One of the few nice things to have come out of the Covid pandemic (as opposed to the several other pandemics recently spring up) and the four years (ongoing, obviously) of all-Trump Trauma is comedian, video maker, vocalist and parody-iste Randy Ranbow. Currently on tour (his Pink Glasses showcase based on his famed eyewear) across the comedy clubs and mid-sized theaters of America – Baltimore, Durham NC and Honolulu to follow dates after this weekend’s dates in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia – Rainbow’s performance schtick was a real eye opener, especially if you only know the comic through his videos or blogs or blah-blah-blogs as he’s fond of saying.
Jewish and openly gay, the happily Long Island to Queens to Manhattan youth, forever looking to break into show business, fame and fortune, actually started his rise to power back in 2010 when Rainbow – yes, according to the stand-up portion of his live staged show, that is his real last name – began staging outrageous fake phone conversations with celebrities that soon became fake video interactions with the stars.
With “Randy Rainbow is Dating Mel Gibson” as his first faux chat – based on the famously antisemitic Gibson yelling at his then baby mama, Oksana Grigorieva with Mel shouting expletives – Rainbow’s phone call video got 60,000 views in one week. From there, Rainbow “called” Lindsay Lohan, Dr. Laura and Kanye West before sleeping next to a fake, moving Shia LeBouef. A Rainbow star was born, especially after Randy’s Lohan clip was featured on Perez Hilton’s social pages. “I saw the spike in numbers, so I followed the audience there,” Rainbow told Billboard.
From there, Rainbow didn’t only focus on spoof interviews with less-than-left-leaning politicos going into the 2016 Presidential election. He began filming elaborately arranged and filmed spoof musical parodies based on his deep knowledge and abiding love of old Hollywood and Broadway musicals and their stars. Dogging Donald Trump in particular (was Rainbow the first comic to note Trump’s affected orange-ness and call him a Cheetoh? Or “Desperate Cheeto,” which happened to be a parody of Justin Bieber’s “Despacito”) along with other Republican party acolytes throughout the subsequent election cycle, Rainbow started with “Ya Got Trump Trouble!” in July of 2016 – adapted from “(Ya Got) Trouble” from The Music Man – and never stopped.
“As far as picking the songs, that’s always the easy part for me because I’m very gay,” Rainbow told Billboard. “I think automatically in show tunes, so that always kind of jumps out to me, it’s kind of obvious. I also have a nice following now, so people are recommending things that they want to hear, so sometimes I draw from that pool. Then, I try to give myself no longer than 24 to 48 hours to do a video, so I’ll write it for about four hours. If it’s a song, I’ll record for another two or three hours. I’ll film for another two or three, and then I’ll stay up pretty much all-night editing. So, it’s very fast.”
The LGBTQ+ Weird Al Yankovich-ish Rainbow even, through the present day, began dogging the Dems with “Mr. Biden (Bring My Vaccine)” done to the melody of the long-familiar hit, “Mr. Sandman,” with the comic-singer interviewing President Joe at his sleepiest.
“I try to tell myself, ‘Listen, you’re a comedian, you’re not CNN,’” Rainbow once told Billboard of his savage musical parodies, along with stating that he tries to manage how much news he actually consumes on a daily basis.
The Randy Rainbow YouTube channel can be found here with all of its nearly 800,000 followers intact.
All of this video chatter is essential to note, now, as Rainbow’s Pink Glasses live tour showcases at comedy clubs and theater stages across the US are packed to the gills with video clips, almost to the point of distraction.
Often dressed all-in-pink – tuxedos, feather boas, bedroom pajamas and boudoir robes – Rainbow makes a point of always sashaying across the stage before his four-piece musical ensemble and making the tart-and-tangy most out of his interactive videos and live vocal and stand-up comic bits. With that, Rainbow is fond of throwing up photos and reacting: a classic 60s still of Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland together becomes his entrée toward introducing his “mother and grandmother,” before introducing his actual grandmother – a woman he credits as his greatest comedic influence as she made a habit of talking back to celebrities and politicians on television (as was, as he once told the New York Times, “a combination of Joan Rivers, Elaine Stritch, Betty White, and Bea Arthur rolled into one.”
Like Carol Burnett used to do during her beloved television sketch/variety show, Rainbow (who credits the comic genius legend with this staged bit) turns the house lights up to ‘bright’ and re-configures the traditional audience question and answer session into another Randy humorous bit and product sales session (he’s got a bunch). This fireside chat even becomes gentle and friendly, a routine which goes well past his bitchy progressive political side and into something familial, warm and fuzzy.
Audience chatter and comedy aside, what makes the Randy Rainbow comedy club/live theater Pink Glasses experience tick is the manner in which the performer works with, and interacts between, parading before his band and talking/vocalizing through the giant-sized, ever-popular YouTube videos so familiar to everyone in the crowd.
Rainbow, most comfortable when at one with his video self and the cinematic distance from The Donald, kept up the rapid-fire pace of
“Braggadocious” and making light of Trump’s verbal flubs in debate-with-Hilary while using Julie Andrews’ melody from Mary Poppins’ “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” The daily and nightly lies told by Trump lackeys such as Kellyanne Conway became the elegiacally catty “Alternative Facts” based on “Prologue: Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s tragicomic Cats. In more recent YouTube videos from 2022, Rainbow takes on Marjorie Taylor Green in “Gurl, You’re a Karen” done to the doo wop tune of “Dentist!” from Little Shop of Horrors, and even uses the Beatles – harmonies, mop top wigs and all – for his new “Lock Him Up Yesterday” based on Lennon and McCartney’s “Yesterday,” leaving then, the closing song to be one of Rainbow’s own tracks: “Randy Rainbow for President.”
This Pink Glasses live showcase was lively, good sporting fun and Rainbow’s stand-up comedy club bits definitely landed. You only wished at times that he worked more on his own than in tandem with his own YouTube image for something fresher. Maybe after time passes, and he really does win that 2004 Presidency – who knows?
