Randy Marsh

Randy Marsh
Background information
First appearance(s)	Volcano (South Park)
Feature films	South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut South Park The Streaming Wars
Television programs	South Park
Video games	South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! South Park: The Stick of Truth South Park: The Fractured but Whole South Park: Phone Destroyer
Animators	South Park Digital Studios
Designer	Trey Parker Matt Stone
Voice	Trey Parker
Inspiration	Randy Parker (Trey Parker's father)
Character information
Full name	Randy S. Marsh
Other names	Steamy Ray Vaughn Lorde The Amazingly Randy N- Word Guy Karen
Occupation	Cannabis farmer and owner of Tegridy Farms and its subsidiary Tegridy Burger Geologist Singer-songwriter Head coach of the Denver Broncos School Chef
Alignment	Neutral
Affiliations	The Marsh family
Home	South Park, Colorado (USA)
Gender	Male
Species	Human
Age(s)	40
Spouse(s)	Sharon (wife)
Children	Stan Marsh (son) Shelley Marsh (daughter)
Status	Active

“Hey, Sharon!”

―Randy Marsh (mostly to Sharon)

Randy S. Marsh is the son of Marvin and Grandma Marsh, the husband of Sharon, and the father of Stan and Shelley. He makes his debut in the Season One episode "Volcano" and is voiced by Trey Parker.

Despite being a geologist with a doctorate, he is generally portrayed as an absent-minded idiot, driving many episode plots in the later seasons, though this was later revealed to be due to him being unhappy over his marriage. However, in earlier seasons he was calmer and more level-headed, often providing advice to the boys. In "You're Getting Old", he divorced his wife and moved away. However, in "Ass Burgers" he reconciled with Sharon and remarried, therefore getting their old house back. In Season Twenty-Two, Randy founded the Tegridy Farms hemp farming business, before returning to his geologist job in South Park: The Streaming Wars Part 2.

Randy is named after and based upon Trey Parker's father, Randy Parker, who is also a geologist.

Appearance

Randy has black hair, a mustache, and a cleft chin. He carries a few pens in one of the two front pockets on his light blue, collared, button-up shirt, and wears dark gray pants. White briefs are his underpants of choice. He is 45 years old, and like Parker's father, is a geologist, making his first appearance in the series while monitoring a seismometer in the episode "Volcano". He was depicted to work at the South Park Center for Seismic Activity, and was later shown to work for the U. S. Geological Survey.Template:Episode needed He was briefly fired from his geologist job near the end of the 12th season, and quit briefly during the end of the 14th season, but has since been rehired both times.Template:Episode needed Randy has not been shown at the earthquake monitoring office since he opened Tegridy Farms, and in-show events strongly suggest that he has abandoned his previous career to raise marijuana full-time. He also serves on the city council, specializing in the town's parks and public grounds.

A recurring character trait of Randy's is his being prone to overreacting and obsessively seizing upon irrational ideas and fads, whether by himself or as part of a large contingent of the town's adult population. He frequently attempts to appear cool and popular, particularly to Stan, who finds his attempts embarrassing unless they benefit Stan's interests in some way.

Among the endeavors on which he sometimes embarks are get-rich quick schemes or other strategies for economic or material gain. In "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes", he took a job as an associate at Wal-Mart. In "A Nightmare on Face Time", he buys the closed Blockbuster Video in town, hoping to turn it around. In "Black Friday", he takes a job as a security guard at the town's shopping mall during the Black Friday to infiltrate the mall before the stampede of shoppers. In later seasons, Randy is shown to have finally achieved a very high income from both his work as Lorde and his marijuana business, though this has not improved the underlying problems in his family relationships.

Randy dropped out of high school and was a member of a boyband in his teens, as shown in "Something You Can Do with Your Finger", but he has mentioned that he attended college and has been indicated to hold a doctorate.

The show frequently depicts him to be a moderate to heavy drinker, and numerous episodes have dealt with Randy's belligerent and negligent behavior brought upon by his severe intoxication.

A few instances of personal achievement have made Randy a hero in the eyes of his friends and fellow townsfolk, such as being awarded a Nobel Prize and twice setting a record for producing the world's largest piece of human excrement. Randy has conversely been subjected to ridicule from the entire town, ranging from when he inadvertently accelerated the effects of global warming by suggesting the entire populace take on a more uninhibited approach to passing gas to avoid the hazard of spontaneous combustion to when he reluctantly exclaimed "The-N word" while attempting to solve a puzzle during a live broadcast of Wheel of Fortune. In addition to the professional singing he did in his youth, Randy can also play guitar, as seen in "Guitar Queer-O". He can also speak a little Mongolian, having learned some in college, as seen in the episode "Child Abduction Is Not Funny".

The episode "Gluten Free Ebola" revealed that Randy produces music and performs as the noted musician Lorde, a fact that was explored subsequently in "The Cissy". This has become a running gag that has continued through multiple episodes, such as suggesting much of the Marsh family's income comes from his music career as Lorde rather than his geology job. As of season 22, Randy quit his job and moved the family to the countryside, where he sets up Tegridy Farms to grow and distribute cannabis. Throughout Season 23, Randy engages in increasingly unethical business practices until he is sent to prison in "Season Finale"; though he is eventually released, he vows to no longer engage in illegal activities, though the cannabis season ends shortly after his release. In "Christmas Snow", he begins selling cocaine during the winter, which he has legalized in multiple states so that he can farm it.

