The Postal Dude
Encyclopedia
The Postal Dude is the main character
in the Postal
video game series by Running With Scissors, Inc.
, as well as the film Postal
. He was voiced by voice actor Rick Hunter in Postal and Postal 2
, and by Cory Cruise in the upcoming Postal III, while Zack Ward
portrays the character in the film. Due to his violent nature, Postal Dude is regarded as one of the most controversial video game characters.
Postal²
was released in 2003 as a fully 3D first person shooter. The increased graphics capability allowed for Postal Dude to be presented in more detail. The final design for the character (visible in mirrors and some pre-rendered third-person sequences) was completed in 2001 by art director Josh Leichliter.
Running With Scissors CEO Vince Desi describes the character as "like Clint Eastwood
," in that he wants to mind his own business but people won't leave him alone. Unlike Postal, in which killing is necessary to complete a level, Postal Dude is not required to kill anyone to complete an errand in Postal 2. However, when trying to complete the errands of each day, he constantly faces opposition from several groups, including protestors, rednecks, terrorists, agents of law enforcement organizations, and a toy mascot resembling a giant scrotum named Krotchy. Desi indicated in an interview that the character's actions are completely down to the player. There is the option of non violence if the player chooses.
", and decides to kill everyone in the town. Postal Dude has a diary which allows the player to know a bit about the character's ideology. This diary is displayed between levels, and contains phrases like "The earth is hungry. Its heart throbs and demands cleansing. The earth is also thirsty."
, after being hired by Running With Scissors, Inc., who also act as characters in the video game. Postal Dude lives in a trailer park with his wife (a unseen character identified only as "Postal Dude's Bitch"), and has a pet Pit bull
named Champ, based on Desi's real pet Champ. It is Monday in the beginning of the video game, and Postal Dude's wife gives him a list of errands to complete, which include things like "Cash paycheck" or "Get milk". When Postal Dude goes to Running With Scissors to pick up a paycheck, he is fired by Vince Desi (who appears as himself in the video game) for unspecified reasons, so at the end of the day, Postal Dude's wife decides to give him more errands to complete for the rest of the week
On Tuesday, it is revealed that Postal Dude is a Roman Catholic, since one of his errands is to "Confess sins" in the church. Tuesday and Wednesday also reveal that Postal Dude is active in politics: two errands involve getting signs for a petition to "make whiney congressmen play violent video games" and vote in the general election of Paradise. Postal Dude has a deceased father whom he hated, to the point that the first errand of Wednesday is to "Piss on dad". Apart from his wife and his deceased father, Postal Dude's only other known family member is his Uncle Dave, leader of a religious cult who is implied to be David Koresh
.
After completing the errands of each day, Postal Dude is seen returning to his trailer and is heard having short conversations with his wife about the events that took place while completing the errands. These conversations heavily suggest that their relation is a hostile one. On Friday, at the end of the game, Postal Dude's wife asks him if he remembered her Rocky Road ice cream, which she tells him not to forget on Monday. However, getting the Rocky Road is not a mission and there is no actual level to get it. The conversation is quickly ended with Postal Dude shooting himself in the head to stop listening to his wife.
s, seeing a distorted version of the world he is in, and fighting Gary Coleman
-esque creatures. Postal Dude receives several "get well" cards: one is from his wife telling him she has left him, and the others tell him that his pet Champ is in the dog pound and that his trailer has been taken away. He is required to complete new, more complicated missions. Unlike the main game, the expansion actually requires Postal Dude to kill, varying from zombies to cows to elephants.
Desi reappears as a character in the expansion, hiring Postal Dude again to obtain a gold disc from a rival company of Running With Scissors, and then to enter a terrorist training camp to retrieve a nuclear bomb to destroy the whole company. After completing these missions, Postal Dude goes to the dog pound to look for Champ, and after finding him, he proceeds to get out of Paradise, though not before confronting "Mike J, Kosher Mad Cow Zombie, God of Hellfire", a giant demon-like creature who serves as the final boss of the game. After defeating the boss, Postal Dude is seen driving his car with Champ, while Paradise is completely destroyed by the nuclear bomb. Postal Dude says "I regret nothing", and the game ends.
