Randy Marsh (South Park)

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Template:South Park character Randall "Randy" Marsh and Sharon (previously Carol) Marsh (née Kimble), are fictional characters in the animated series South Park. Randy is voiced by Trey Parker. Sharon has been voiced by Mary Kay Bergman, Mona Marshall, Eliza Schneider and currently April Stewart.

Jobs

Randy is shown to be South Park's only geologist, despite having dropped out of high school to join a boy band in the Season 4 episode "Something You Can Do with Your Finger." It is revealed in the Season 7 episode "Goobacks" that he works for the United States Geological Survey. Clyde Donovan has also stated that his father is a geologist, although no further evidence exists for this claim. Because of his occupation and education, he is very often called upon to play the role of whatever scientist the town may be needing for its current endeavors; though he lacks the ability to perform any of the aforementioned tasks (one example being in "Die Hippie, Die" when Cartman has to rid the town of hippies. The team he asks for included a scientist, an engineer, and a black person to sacrifice themselves if something went wrong. Randy was the scientist, and he performed his role terribly.). He becomes famous for his theory of moderation in the episode "Spontaneous Combustion". He temporarily works at the South Park Wall-Mart in "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes".

Sharon works at Tom's Rhinoplasty.

Family

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Time for dinner.
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Randy and Sharon are most notable as the father and mother of one of the main characters of the show, Stan Marsh. They have two children, Stan and Shelley. They love them very much, although Sharon can get very angry with Stan sometimes. Randy is generally a doting, well-meaning father, though his dimwitted naïveté mostly gets in the way of his relationship with Stan (a trait which makes Randy comparable to Homer Simpson). Also, Randy can be a typical "pushy parent". Whenever Stan pursues a career or a hobby that Randy does not like or reminds him of an unfortunate moment in his past, he will display behaviour bordering on psychosis, for example, in "Something You Can Do With Your Finger", he takes Stan away from Cartman's boyband and smashes his head in a cupboard window because Randy himself was in an 80s boy band which was forgotten. Randy's father is Marvin Marsh. Sharon's relationship with Randy was rather strong until the episode "Clubhouses" where they divorce due to constant bickering. After Randy and Sharon divorced with amazing haste, Sharon almost immediately married a guy named Roy, a geeky-looking, rather bipolar man who was never seen on the show before. They eventually reconciled and enjoy a normal, if not strained relationship to this day.

Drinking problem

Randy has a drinking problem as examined in "Bloody Mary" (and previous episodes such as "The Red Badge of Gayness", "Clubhouses" and "The Losing Edge") when he was caught drunk-driving. Cartman also mentions it in the episode "Grey Dawn", at one point stating, "Looks like Stan's dad's been hitting the bottle again."

Randy is depicted as everything from a casual drinker to an alcoholic throughout the run of the show.

Episodes in which they are prominent

Despite appearing in a number of episodes throughout the early seasons of the show, Randy was seldom given a prominent role, though he would occasionally become the focus of an episode's subplot. However, Randy's role has increased significantly in recent seasons, and there have been several episodes centered around him.

