Randall "Randy" Boggs is the main antagonist of the Disney Pixar animated Monsters, Inc. franchise. He serves as the main antagonist of Pixar’s 4th full-length animated feature film Monsters, Inc. a major antagonist in the prequel Monsters University and the central antagonist of the Disney’s spin off sequel show Monsters at Work.
He is Fungus' former leader and boss, Waternoose’s right-hand, partner-in-crime and unwitting boss, Sulley & Mike's archenemy and the latter's former friend and Johnny J. Worthington III's former best friend. He is a former employee at Monsters, Inc.
He was voiced by Steve Buscemi.
Biography
In Monsters, Inc.
Randall first appears using his invisibility to scare Mike in the locker room. When Mike screams and jumps back, Randall laughs and says it works on little children and little monsters. However, Mike obviously lies by saying he was not scared and just has allergies (followed by a fake cough), to which Randall disbelievingly nods and replies, "Uh-huh. Sure." When Sulley tells him to save his tactics for the scarefloor, Randall shows off and brags that he has been working hard and gloats that he will beat Sulley at work and become Top Scarer. When Mike tells Randall that he and Sulley will win instead, Randall shushes Mike and sarcastically asks if he could hear the "winds of change" and then leaves. Offended and angry at Randall, Mike briefly mimics him, calls him a creep, and tells Sulley he is going to let him teach Randall a lesson one of these days (due to him being scared if he tries to personally stand up to Randall).
Later, Randall and Fungus try to outmatch Sulley and Mike when they scare children in their bedroom. When Sulley goes back to the scarefloor after hours to grab some paperwork, Randall has activated a door and briefly leaves it to grab a small prison to contain the child he had intended to kidnap. However, Sulley stumbles upon the door and the young girl in it and runs off with the latter when Randall deactivates the door. When the CDA find out that a human girl has escaped, Randall tries to find her, but is unsuccessful since she is with Sulley and Mike. The two decide to the disguise the girl as a monster and return her home and Sulley names her Boo (much to Mike's chagrin as he doesn't want Sulley to get attached to her).
Afterwards, as Sulley and Mike start to search for Boo (who had quietly run off), they accidentally bump into Randall, who reveals himself and asks what they are doing, to which a worker slides by and tells him they are rehearsing a play; this prompts Mike to sing loudly, "She's out of our haaaaaaair!" and an irritated Randall tells him to stop. As he talks to Sulley about Boo escaping and how it spread on the news, she quickly escapes into an aisle, which only Sulley notices. Mike manages to stall Randall by telling him Waxford is involved in the whole thing. As Randall goes to confront Waxford and Sulley runs into the aisles to find Boo, Mike is then confronted by Celia who, after being seriously injured by the CDA, is angry at Mike for the restaurant event the other night and feels betrayed as she tells Mike she thought he cared about her. As they argue, Randall and Waxford overhear and turn to look and Mike, trying to cheer Celia up, suddenly grabs her and kisses her, prompting her to angrily slap him. Randall looks at the newspaper and discovers Boo on the front page. Coming to realize that Sulley and Mike might know something about Boo, he chases Mike in his direction.
Mike runs into one of the aisles and manages to hide from Celia behind the corner of a wall. However, the Mr. Waternoose portrait on the wall behind Mike suddenly morphs into Randall, who quickly pins a startled Mike against the wall and interrogates him about the child missing. Mike tells Randall he will not let him pin it on him and if he had not cheated last night, the child never would've gotten out. Initially offended by this, Randall soon calms down and figures out a way to make things better. After asking Mike what happens when the bell rings in 5 minutes, Mike guesses he gets a time-out, only for Randall to angrily tell him that everyone goes to lunch. After calming himself down, Randall asks him what the scarefloor will be after that, Mike — after a short pause — guesses it will be painted and this makes Randall lose his temper and angrily tell Mike that the scarefloor will be empty as he shakes him and calls him an idiot. After seeing a clock, a frustrated Randall decides to make a deal with Mike: He will have Boo's door at his station while everyone else is at lunch, so Mike should return her then or risk getting caught. As it turns out, the deal was actually a trap to capture Boo, but Mike is captured instead by Randall when he enters Boo's room and starts to jump on her bed to prove to Sulley that everything is fine when he hesitates to enter.