) and Uncle Dave.
In an interview, Steve Wik (Lead Design/Creative Director of Running With Scissors) and Andrew Belkin (Lead Producer of Akella
) comment that Postal III will focus more on Postal Dude's personality, as well as his past and future actions, hence the idea of making Postal III a third-person shooter
.
portrays Postal Dude in Uwe Boll
's film adaptation of the game. Ward describes the character as somebody who just wanted to be liked and accepted. Ward said that he did not base his performance as Postal Dude on the video game renditions as he never played them, but on the script. Though the film has elements from both Postal and Postal 2, the character of Postal Dude was completely changed. In an interview with Gamasutra
, Vince Desi commented that Ward as Postal Dude "has the look and he’s funny at the same time."
Postal Dude is mocked in a job interview, his local unemployment office kicks him out, and his wife (Jodie Stewart) cheats on him. He decides to get some money to leave Paradise, so he teams up with his Uncle Dave (Dave Foley
), who owes the government over a million dollars in taxes, to devise a plan to steal a shipment of 2000 Krotchy dolls, toys resembling a scrotum that seem to be really popular in Paradise, and to sell them in $4000 dollars each doll. When they arrive to the amusement park where the shipment is expected to arrive, Postal Dude and Uncle Dave's religious cult face opposition from Al Qaeda, who also want to steal the shipment for their own purposes. The two groups fight each other, resulting in the deaths of many innocent children, but the cult manages to get the shipment and Verne Troyer
, the park's opening day guest.
When they arrive to the cult's compound, they discover that the place has been invaded by terrorists, so they take shelter in the compound's bunker. Once there, Uncle Dave's right man hand Richard (Chris Coppola
) proceeds to initiate apocalypse per Uncle Dave's fictional bible, by throwing Verne Troyer to a group of chimpanzees to rape him, and then to kill Dave himself. After doing so, Richard imprisons Postal Dude in the bunker. After escaping from the compound, Postal Dude goes postal and begins a one-man war against his wife and his lovers, his uncle's murderer, the terrorists, the police, the angry townsfolk who want him dead, and the remains of the now-mad cult. He is joined by Faith (Jackie Tohn
), a young barista whom he has met before, and the two of them proceed to kill everyone except Osama bin Laden
(Larry Thomas), who manages to escape with the help of a helicopter sent by his best friend George W. Bush
(Brent Mendenhall). Postal Dude then prepares to leave the town along with Faith and Champ before it gets hit by thirty nuclear missiles unleashed by China in retaliation for Bush's declaration blaming China and India for the violence in Paradise.
's Mark East comments on the Postal Dude's phrases from his diary, which indicate "something's not quite right in Postal Dude's noggin". Michael L. House from Allgame
describes Postal Dude as a "rampaging, murderous character." Ivan Deez from IGN
says that Postal Dude has a "sick mind", when referring to the source of some of the errands he has to complete. Macdonald and Rocha from Canada.com describe Postal Dude as a man whose "raison d'etre was to eliminate anyone - man, woman and child - with a dizzying arsenal of weapons", but at the same time as "a misunderstood and ostracized man who takes his revenge on the world with a killing spree."
in Canada
, Postal Dude was singled out as a character Gill identified with. In his blog
Gill expressed admiration for Postal Dude, saying that "Postal dude was sad before he became angry and psychotic, that's the part we're never seen in the game. He was normal, but the world made him the way he became." Postal² was singled out as one of Gill's favorite games.
Character (arts)
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in the Postal
Postal (video game series)
Postal is a computer game franchise developed by Running With Scissors known for its excessive violence and controversial content. Each game is set in a different genre, Postal is isometric, Postal² is a first-person shooter and Postal III will be a third-person shooter...
video game series by Running With Scissors, Inc.
Running With Scissors, Inc.
Running with Scissors, Inc. is an American computer game developer based in Arizona. Their best-known title, Postal, was publicly decried by Senator Joe Lieberman and other critics due to its extreme violence....
