Monday Night Bites: Randy Wharmpress

Entertainment: THEIR MEAT IS DELICIOUS

WARNING: I recommend watching HIMYM S3 E18 “Rebound Bro” before reading this to achieve maximum AWESOMEness

My family has plowed through How I Met Your Mother in recent months, already finishing the first three seasons. Many of these episodes consist mostly of just me enjoying the exploits of Neil Patrick Harris’ Barney Stinson (I recently introduced Barney-isms like “Legen-wait for it-dary” and “Challenge Accepted” to my four year old cousin), but it was another character who struck me as deserving of a place in my column. Will Forte’s role as Randy Wharmpess (right up there with Edna Krbappel for best sitcom name) in “Rebound Bro,” would best be described as perfection. A Barney stan like myself, Randy is thrilled to make the big leagues, to meet his idol. Unfortunately, he has no fastball, changeup, curveball, or any other pitch that can land in the strike zone. He strikes out (issues a walk, to keep with the metaphor) in hilarious fashion, calling a woman a “fat ugly wh*re” when instructed to subtly insult her. Many times, something like this might make me cringe, but Randy’s character combined with the chemistry of Harris and Forte makes it a hilarious bit. However, that looks like just a Caesar salad compared to our main dish, where Barney introduces Randy as an Australian expert on koalas to a woman obsessed with the bear. She asks him a softball question, wondering what his favorite thing about the koala bear. He responds with the gem of “Their meat is delicious.” Just writing that out doesn’t do the line justice. To give this the props it deserves, let’s dissect it like a Nikola Jokic pass. First, when Barney gives Randy an intro worthy of the Super Bowl, Wharmpress glares at his wingman the look I might show a friend if they suggested that the first Mission: Impossible was the best. After his “target” asks him about koala bears, he first glances at Barney, almost to telepathically communicate on what to say, before going into temporary shock, and then racking his brain for an answer the way someone might scour their knowledge for a Trivia Crack answer. One thing that makes this part great is the clear use of the eyes. Purely from the movement of his pupils, any viewer can see exactly what has crossed the mind of Randy Wharmpess. He finally manages to get out the word “Their,” but returns to racking his brain shortly thereafter. He finally buzzes in with the final three words of his answer in “meat is delicious.” Through this verbal portion, Randy tries to fake an Australian accent, but ends up just lowering and strangely tweaking his voice. As a result, he sounds like a Disney Channel villain, exactly the only type of person who would want to scarf down a medium rare koala steak or invite some friends from college over for a koala cookout. Comedy writers have thought up many brilliant jokes. This is a great one, yet it’d be nothing memorable without Forte’s details. Even Kawhi Leonard’s delivery would make me laugh at this. However, it’s the details on Randy Wharmpess that elevate this to a performance that makes my parents wrestle the remote out of my hands to prevent me from rewinding to view it “just one more time!”

FYI: If you’re looking for the sports segment, it’s on the podcast feed. I did a 1-and-1 this week, doing my entertainment on here and my sports portion on the podcast