In the secret lair, he and Fungus push their cart in and Randall tells him to help him out with the box with Boo inside. As they lift it up, Randall says the kid needs to "take off a few pounds" and empty it out on his small seat, but Mike ends up falling out, much to Randall's surprise and anger. He demands Mike to tell him where Boo is and calls him a "little one-eyed cretin", but Mike firstly corrects him and that it is pronounced "creet-in," then tells him to threaten him properly, and finally says Randall is nuts to think that kidnapping him will help Randall become Top Scarer. In response, Randall laughs sinisterly and asks Mike if he still thinks it is about the scare record, to which Mike admits he did until Randall chuckled. Before he can get out of the seat, Randall holds him back and ties his wrists up and begins to use him as his lab rat. He begins to explain his plan to Mike, telling him he is about to revolutionize the scaring industry and that when he does, even Sulley will be working for him. He once again demands Mike to tell him where Boo is, but when Mike refuses, Randall tries his new machine called the Scream Extractor on Mike to ensure he doesn't tell anyone of his plan. However, before it can get to his mouth, Randall is thwarted by Sulley when he unplugs the Scream Extractor. Annoyed, Randall asks Fungus what he did wrong, but Fungus says he doesn't know. An exasperated Randall loses his temper and yells at Fungus to go check the machine and he does so. Sighing with annoyance, Randall looks down and notices the wires are unplugged. He then goes into the backroom to find the main wire to plug the machine back in. Meanwhile, Sulley comes and grabs Fungus, rescues Mike, and traps Fungus in the Scream Extractor. When Randall returns after plugging the machine back in, he is shocked to see Fungus in the seat instead of Mike. He commandingly asks the shrieking Fungus where Mike is. However, since Fungus cannot talk with the machine extracting his screams, a frustrated Randall presses a button to stop it. He once again asks Fungus where Mike is. Dazed and blacking out, a wheezing Fungus points left and Randall growls frustratingly as he follows in Sulley and Mike's direction. As soon as he leaves, Fungus faints and falls out of the seat.
When Sulley and Mike go to find Mr. Waternoose for help and tell him everything and that Randall is going to kill them, he is about to help them and return Boo to her door. However, when Mr. Waternoose deliberately brings in the wrong door, Sulley and Mike are devastated to learn that he actually ordered Randall to kidnap Boo and that the plan to use the Scream Extractor to extract screams from abducted children was his the entire time. Mr. Waternoose then pushes Sulley and Mike into the door and banishes them to the Himalayas. After Mr. Waternoose shuts the door before Sulley can run back in, they continue with the plan, now that he and his henchmen have Boo.
Later on, as Randall puts Boo in his seat to extract her screams, Mr. Waternoose shows up and argues with Randall, mad at him for getting his top scarers involved. Ignoring him, Randall tells Waternoose that scarers will not be needed at all since he has a machine and adds that Sulley got what he deserved anyway. Hurt and shocked by this intolerant response, Mr. Waternoose tells Randall that Sulley was the twice the scarer he will ever be, making Randall give Waternoose a look and growl lowly in defeat. Afterwards, Mr. Waternoose watches the Scream Extractor slide towards Boo's mouth to extract her screams. Before it can, Sulley suddenly comes to Boo's rescue, destroys the machine, and throws it at the villains. While Randall manages to avoid the machine by clinging to the wall, Mr. Waternoose is crushed by it. After freeing her, Sulley makes an attempt to escape with Boo and an enraged Mr. Waternoose orders Randall to stop Sulley. An already-enraged Randall growls at Sulley, turns invisible, and stops him from escaping. Then Randall tries to finish Sulley off.