, as well as the film Postal
Postal (film)
Postal is a 2007 Canadian-American-German black comedy action film co-written and directed by Uwe Boll.Like the majority of Boll's previous films, Postal is a film adaptation of a video game, in this case, Postal, though this film draws more heavily from that video game's sequel, Postal 2.-Plot:The...
. He was voiced by voice actor Rick Hunter in Postal and Postal 2
Postal 2
Postal 2 is a first-person shooter video game by Running with Scissors, and it is the sequel to the 1997 game Postal. Both are intentionally highly controversial due to high levels of violence and stereotyping. Unlike its predecessor, Postal 2 is played completely in first-person based on the...
, and by Cory Cruise in the upcoming Postal III, while Zack Ward
Zack Ward
Zack Ward is a Canadian actor.-Life and career:Ward was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of actress Pam Hyatt and the brother of Carson Foster....
portrays the character in the film. Due to his violent nature, Postal Dude is regarded as one of the most controversial video game characters.
Character development
When designing the game Postal in 1995, Art Director Randy Briley designed Postal Dude as a dark, brooding character to match the design style of the game. It was intended from the start that the character had no back story at all so to give the player the ability to impose whatever back story or personality onto the character they desired. He is voiced by Rick Hunter. Hunter returned for the sequel and it's expansion pack Apocalypse Weekend which was released in 2005 and included some small redesigns of Postal Dude.Postal²
Postal²
Postal 2 is a first-person shooter video game by Running with Scissors, and it is the sequel to the 1997 game Postal. Both are intentionally highly controversial due to high levels of violence and stereotyping. Unlike its predecessor, Postal 2 is played completely in first-person based on the...
was released in 2003 as a fully 3D first person shooter. The increased graphics capability allowed for Postal Dude to be presented in more detail. The final design for the character (visible in mirrors and some pre-rendered third-person sequences) was completed in 2001 by art director Josh Leichliter.
Running With Scissors CEO Vince Desi describes the character as "like Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
," in that he wants to mind his own business but people won't leave him alone. Unlike Postal, in which killing is necessary to complete a level, Postal Dude is not required to kill anyone to complete an errand in Postal 2. However, when trying to complete the errands of each day, he constantly faces opposition from several groups, including protestors, rednecks, terrorists, agents of law enforcement organizations, and a toy mascot resembling a giant scrotum named Krotchy. Desi indicated in an interview that the character's actions are completely down to the player. There is the option of non violence if the player chooses.
Postal
Very little is known about Postal Dude from Postal. For unknown reasons, the character "goes postalGoing postal
Going postal, in American English slang, means becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a workplace environment....
", and decides to kill everyone in the town. Postal Dude has a diary which allows the player to know a bit about the character's ideology. This diary is displayed between levels, and contains phrases like "The earth is hungry. Its heart throbs and demands cleansing. The earth is also thirsty."
Postal 2
Postal Dude's character is much more developed in Postal 2. He has moved to the fictional town of Paradise, ArizonaArizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, after being hired by Running With Scissors, Inc., who also act as characters in the video game. Postal Dude lives in a trailer park with his wife (a unseen character identified only as "Postal Dude's Bitch"), and has a pet Pit bull
Pit bull
A Pit bull is any of several breeds of dog in the molosser breed group.Many jurisdictions that restrict pit bulls, including Ontario, Canada,, Miami, Florida, U.S...
named Champ, based on Desi's real pet Champ. It is Monday in the beginning of the video game, and Postal Dude's wife gives him a list of errands to complete, which include things like "Cash paycheck" or "Get milk". When Postal Dude goes to Running With Scissors to pick up a paycheck, he is fired by Vince Desi (who appears as himself in the video game) for unspecified reasons, so at the end of the day, Postal Dude's wife decides to give him more errands to complete for the rest of the week
On Tuesday, it is revealed that Postal Dude is a Roman Catholic, since one of his errands is to "Confess sins" in the church. Tuesday and Wednesday also reveal that Postal Dude is active in politics: two errands involve getting signs for a petition to "make whiney congressmen play violent video games" and vote in the general election of Paradise. Postal Dude has a deceased father whom he hated, to the point that the first errand of Wednesday is to "Piss on dad". Apart from his wife and his deceased father, Postal Dude's only other known family member is his Uncle Dave, leader of a religious cult who is implied to be David Koresh
David Koresh
David Koresh , born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, believing himself to be its final prophet. Howell legally changed his name to David Koresh on May 15, 1990. A 1993 raid by the U.S...
