's be cute and just take what he wanted.
And now he's totally screwed. - Synchro-Vox: Sometimes superimposes his mouth onto photos of Trump or members of his cabinet. See "Putin and the Ritz" and "The Mango Tour" for two examples.
- Take That!:
- Pretty much every song attacks Donald Trump, a member of his cabinet or some other Republican politician.
- "Before He Tweets" contains a jab at the Kardashians.
- The Tease: In "There is Nothin' Like a Wall," Randy makes several rather blatant come-ons toward Mike Pence.I just... love the way it feels in my mouth! *winks seductively*
- Teeny Weenie: In "A Very Stable Genius", Randy jokes that Trump's brain is smaller than his "tiny little penius".
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Very, very often. One example, from "Voting!":Don't forget to cast your vote, bitch...
- Troll: Both "Before He Tweets" and "You Can't Stop His Tweets" compare Trump's Twitter usage to that of a cyber troll.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Randy often dresses in dresses and plays female characters, always played for laughs.
- With Due Respect: In "Desperate Cheeto", Randy says the following to Trump:I mean no disrespect, but you're a big disgrace
- "If Donald Got Fired" includes a similar lyric: "With all due respect, please kindly fuck off."