Randy also makes a cameo appearance in the 2022 film Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers.

Personality

Randy is often portrayed as an intelligent but simultaneously dim-witted, quick to think, naive man, while all the same a caring, doting father. However, he is also obsessive and when he gets engrossed in something, his personality turns to the exact opposite. He becomes immature, childish, and dumb during the obsession phases. He has a habit of being led astray by new fads or events, like many of the characters. All the same, he has also been known to go completely against such things, though his reasons are usually selfish and immature. He will also try to do a heroic thing but will then be distracted due to a selfish reason as seen in "Insheeption". However, this was caused by Mr. Mackey because Randy ignored the psychiatrist's wanting about Mackey's dream being so unstable. Another aspect and common trait of Randy is that he will often take up a cause, but they hypocritically abandon that cause or objective whenever he sees it as something that will damage his reputation or finds something else that will be beneficial for himself or his family. Such instances of this are in "Margaritaville", when he led the townspeople to abandon all material possessions and economic activities in order to "please the economy", but when Kyle decided to pay for everyone's debt, he was one of the people in line who chose to have his debt paid for, immediately abandoning his previous beliefs. Another instance is in "Naughty Ninjas", when he sought out Officer Barbrady to shoot kids who they thought were part of ISIS. But when he found out that they were just playing ninjas and Officer Barbrady accidentally shot David, he immediately blamed Officer Barbrady, along with the Mayor and her staff. When Officer Barbrady reminded Randy that he'd told him "to shoot some kids", Randy insists that he was saying it as a question and tries to shift all the blame from him and target the very person he'd sought out for help.

Randy also seems to drink a lot of coffee, shown carrying a cup in most episodes he is in at one point or another.

Randy has a tendency to act very melodramatically. Whenever things get surreal in the show, and Randy is calling for his son, he usually puts on an act of being very ill and weak, and moaning Stan's name out: "Staaaaaan!". Randy is also shown to be a hypochondriac, as revealed by Stan in "Bloody Mary".

In "My Future Self n' Me", "Future Stan" reveals that Randy does not like chicken. He also does not like cherry pop-tarts, as he expressed disgust when Linda Stotch pointed out that those were the only ones left in "Night of the Living Homeless".

In "Guitar Queer-O", Randy can be seen strumming a guitar with his right hand; he may, therefore, be right-handed.

He is obsessive with a few things, as evidenced with his video camera in "Pandemic" when he videotaped his father Marvin Marsh in the bathtub, Sharon, Stan and Shelley eating dinner (which is implied to have happened multiple times), a Peruvian flute band outside the house (asking Stan to go outside next to them), Sharon and Shelley watching CNN, Sharon talking to the Broflovskis and Tuckers about their missing boys, Sharon calling someone to help with the missing boys and the gargantuan guinea pigs rampaging through town. Sharon frequently reprimanded him for doing this, calling him an idiot at one point.

Behind the scenes

• Randy holds a Doctorate Degree in Geology despite having dropped out of high school which was revealed in "Something You Can Do with Your Finger".
• Randy's animation has been edited more times than other characters: his original appearance in Season One, his new design in Season Two that lasted until Season Eleven, with a different hair and slightly different outfit, and a cleaned-up design from Season 11 forward with thinner, more subtle pockets and collar.
• A Randy Marsh look-alike can be found on The Simpsons episode, "Krusty Gets Kancelled" where he appears as a cameraman in Gabbo's studio. This is either a prototype, inspiration, or a coincidence.
• According to promotional material for South Park: The Stick of Truth, Randy is head of South Park Elementary's parent-teacher association.
• Randy's Twitter handle is @GettinRandy55, as seen in "Safe Space".
• It was revealed in "Clubhouses" that Randy is the only adult in the show who likes Terrance and Phillip, although in the movie, he is seen protesting.
• Randy's DNA results by DNA And Me showed he is 43% Northern European, 37% Mediterranean, and 18% Southwest Asian which was the same genetic compound as the average British person, and out of this he was discovered to be 2.8% Neanderthal (one of the modern-day humans' predecessors which would actually explain Randy's moronic and violent behavior).

External Links

• South Park Archives
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Marsh_(South_Park)

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Media Films: South Park Television shows: South Park Characters Inspector Gadget • G2 • Gadgetinis • Penny Brown • Brain • Stan Marsh • Kyle Broflovski • Eric Cartman • Kenny McCormick • Badger • Weasel • Dr. Claw • Kamikazi and Constantine • MAD Cat • Gadgetmobile • Chief Quimby • Colonel Nozzaire • General Sir • Professor Moshimo • Craig Tucker • Damien Thorn • Tweek Tweak • Sykes • M.A.D. Agents Episodes Season 1: Season 2: Season 3: Season 4: Season 5: Season 6: Season 7: Season 8: Season 9: Season 10: Season 11: Season 12: Season 13: Season 14: Season 15: Season 16: Season 17: Season 18: Season 19: Season 20: Season 21: Season 22: Season 23: Season 24: Season 25: Season 26: Season 27: Season 28: Season 29: Season 30: Songs