.
After completing the errands of each day, Postal Dude is seen returning to his trailer and is heard having short conversations with his wife about the events that took place while completing the errands. These conversations heavily suggest that their relation is a hostile one. On Friday, at the end of the game, Postal Dude's wife asks him if he remembered her Rocky Road ice cream, which she tells him not to forget on Monday. However, getting the Rocky Road is not a mission and there is no actual level to get it. The conversation is quickly ended with Postal Dude shooting himself in the head to stop listening to his wife.
Apocalypse Weekend
It is Saturday, and he wakes up in the hospital because of his gunshot, which causes him from time to time to have hallucinationHallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
s, seeing a distorted version of the world he is in, and fighting Gary Coleman
Gary Coleman
Gary Wayne Coleman was an American actor, known for his childhood role as Arnold Jackson in the American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes and for his small stature as an adult. He was described in the 1980s as "one of television's most promising stars". After a successful childhood acting career, Coleman...
-esque creatures. Postal Dude receives several "get well" cards: one is from his wife telling him she has left him, and the others tell him that his pet Champ is in the dog pound and that his trailer has been taken away. He is required to complete new, more complicated missions. Unlike the main game, the expansion actually requires Postal Dude to kill, varying from zombies to cows to elephants.
Desi reappears as a character in the expansion, hiring Postal Dude again to obtain a gold disc from a rival company of Running With Scissors, and then to enter a terrorist training camp to retrieve a nuclear bomb to destroy the whole company. After completing these missions, Postal Dude goes to the dog pound to look for Champ, and after finding him, he proceeds to get out of Paradise, though not before confronting "Mike J, Kosher Mad Cow Zombie, God of Hellfire", a giant demon-like creature who serves as the final boss of the game. After defeating the boss, Postal Dude is seen driving his car with Champ, while Paradise is completely destroyed by the nuclear bomb. Postal Dude says "I regret nothing", and the game ends.
Postal III
Postal Dude returns as the main character in Postal III. He has moved to Paradise's sister city Catharsis. According to Running With Scissors' official website, Postal Dude is just "trying to save up for new tinfoil to put over his trailer windows." Postal III will also let the player decide which way Postal Dude is going to follow: the "good" way by joining the Catharsis police force to protect the citizens, or the "bad" way and join the schemes of Mayor Chomo (portrayed by Ron JeremyRon Jeremy
Ronald Jeremy Hyatt , usually called Ron Jeremy, is an American pornographic actor. Nicknamed "The Hedgehog", he was ranked by AVN at number one in their "The 50 Top Porn Stars of All Time" list...
) and Uncle Dave.
In an interview, Steve Wik (Lead Design/Creative Director of Running With Scissors) and Andrew Belkin (Lead Producer of Akella
Akella
Akella is a Russian software company specializing in the development, publishing and distribution of computer games and multimedia products. The founders of Akella met in 1993 and decided to start a company together, and in 1995 formed Akella...
) comment that Postal III will focus more on Postal Dude's personality, as well as his past and future actions, hence the idea of making Postal III a third-person shooter
Third-person shooter
Third-person shooter is a genre of 3D action games in which the player character is visible on-screen, and the gameplay consists primarily of shooting.-Definition:...
.
Film depiction
Zack WardZack Ward
Zack Ward is a Canadian actor.-Life and career:Ward was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of actress Pam Hyatt and the brother of Carson Foster....
portrays Postal Dude in Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll is a German director, producer and screenwriter, whose work includes several films adapted from video games. He finances his own films through his Boll KG production company. He is often cited as the worst director of all time.-Early life:...
's film adaptation of the game. Ward describes the character as somebody who just wanted to be liked and accepted. Ward said that he did not base his performance as Postal Dude on the video game renditions as he never played them, but on the script. Though the film has elements from both Postal and Postal 2, the character of Postal Dude was completely changed. In an interview with Gamasutra
Gamasutra
Gamasutra is a website founded in 1997 for video game developers. It is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb , a division of United Business Media, and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer...