Soon, Mike arrives and tries to apologize to Sulley for their earlier fight in the Himalayas, but he gets frustrated when Sulley will not listen as he is being attacked by Randall, who has turned invisible. Sulley exclaims he is being attacked, but Mike tells Sulley he is not attacking him and to hear him out since he is being honest. Whilst Sulley is struggling with Randall, Mike tells his friend that they are a team and their friendship is more important than anything. A frightened Boo approaches Mike, who tells her that Sulley is too sensitive. Boo starts to cry and get worried as she watches Randall prepare to kill Sulley. Mike tells Sulley that if he starts crying, he will cry and will never get through the situation and apologizes for not being there for him, but assures him that he is now. Getting fed up, Mike tells a dying and weak Sulley since he is baring his soul to him, he could at least pay attention and throws a snowball at Sulley. However, he misses and it hits Randall in the face, making him visible enough for Sulley to punch him out, finally getting out of his grip. Mike notices Randall and realizes he was trying to kill Sulley this whole time. As Sulley escapes with Boo and Mike, Mr. Waternoose tells Randall — who finally woke up, but is still a bit dazed — to get up and that they cannot let anyone witness the plan, to which Randall replies in a sinister way that there will not be (implying that if the plan worked, Randall would then try to kill Mr. Waternoose as well).
When Sulley and Mike get to the scarefloor and Sulley activates a door to get to Boo's door, Randall chases them into the factory door system and hops onto one of the doors to head after them. Sooner or later, he is able to recapture Boo, then he escapes into a door hundreds of feet in the air. Sulley chases Randall whilst grabbing onto doors and when he hits some, Randall is alerted and notices Sulley coming after him, so he runs into a door with Boo and closes it shut. Sulley hurls himself in to save Boo and becomes happy to see her when she greets him, only to be hit by Randall's feet and nearly fall out the door, but he manages to hold onto the edge. As he dangles for dear life, Randall starts teasing the terrified Sulley, calls him a stupid, pathetic waste and bangs his foot on the door, almost making Sulley fall. Scared, Boo starts to cry and look away in fear as Randall tells Sulley he has been #1 for too long and now, his time is up as he smashes Sulley's fingers with his feet and starts to push him off, also telling him he will take good care of Boo, meaning that he will abuse her for his own amusement. However, Boo manages to gather up her courage and overcome her fear of Randall as she suddenly jumps on him and starts to pull on his antennas to save Sulley, making him scream in pain and turn different colors. Sulley starts to climb back up and Boo grabs a nearby baseball bat and begins to beat Randall with it, making him turn different colors again. Sulley then takes it from there and he grabs Randall by the neck and holds him in a snake wrestling move and Boo roars at him, thus proving that she's not scared of him anymore. Sulley then tells Randall he is now out of a job, making Randall gulp in fear.
Later, Sulley throws Randall into a door leading into the human world, sending him to a trailer home in the south, where a hillbilly mother beats him with a shovel while being cheered on by her son who warned her about the "gator" getting in. Sulley and Mike then destroy the door to make sure Randall never comes back. Before leaving, Boo (proud that she beat Randall) blows a raspberry at the door.
As revealed in a Disney comic book, Randall had managed to somehow escape the human world. After returning to Monsters, Inc., Randall made a plan to frame Sulley and Mike for a crime he committed to get them fired and hire him as the Top Scarer. However, Randall was arrested by the CDA when his plan was discovered and foiled.
In Monsters University
A teenaged Randall starts off as a shy, sweet, and lonely nerd who was Mike's only friend and roommate before he met Sulley.
They meet when Mike is told that his roommate is also aiming to be a top scarer. Randall greets Mike quite happily while shaking his hand. A little accident then happens, making Randall quickly turn invisible, surprising Mike. Randall tells him he is afraid of doing that in class, but Mike reassures him and tells him to lose his glasses when he turns invisible since they give it away.
That night, Randall bakes some cupcakes which spell out, "BE MY PAL" in an attempt to make some more friends and goes outside to do so. Mike then meets Sulley, who is running from students of a rival school with their stolen pig mascot Archie. Then an intense chase occurs when Archie begins running away. Sulley and Mike frantically chase after it and Mike smashes into Randall (who is showing his cupcakes to some other kids), knocking his cupcakes into the sky. Four of them land on Randall's face, spelling out, "LAME."
Later, Randall is helping Mike try out some new scaring tactics. In class, Mike and Randall sit together studying, when Sulley walks by and knocks over Mike's piled books in an uncaring way. This infuriates Mike, who asks for an apology, but Randall, afraid of getting into a fight, tells Mike to just move somewhere else. After a little incident with Sulley and Mike, Dean Hardscrabble arrives and breaks it up and Randall slowly walks back and turns invisible, not wanting to be involved in anything.
