Lääplääpläas

Lääplääpläas with Fork chin

**Lääplääpläas Scandinavia** (*la-PLAH-plaz*; 2008 – present), sometimes known as **Plaapsy** or **Plaaps**, is perhaps one of the most famous, most beloved and most developed members of the boot-humour pantheon. Although registered as human, he is a kind of chimera of various different animals.

Born when a bolt of lightning struck a field in rural Finland, he emerged from the fire fully formed in adulthood. He was initially a minor character who was overshadowed by Åker, whose only characteristics were his long jaw and mafia style antics. However, he soon became a major focus for Spears and McCauliffe's booting.

Despite being born in Finland and residing in the United Kingdom for most of his life, Plaapsy talks with an American accent.

Over 10 years old, he remains one of the most enduring characters and is constantly being reimagined and developed. He is arguably boot humour's mascot; the "Mickey Mouse" of boot humour.

## Characterisation

### **Appearance**

Lääplääpläas is an unusual looking creature. He has pointed shoulders, a slender build, long ears with tufts of fur like a lynx, hind legs, a tail and, most famously, an 8ft jaw. He is almost always wearing a dark navy suit with large lapels and subtle pin stripe detailing, a fedora and matching braces. His fedora is actually composed of two parts, with the band being his exposed skull. He wears a pair of pointed Oxford shoes that are so polished they are reflective and have been used to trap victims' reflections in.

### **Anatomy and behaviour**

Lääplääpläas has a complex anatomy. He has five joints in his fingers and three in his toes. Sometimes his limbs act with a mechanical conduct, creaking whenever he tries to move them. However, they are also quite fluid and elegant so he is able to fit into small spaces like an octopus.

Lääplääpläas has an extensive nighttime regime, but he actually only sleeps for 3.5 seconds. This is the adequate amount of sleep for him to feel refreshed and rejuvenated. However, if he gets less than these seconds he is visibly groggy and sleep deprived and struggles to get through the day. If he sleeps longer than those 3.5 seconds, he acts as if he's late because he's overslept and will rush everything he does.

Lääplääpläas has an unusual condition where he literally cannot keep his thoughts to himself. For some reason, his thoughts are expressed verbally with an echo effect so everyone can hear his thoughts. This becomes awkward when he has only disparaging thoughts about an individual. For example, if he is interacting with someone and telling them he is enjoying their company when actually he is thinking in his head that he isn't, he will express those thoughts. However, he is unaware that he is verbalising his thoughts, so remains confused as to how people know what he is thinking.

## Biography

### **Origins**

Lääplääpläas was born from a jolt of lightning as it hit a field near Tuomikylä, a tiny town in Western Finland. Although he has no parents or family, Lääplääpläas is Jewish. Already an adult he somehow found his way to the United Kingdom where he has resided ever since. This was the last time he was in his "country of origin" as some unseen reason keeps him from being able to return. He speaks with a mobster Italian-American accent. He is unable to pronounce words which were invented after 1930. He is able to speak up to 15 languages, but is unable to speak his native Finnish. However, he is unable to speak those languages whenever he is in a country that speaks that particular language (e.g. he can speak French fluently, but if were ever to go to France he would suddenly be unable to speak it).

In his early years he would often be accompanied by the mystic melodies of casual jazz wherever he would go. It was audible by whomever was near him, often causing people to turn their heads to look at the source of the sound. He would often click his fingers in-time to the beat. Nowadays, when Plaapsy defecates, the moment emits the sound of scatting.

For who knows what reason, automatic doors do not open for Lääplääpläas. Whenever he approaches one, it will actually close on him. This has worked to Our Mate's advantage. Whenever Plaapsy is pursuing him, Our Mate will run into the nearest supermarket. On one occasion, as Mate was hiding behind the automatic doors, Plaapsy breathed on the glass and wrote 'Gonna get you' that appeared as a low quality, CoolText-style rotating gif.

#### **Edo Japan**

At some point in his lifetime, Lääplääpläas was an important member of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, possibly the shogun himself. He inspired a plethora of Edo artists, who depicted him in traditional woodblocks and paintings.

## Early years

### **First gags**

Lääplääpläas first started to rise in the ranks of characterhood with his 'Pick a Card' gag, where he would ask an innocent member of the public - usually a male - to pick a random card from a pack of cards he would carry with him.

