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Monthly Muppets Madness: Sammy J and Randy in Bin Night (Comissoin for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy muppety faces and welcome back to Monthly Muppets! My look at all things muppet, from the troupe themselves, to other works by jim henson to the many things inspired by his fine work.

And tonight is bin night as we look at the australian comedy duo of Sammy J and Randy Feltface and their 2012 special Bin Night. I first found out about this duo after Kev had found out about this duo from Lachey V, another long time patron on this blog, and wanted me to cover their show Ricketts Lane, which looks delightfully insane in the vein of british comedies like The Mighty boosh or Snuffbox. Sadly so far we haven't been able to find it anywhere in the us and attempts to rip it off Lachey's dvd's didn't quite work. So while I fully intend to cover Rickett's Lane at some point, for now we're doing Bin Night to still give these boys the spotlight.

The Duo's origin seem simple enough: Randy came from Heath McIvor's long time love of puppetry, having according to wikipedia been practicing since the tender age of 13. McIvor was tasked by a friend to do a show called "what is bullying to you" and needing a third puppet that could be unisex, Randy was born. While the show didn't go off well, McIvor liked the puppet and started performing with him, picking up steam.

He eventually met Sammy J when the two were double billed and they hit it off, soon becoming a double act. Nowadays the two aren't performing together as Randy has moved here to the US and Sammy is still in austrilia doing a show on ABC, but it's clear if the two wanted to get back together they could and it dosen't seem like any big split happened. They simply had other stuff they wanted to do and parted ways. I'm defintely up to look at Randy's solo material eventaully if anyone's intrested

For now we're looking at bin night. Bin Night has a very simple premise: Sammy J and Randy have someone sneaking their bags into their trash bins, and have decide to stake it out. various other nonsense insues including a feast, living shovels, murder, furry cosplay, and trips to machu pichu. You can find out about it all under the cut.

So the setup I mentiond is simple as is the set for this one: i'ts just the duo's yard, their house, and the bin. There's plenty of other props, backup dancers for the feast song, and what have you but it's a scaled down two man show almost entirely focused on these two idiots attempts to make it through the night.

Luckily Sammy J and Randy are strong characters; Sammy J is a tight ass, putting most of his faith in overcomplicated plans that have to go to the letter and annoy randy at how long they take. Randy meanwhile is a bit more loosey goosey and impuslive, the kind of guy who'd gladly sneak into a musuem benifit next to the building he's been peeing on to bum free food.

Sammy J drives most of the plot but it works well. Not only is the contrast of the muppet being the sane one of the two great, but Sammy takes your usual straight man to hilariously up his own ass lengths that lead to Randy barely parsing what he's doing. For instance Sammy J had a security system installed and insists it's state of the art and great.. despite all it's acomplished so far being accusing Randy of being a pedophile due to how the system SHOUTS "alert alert pedophile" for reasons, getting him arrested for trying to get into his own house, and getting him on the sex offenders registry. Not only that you have to close the door JUST RIGHT or your locked out, which naturally happens to our heroes. It's a joke that could easily fall or simply lean on being "lol pedophile".. but just keeps escalting and keeps working due to relatablity: we've seen tons of security system gags and i've had plenty of technology fail and plenty of people assume an overcomplicated system for their house is more resonable than removing it.

The lock out is also bad due to my faviorite gag of the special: the feast. The boys sing an entire song about Sammy J cooking them up a feast. Why he choose feast night to be stakeout night I don't know. And fitting the character he can't even have THAT be simple, forcing Randy to fast for 6 days to properly enjoy it and just.. not admitting he fucked up at any point, preferring to wait on the line to get support instead of I dunno, throwing a rock in his own window. The backup dancers, who get rudely dismissed and the chef's hat are just delightful.

The special has plenty of delightful stage florishes too: they go through their suspect list by having Randy's pupeteer dress up as each one , turning off the lights and using spotlights to simulate a camera flash while Sammy narrates them. My faviorite is the local family man from the family everyone hates whose hobbies include "Cheating on his wife and when not cheating on his wife football, darts and cheating on his wife" We also get extra puppets including a shovel and a pizza box. This show was low budget but you can tell they stretched every dollar they had and it paid off, both being skilled at muppetry. It's an ingenious use of stage and budget.

The pizza box comes about because the two consider odering pizza but Sammy's refusal to bend on waiting on hold sadly scuppers that plan. It does lead to a new one as Sammy, being the draconian howard moonian prick he is, threw away a nut loaf Randy tried to sneak in. Problem is BOTH are hiding things from each other, so they don't want to open it. We also get a great gag on Sammy pointing out on how "father time tops up people's life juice." and how he just says "Well that's it isn't it" when confronted with a good rebuttal.

Naturally the second Sammy J leaves Randy gets in the bin and finds BETRYAl: he'd been waiting to hear back from a woman he liked who was in machu piccu and Sammy J sent the letter away.. then wacks him with a shovel. Then decides wether to bury him or.. dis...dismember the corpse? And he chooses the latter?

Yeah we get full on muppet mutilation here complete with the bloody head of randy feltface. Sammy does capture the bin burglaar but as a ressurected Randy explains (Father time does indeed top off life juice), their kinjdly neighbor was a drug kingpin and he neded the money to get to machu picu. HE was in on the bin stuff this whole time. So the two decide to go to macu picu, Randy to find his lost love, and Sammy because "third wheel?".. and because he'll pay for Randy's passport. They miss her by 45 minutes but they had fun.

As you can probably gather this special was both hard to write about, as it's a fairly simple stage show more reliant on letting gags fly and insane. It seemed pretty mundane at first but just..e sclates as it goes and it's beautiful the whole time. Just about every bit they set up pays off some how. They also make out at one point, so they at least got to the point faster than the mighty boosh ever did.

Sammy J and Randy in Bin Night.. is a lot of fun and I recommend it wholeheardtly. These two comics clearly get how to take the muppet style of nonsense and translate it to adult humor without having ot scream

There's a lot of impressive puppets, fun gags and great character work nestled in this special and it was well worth the hour it took to watch it. You can find the special on youtube if your curious. I only wahnt to dig into MORE of these guys work, both as a duo and riding solo, after this magnificent special: it's fun, breezy and a nice mix of the muppets and the mighty boosh. Check it out if you haven't and check your bins. You never know when people will hide drug money or letters int here.

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