  • "Volcano" - Randy, not yet identified as Stan's father, discovers the volcano which is about to erupt. His hair style is slightly different from how it would appear later in the series.
  • "Death" - Randy and Sharon are at Grampa's birthday party and go off with the other parents to protest about Terrance and Phillip.
  • "Clubhouses" - Randy and Sharon get divorced. Randy assumes the role of a partying father with little care or time to spend with his kids. Sharon remarries almost immediately to Roy. Through the clever workings of Stan, they meet in the clubhouse, where they play truth or dare. Sharon dares Randy to "do her" in the clubhouse, and they ultimately reconcile and get back together.
  • "Spookyfish" - Randy is miserable that Sharon's Aunt Flo has to stay.
  • "Spontaneous Combustion" - Randy is put in charge of figuring out why people are spontaneously combusting, although he is a geologist and has no certification or scientific background in the field of biology. Randy finds the reason, but lets his newfound popularity go to his head when his prediction backfires.
  • "The Red Badge of Gayness" - Randy is one of the Civil War re-enactors, first as the Union general, then later joining Cartman and the Confederacy.
  • "Something You Can Do with Your Finger" - When Stan starts a boy band, Randy is enraged, due to his own experience in such a band, the Ghetto Avenue Street Boys. During his youth, he dropped out of high school to go on to fame, only to see the band break up when they were considered "too old to be in a boy band" (Randy was only 19). Randy had to give up most of his acquired wealth and possessions and was forced to return home, where he used his remaining royalties to graduate and study geology.
  • "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers" - Randy asks Stan, Kyle and Cartman to return Lord of the Rings to Butters house but accidentally gives the boys a porno film called "Backdoor Sluts 9". Randy and Sharon spend all night looking for the kids (who think they have Lord of the Rings) but the kids are chased by sixth graders into the next town over (the sixth graders know that the film is porno). Eventually they return the movie, Sharon, Randy and the other parents catch up to the boys and give them a lesson on sexual intercourse that the boys are stunned to hear.
  • "My Future Self n' Me" - Randy and Sharon deceitfully hire an actor to play Stan's future self in order to scare him away from drugs.
  • "South Park Is Gay!" - Randy is among the men who turn metrosexual. A horrified Sharon and the other mothers try to stop it.
  • "Goobacks" - Randy is demoted from his job when a worker from the future takes his place.
  • "Douche and Turd" - There is a nasty fight over the choice of school mascot. Randy, who supports "Giant Douche", is enraged when Sharon supports "Turd Sandwich" because she thinks Giant Douche is sexist.
  • "The Losing Edge" - Randy habitually fights other parents at Little League baseball games, and engages in a grande melee with "Bat Dad."
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  • "Bloody Mary" - Randy is caught driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI).
  • "Stanley's Cup" - They try to convince Stan not to coach the pee-wee hockey team. He last played years ago and he missed a shot and made a big match come to a draw.

Notes

  • Randy and Sharon used to be hippies as shown in "Die Hippie, Die". They were at Woodstock 1969 when they first met. If so, they would be 54-55, but this was just a cutaway joke, backed up by Randy stating at one point in Season 9 that he was 35 years old, this really is not important because the boys have not been aging and have been in third grade for the past 7 seasons.
  • Randy and Sharon are named after Trey Parker's parents. Randy Parker, Trey's father, actually is a geologist. Sharon Parker, however, is an insurance broker.
  • Sharon's outfit resembles Stan's outfit except larger and with some other slight modifications.
  • Randy inexplicably develops a dimpled chin in Season 2, which he retains throughout the series. This is first seen in the episode "Conjoined Fetus Lady".
  • Stan claims that his father is a hypochondriac in the episode "Bloody Mary".
  • According to "Future Stan", Randy doesn't like chicken.
  • Randy is easily one of the most overdramatic characters, often moaning: "Staaan" when calling his name. He is extremely gullible, especially in regard to social trends and liberal issues; he will almost instantly hop onto any bandwagon mentality, radically supporting it to the point of absurdity. Ironically, he can just as quickly assume the exact opposite position on an issue, often for petty and childish reasons (see "Goobacks"). He is also prone to massively overreact to relatively insignificant problems (as in "Stanley's Cup"). One of his most frequently used phrases is "Oh my God," spoken in typical over-the-top melodramatic fashion. This has led him to be one of the, if not the most, popular adult character among fans.
  • Future Stan tells her she has a scar on her left knee from when she slipped in a swimming pool in My Future Self 'n Me.
  • Other male characters in the series seem to regard Sharon as sexy. Though never explicitly stated, in "Lil' Crime Stoppers", Butters implies that he is able to provide a semen sample for the boys (who are playing police detectives) by thinking about Stan's mother. In "Pre-School", the sixth grade bullies agree to protect the boys in exchange for a picture of Sharon's breasts.
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