He later abandons Mike by joining Roar Omega Roar with his new best friends Johnny J. Worthington III and Chet Alexander at the Scare Games, as opposed to joining Oozma Kappa. To make matters worse, he eventually participates in humiliating Oozma Kappa in front of the entire university. Though disheartened by the rift his opposition towards Mike in the games has caused between him and Mike, Randall's desire to be accepted and socially popular compels him to remain where he is.
During the Scare Games, Sulley and Randall race each other into a little girl's room and as Randall turns invisible and is about to scare the girl dummy, Sulley ruins it by roaring loudly at the dummy, thus messing up Randall's camouflage pattern and making him fall onto a carpet with hearts on it, which makes him match its color. Despite getting back up and roaring at the dummy, Sulley ends up winning. Now covered in hearts, Randall returns to his team, only to bump into Johnny, who is appalled by Randall's appearance and Chet sarcastically says, "Way to go, BOGGS!". Randall is kicked out of Roar Omega Roar. He glances at Oozma Kappa, changes back to his normal color, and bitterly says, "That's the last time I lose to you... Sullivan!".
Ever since this incident, Randall developed his grudge against Sulley and Mike (feeling betrayed) and slowly becomes their new enemy.
Personality
In Monsters University, Randall was a kind, timid teenager who would hang out with Mike. However, after Mike was forced to befriend Sulley and stopped associating with Randall, he felt hurt and this caused him to slowly turn on Mike and become his new enemy.
In Monsters, Inc., Randall is greedy, ruthless, sneaky, short-tempered, and overall evil in nature. He is also a selfish, arrogant jerk who doesn't care about anyone. As well, Randall is something of a backstabber as he had intentions to betray his own boss Mr. Waternoose by coming up with another plan to kill him if his main plot worked out.
Appearance
In Monsters University, Randall is seen as a young and pimple-faced teenager. He sometimes wears his purple glasses.
In Monsters, Inc., Randall has 3 fronds, green eyes, 4 arms and legs and has the ability to completely blend in with his surroundings, making him invisible (as well as being able to cling to walls). He can also camouflage like a chameleon.
Trivia
- Although Randall was Mr. Waternoose's henchman, Randall is much more prominent in the film as a villain since Waternoose's antagonistic role is only revealed near the end. Also, Randall is more evil than Mr. Waternoose since his actions and disposition are more overtly malicious and he holds a personal grudge against the protagonists, unlike Waternoose, who would have preferred them not to get involved in his plan and thus, need to be eliminated.
- For a long time, there have been rumors by fans stating that Randall isn't evil, but simply a grouchy and tired (as there are bags under his eyes from lack of sleep) monster who wants the respect Sulley gets. However, most of this is not true as Randall has done many evil things in the first film as he had tried to kill Sulley by strangling him, only to be stopped by a snowball being thrown at him by Mike and then getting punched out by Sulley. After waking up as the trio had escaped, he had planned to kill Mr. Waternoose as well when he told him there cannot be witnesses to his plan.
- Originally, his names were Ned and Switt. He was named Ned in the early treatment and Switt in the original opening.
- Randall is the second Pixar villain to be physically fought, the first being Stinky Pete.
- He is ranked #27 in the Top 30 Disney Villains.
- In one of the Disney comic book strips, Randall gets arrested by the CDA at the end after trying to frame Sulley and Mike for a crime, eventually getting caught by the CDA as the true culprit. Thus, this makes him the second Pixar villain to get arrested, the first being Mr. Waternoose in the original film.
- He shares the same first name and many traits of Randall Weems from Recess. Both are sneaky and mean and they have the same posture.
- For some reason, Randall is the only scarer in the first film that is referred by his first name on the Scarers' Leaderboard rather than by his last name. This implies that at one point, Randall was actually going to be his last name rather than his first name.
- At one point, Randall threatens to put Fungus through the shredder. This is a shout-out to one of Steve Buscemi's characters Carl Showalter, who was once killed by a shredder by his partner in crime Gaear Grimsrud in the 1996 movie Fargo.
- It is occasionally rumored that Randy is his middle name. However, it is actually his nickname in Monsters University.