, Vince Desi commented that Ward as Postal Dude "has the look and he’s funny at the same time."
Postal Dude is mocked in a job interview, his local unemployment office kicks him out, and his wife (Jodie Stewart) cheats on him. He decides to get some money to leave Paradise, so he teams up with his Uncle Dave (Dave Foley
Dave Foley
David Scott "Dave" Foley is a Canadian comedian, writer, director, and producer best known for his work in The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio, A Bug's Life, and Celebrity Poker Showdown...
), who owes the government over a million dollars in taxes, to devise a plan to steal a shipment of 2000 Krotchy dolls, toys resembling a scrotum that seem to be really popular in Paradise, and to sell them in $4000 dollars each doll. When they arrive to the amusement park where the shipment is expected to arrive, Postal Dude and Uncle Dave's religious cult face opposition from Al Qaeda, who also want to steal the shipment for their own purposes. The two groups fight each other, resulting in the deaths of many innocent children, but the cult manages to get the shipment and Verne Troyer
Verne Troyer
Verne J. Troyer is an American stand-up comedian, actor, stuntman and performer, best known for playing Mini-Me in the Austin Powers series...
, the park's opening day guest.
When they arrive to the cult's compound, they discover that the place has been invaded by terrorists, so they take shelter in the compound's bunker. Once there, Uncle Dave's right man hand Richard (Chris Coppola
Chris Coppola
Chris Coppola is an American actor.Coppola is best known for such films as Friday the 13th, Far Cry, Postal, Loveless in Los Angeles, The Polar Express and Beowulf.-External links:...
) proceeds to initiate apocalypse per Uncle Dave's fictional bible, by throwing Verne Troyer to a group of chimpanzees to rape him, and then to kill Dave himself. After doing so, Richard imprisons Postal Dude in the bunker. After escaping from the compound, Postal Dude goes postal and begins a one-man war against his wife and his lovers, his uncle's murderer, the terrorists, the police, the angry townsfolk who want him dead, and the remains of the now-mad cult. He is joined by Faith (Jackie Tohn
Jackie Tohn
Jaclyn "Jackie" Tohn is an American actress and musician. She is also known for taking part in American Idol season 8 making it to Top 36 on season 8...
), a young barista whom he has met before, and the two of them proceed to kill everyone except Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
(Larry Thomas), who manages to escape with the help of a helicopter sent by his best friend George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
(Brent Mendenhall). Postal Dude then prepares to leave the town along with Faith and Champ before it gets hit by thirty nuclear missiles unleashed by China in retaliation for Bush's declaration blaming China and India for the violence in Paradise.
Reception
Critics often comment on Postal Dude's aggressive personality. GameSpotGameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
's Mark East comments on the Postal Dude's phrases from his diary, which indicate "something's not quite right in Postal Dude's noggin". Michael L. House from Allgame
Allgame
Allgame is a commercial database of information about arcade games, video games and console manufacturers.Allgame is owned by All Media Guide, along with Allmusic and Allmovie....
describes Postal Dude as a "rampaging, murderous character." Ivan Deez from IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
says that Postal Dude has a "sick mind", when referring to the source of some of the errands he has to complete. Macdonald and Rocha from Canada.com describe Postal Dude as a man whose "raison d'etre was to eliminate anyone - man, woman and child - with a dizzying arsenal of weapons", but at the same time as "a misunderstood and ostracized man who takes his revenge on the world with a killing spree."
Controversy
In 2006 after the shooting in a college by Kimveer GillKimveer Gill
Kimveer Singh Gill was the Canadian perpetrator of the Dawson College shooting at Dawson College in Westmount, Quebec, Canada on September 13, 2006. He killed one student and wounded nineteen others before he committed suicide.-Background:Kimveer Gill was a 25-year-old Indo-Canadian born in...
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Postal Dude was singled out as a character Gill identified with. In his blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
Gill expressed admiration for Postal Dude, saying that "Postal dude was sad before he became angry and psychotic, that's the part we're never seen in the game. He was normal, but the world made him the way he became." Postal² was singled out as one of Gill's favorite games.