Richard Bagg

"He's a virus and I'm a vaccine."-Richard to Gwen regarding his actions towards Van.

### Relatives

Unnamed Mother

Richard Bagg is a central character in National Lampoon's 2002 film Van Wilder serving as the film's main antagonist.

## Overview

Richard Bagg is the president of a fraternity known as Delta Iota Kappa (DIK), and he is also a pre-medical student as well as being a member of the student government. As he studies for his upcoming finals, he notices that his girlfriend Gwen Pearson is interviewing Van Wilder the local college party animal for the paper. Richard begns to suspect a growing bond between the two of them, and begins to plot sinister plans to get Van in trouble with his best friend and fraternity's vice president Gordon as well as Jeannie a member of a sister sorority who has a crush on Richard.

## Role In The Film

Richard is first mentioned by Gwen when Van asks about him during their first interaction at his dorm room.

Richard is first seen at his frat house intitating sevearl new pledges to his fraternity. His over use of medical terms begins to annoy his vice president and good friend Gordon. Gwen then arrives, and Richard tells her to go upstairs and wait for him. Gwen then ruins his intitation ceremony before informing the pledges who are blindfolded that they are about to jump on cheerios not glass effectively ruining the ceremony.

Later, Richard holds a fancy dress party at his frat house with Gordon and his other fraternity members in attendance. In the party is dead, and even Gwen has left to go see Van for another interview. Richard is confused by this, and decides to check out Van's party with the rest of his fraternity brothers. Richard meets Van as his friend Hutch the doorman refuses to let Richard and his friends in due to their weird costumes. Richard and Van then develop an intense hatred for one another, and begin a rivalry.

Richard strikes first by having a member of a sister sorority named Jeannie who has an obvious crush on him write a letter to Van pretending to be Gwen. The letter invites Van over to Gwen's parents's house. There Richard tries to break Van down and embarrase him in front of his (Richard) and Gwen's parents. Van however is unfazed, and manages to turn the snooty parents into party animals at the flick of a switch. Gwen however feels that Richard's actions were uncalled for.

Sometime later, Van and his friends Hutch and Taj replace the cream filling of some eclairs, and lace them with canine semen taken from his bulldog Colossus. Richard and his fraternity brothers eat through the pastries, and don't realise what they are eating until it is too late.

A few weeks later, Richard backed up by a large group of his fraternity brothers confronts Van outside his dorm room. He attempts to bribe Van with $1000 for him to stay away from Gwen. During the confrontation, Richard also lets it slip that he is planning on proposing to Gwen that every evening. Van is left shocked, as Richard and his friends make their leave laughing evily as they do so.

That evening, Richard proposes to Gwen who doesn't know what to say as she is now in love with Van not Richard. Richard also tells her that he finally got a call from Northwestern Medical School who wish to interview him for admission to the university. Gwen soon leaves to go see Van leaving behind an annoyed Richard. Richard follows her in his car to see her having a fight with Van after she caught him making out with a freshman.

The following evening, Richard and his cohorts Gordon and Jeannie arrange to sabotage Van's latest party. He distracts Van by pretending to want to make amends, and Jeannie distracts Hutch. Gordon meanwhile smuggles underage children into the party, and proceeds to get them heavily intoxicated. Richard then calls a campus police officer who arrests Van.

Later, Richard calls up Gwen for sexual intercourse to help him relieve the stress he is under with his upcoming interview and entrance exam for medical school. After making one too many snide comments, Gwen tells Richard to "go fuck himself," and so he instead has sex with Jeannie.

Van then has his hearing in front of the student government including Richard who again attempts to break Van down. Van's speech moves the audience expect Richard who still wants Van to get expelled. After the hearing, Richard and the others have a vote to see if Van should stay in the college to finish his final exams or be expelled. Van wins with a surprising 2-3 vote, and begins to study hard for his approaching finals. Outside the courthouse, Gwen is confronted by Jeannie who reveals her role in Richard's scheme to get Van expelled as well as Richard's infidelity. Gwen outraged leaves the scene, and swears vengeance against Richard for his actions.

On the morning of Richard's MCAT and interview with the Northwestern Medical School, Gwen comes to see him, and pretends she has forgiven him for their fight the other day. She prepares his ritual protein shake for him, and sprinkles a a very powerful laxative into the drink. Richard unknowingly drinks the tainted shake, and leaves to take his exam. The effects set in as soon as the exam begins, and Richard begins to pass gass uncontrollably. Unable to leave due to the strict no bathroom break rule for the two hour exam period. No longer able to hold out, Richard rushes through his test by dialling down the middle of his multiple choice exam sheet, all the while annoying his fellow test takers as well as the exam administrator with his frequent flatulence and stomach gurgles. He then hands in his paper unfinished before leaving the exam room in a state of a panic. He finally reaches a bathroom only to be intercepted by one of the doctors from the group meant to interview him for admission to medical school. Richard despite his protests is brought into a room to meet with the others. Richard meets the doctors while continuing to try and hold back his dirrahea. It isn't helped by the fact all the doctors names are associated with fecal matter including Stern, Fine, Brown, and Smellnick. After Dr Brown pats his stomach, Richard runs to the other side of the room, and pulls down his pants, and proceeds to have violent dirrahea in the waste basket while the doctors look on in disgust and horror. With Dr Brown even remarking "oh dear god that's wretched"

Richard is only briefly seen once more in the film in the bathroom reading Gwen's article about Van in the graduation issue. His medical school dreams are now ruined, as well as his reputation as in the article Gwen publishes that Richard is the one to blame for the drunken minors not Van. What became of Richard after this scene is unknown but he likely lost all respect, and lost his chance to go to Northwestern.

### Personality

Richard is portrayed as cold and calculating, but is also very smart and clearly knows a lot about advanced medical terminology even correcting Gwen when she gets his question about the human body wrong. He appears to suffer from pre-mature ejaculation, and is only able to have sexual intercourse for a few seconds. Richard also has a serious jealous streak as his whole plan to get Van expelled was because he was jealous of the amount of time he was spending with Gwen. He only respects people who are doctors and lawyers as well as people who are of high social standing including Gwen's parents. He detests Van for his care free attitude to life as well as his lack of interest in a job. Richard takes life very seriously, and refuses to have fun unless it's on his terms. He is well built but never lifts a finger preferring to use unhanded tactics to get at Van.

### Sexuality

Despite dating Gwen there are a few subtle hints at Richard's possible bisexuality. During Richard's confrontation with Van outside his dorm room, Richard and Gordon look affectionately at one another for a moment. Van even seems to notice this. More evidence is a deleted scene which showed Richard presumably getting a blowjob from Gordon in his car.

#### Trivia

* There is a deleted scene in which as Van tries to get to his final exam with Professor McDougal, he is confronted by Richard and his fraternity brothers who take him into a bathroom for a beat down. Richard berates Van for stealing Gwen from him as well as his chance at Northwestern. Richard and his friends are however then taken care of by Van's cool black friends.
* Richard is played by actor Daniel Cosgrove who also played Matt Durning on Beverly Hills, 90210, and on Guiding Light as Bill Lewis.
* During the dinner scene with Gwen's parents, when Richard introduces Van to Doctor Beavermen, and says "OBJYN," his mouth doesn't move.
* During his big exam, Richard's tie switches from being tied to being unbuttoned.
* As he begins shitting in the waste basket, his shirt is hanging out, but when it cuts back it is tucked inside the basket as well.

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