That’s what New York City-based performer and comedian Randy Rainbow said about his weekly YouTube installments poking fun at the current political climate, namely the Trump administration.
Trumpian developments like “covfefe” and “braggadocious” may cause uproarious laughter for a day or two, but if you take too much time, your subject is stale before it goes live. Or, everyone has moved on to another absurdity.
But Rainbow, who is coming to the Straz Center's Ferguson Hall April 13, makes it work.
“Well, I try to work fairly quickly because the stuff I do is so topical and these days if you wait too long — if you wait a day, really — the news cycle will be different the next day,” he said.
Rainbow has been making videos goofing on politics and pop culture (typically, the interplay between the two) since 2010. His video “Randy Rainbow is Dating Mel Gibson” — in which he hilariously splices in audio of an extremely drunk and abusive Gibson, which had been leaked to media at the time — was the first one to get big.
“That was my first taste of viral success, and I developed a nice little following and it quickly became my shtick, to insert myself into hot topics,” he said. “And so I stuck with that and I’ve been doing that ever since.”
In September of 2016, during the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Rainbow heard the man who is now president deny that he would talk about his success in a way that was “braggadocious.” It was a term that made the internet go nuts. Rainbow quickly got to work: writing, recording and heavily editing video.
What resulted was a “debate” in which he was the moderator, which culminated in a parody of the Mary Poppins number “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” one that of course contained the controversial four-syllable word nobody had expected the braggadocious GOP presidential nominee to use, given how it’s not exactly flattering.
Within two days, the video had 30 million views. It was all over social media.
One doesn’t have to watch his work for very long to deduce that he’s a natural performer — but despite all the times he’s poked fun at homophobic celebrities and political figures, he swears “Randy Rainbow” is no stage name.
“That’s our actual name,” he said. “It’s a long, boring story, but even before it was Rainbow, it was Rainbow in, like, Russian. It was Rainbow in another language. So it’s not like we came to Ellis Island and they were like, oh, you’re gay, we’ll call you Rainbow. It was Rainbow from the beginning.”
Since he began reaching a larger audience with his pun-heavy Trump takedowns, he’s done videos poking fun at the likes of Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration’s dealings with North Korea. One parody, “Desperate Cheeto,” lampoons Trump over his Hurricane Maria response in Puerto Rico to the tune, of course, of “Despacito.”
Part of the reason for the shift to politics?
There’s just so much material there, he said.
Had Clinton won in 2016, he said while he’d probably still be doing political stuff, the Trump Administration’s ongoing turmoil seems to be supplying him and other comedians with boundless fodder.
“There’s always something to make fun of with everybody. I certainly would’ve found material in Hillary Clinton, but certainly not as much,” he said. “I think anybody doing comedy right now will tell you this is a gift from the comedy gods, and it almost writes itself.”
He said while he never intended to be overtly political, he has liked being part of the conversation via his videos.
“My initial goal, in the start at least, was to be funny and make people laugh. I’ve learned, though, from the great reaction that I’ve gotten online, and from the live audiences, that I do kind of have a voice that matters to people,” he said. “Comedy is more powerful than it gets credit for being. And it really levels the playing field and it’s unifying… It does have the power to change minds, so that’s something I’m conscious of now.”
On the road, he said, his show incorporates his viral tunes, but makes sure the setlist features tunes that are evergreen. With help from a band, he performs live with a screen behind him — but no two shows are the same, really. That’s because he tries to find the big topic of the day — if something develops with the Russia stuff or DACA, he’ll incorporate songs related to those, and build his setlist from there.
“You never know what’s going to happen. It’s a lot of alternating of videos depending on the day. If something happens with North Korea, we’ll play that song, or with the Mueller investigation, we’ll focus more on that.
“But we do have to switch around a lot based on what the headlines are that day… It’s hard to keep up with this shit.”
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 5, 2018.