Randy Feltface is a comedy puppet created by Heath McIvor, an Australian comedian whose puppet skills have been put to use in Me and My Monsters, The Hobbit movie and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe film. The masterful puppeteer McIvor started his career in puppetry at the tender age of 13 years old, but has honed his comedy skills and music skills too, performing in other comedy shows and singing for two different bands in Melbourne, Australia.
Puppeteer Heath McIvor has his character Randy Feltface lean forward and make eye contact with the audience to build a sense of intimacy and then empathy with the crowd.
Australians Love Buying Stuff on Gumtree.com
Australian culture and humor are apparent in the skit we’re watching here, called Randy Buys a Bookshelf off Gumtree. Gumtree.com.au is an online classifieds website that allows Australian people to put up sales listings for furniture, vehicles, property and any other items that they have to sell, whether they are pre-owned or hand-crafted or bought in bulk with the intention of selling the products online through Gumtree. The website first started in London as an online classifieds site that helped expat New Zealanders, Australians and South Africans who had just moved to the city to find accomodation, home furnishings and even jobs. The website now has sites dedicated to cities in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, France, Poland, Germany, Italy and Hong Kong.
Despite the puppet not having facial expressions, we know that in this part of the comedy, Randy Feltface is feeling a sense of fascinated horror
The Australian habit of buying second-hand furniture off Gumtree is poked fun at in Heath McIvor’s skit by pointing out that you never know what kind of a person you might end up dealing with, or what kind of a situation you might find yourself in when you go to buy the item. He also pokes fun at Australia’s engagement with social media sites by having his puppet act out the process of posting selfies on social media and waiting for your online friends to like the photos. And like any good Millennial comedian, McIvor also pokes fun at his own generation of hipsters and cell phone addicts.
From below the table, comedian puppeteer Heath McIvor is able to control his puppet, Randy Feltface, so that to the audience, it appears that the puppet is acting out the story of holding a heavy bookcase on a flight of stairs.
How the Comedian Toys with Our Emotions
Even though the Randy character doesn’t have changeable facial expressions, the puppeteer is able to convey emotions through the puppet by giving the puppet human hand gestures and body language. Also, by having the puppet mime actions that are part of the story, such as holding the bookcase on the stairs, we the viewers apply human emotions such as fascination or dread to the puppet because these are likely to be the emotions that we expect ourselves to feel in that situation. The comedian is cleverly playing with our sense of empathy to draw us into the funny story.
Heath McIvor play with his human audiences empathy to draw them into his funny puppet show.
Another comedian who plays with puppets is Jeff Dunham. His puppet Peanut is similar to Randy in that neither puppet can change their facial expressions, and both puppets rely on the audience’s ability to read body language. If you enjoyed watching Randy in this video, you can watch a video here on Mayhem and Muse that shows a young Jeff Dunham playing a comedy show with his puppet Peanut way back in 1992.
Randy Feltface uses melodramatic hand gestures and body language to tell his stories.