He would often take the bystander out of their real life situation and place them in a dark and smokey room, around a green felt table, to play a card game with him and his henchmen, Tony and Joey. Lääplääpläas would then ask the bystander to pick from a selection of cards on the already sorted deck. Though the cards would be mixed up, and Plaapsy wouldn't know what card the bystander would pick, they would always select the 'wrong card', and be subjected to a type of punishment, usually witness a death, or be killed themselves. The last thing the bystander would see would be Lääplääpläas' figure, usually semi-hiding behind an object, such as a tree or lamppost, with his finger to his mouth saying 'shush' before starting to fade away, leaving only his hand behind.

## Residence

### **Main rooms**

Lääplääpläas lives alone in a ground-floor room of a small flat, probably somewhere in London. Though his room has a somewhat restricting floors pace, his flat seems to get more and more doors to other rooms each time a scene starts on location.

His main room features a small bed, a small inbuilt-kitchenette complete with washing machine, and a small table and chair set. His washing machine is actually a portal that leads him directly to Our Mate's flat. He has one window which overlooks his parking space where Lääplääpläas parks his car.

Though his home is literally the smallest place you've ever seen, Lääplääpläas still hires a house cleaner who frequently comes to tidy and dust the property when Lääplääpläas is away. However, she is forbidden from entering many of the other rooms within the property, such as the mirrored room.

### **Mirrored room**

The mirrored room is dark room where Lääplääpläas keeps victims, perhaps those who have been involved with his card trick gag, or just anyone he takes a dislike to. He keeps them trapped within a series of framed ornate mirrors, stretching all over the walls within the room. He often goes in to torment them, and on some occasions break the mirrors when one of his victims has been 'misbehaving', usually due to inaudible screaming and thumping which only Lääplääpläas can hear. He smashes the mirrors with his fists and leaves the broken pieces on the floor below the empty frame.

Plaapsy's Cleaner has come worryingly close to entering this room on several occasions, but Lääplääpläas has managed to prevent this.

### **The Mayan Temple Room**

Hidden in one of Lääplääpläas' rooms in his apartment is a huge and labyrinthine Mayan Temple. Replete with elaborate booby traps and ancient mechanisms, it serves primarily as a place of punishment for whomever Lääplääpläas wishes.

   It is designated as one of the many rooms in Lääplääpläas's house that is forbidden to visitors. However, Lääplääpläas's Cleaner accidentally stumbled across it. One day when she was vacuuming, a trail of dust led her to a black and empty cupboard. As she cleaned, a single shaft of light slipped through a small fissure in the ceiling and caught the cleaner's watch. The light reflected off the watch and hit a strange jewel embedded in the wall. Suddenly, the ground began to tremble and torches that had lined the room's walls inexplicably burst aflame. A sequence of complex and convoluted mechanisms were set into motion, involving large tablets of stone shifting, ancient cogs turning, pulleys and cranes heaving water and sand and disparate reliefs depicting Lääplääpläas's face rotating to form his profile. Two statues of Lääplääpläas, garbed in traditional Aztec dress, moved forward and lowered their staffs to catch the light. Finally, the intricately carved doors began to slowly open.

She walked through door, shrugging off her initial surprise, and proceeded to spend several hours vacuuming around pillars, monuments, and under the odd skeleton's legs. However, when she heard Plaapsy arrive home she panicked. She ran up the stairs as quickly as she could, which took her a while as the clip of her running was repeated. She wanted to leave the house before Plaapsy had time to notice her, and fortunately for her he was too busy unwrapping his scarf by the front door. In fact, the clip of him taking his scarf off had also been put on a loop, so she actually had plenty of time to escape. She literally walked past him out the door as he was still unravelling his scarf.

### **The Cave**

One of the exits from the Mayan Temple is through an old Cave. Similar to the Blue John Caves in Matlock-Bath, the cave is semi-submerged in water, and gives the appearance of only being accessible by longboat, which Lääplääpläas frequently to get into Our Mate's plumbing, lantern in-hand. However, this is all another pointless theatrical performance, as the cave in-fact is only submerged by about an inch in water, and the longboat actually has a set of wheels which Lääplääpläas pushes the boat along with. The cave also has an anonymous resident (described initially as some sort of farmer), who Lääplääpläas has a brief chat with as he wheels his long boat along.

### **Laboratory**

Lääplääpläas has a laboratory hidden in the bowels of his apartment. The room is lined with large test tubes containing versions of Lääplääpläas. For some time, Lääplääpläas has been trying to successfully clone himself. However, all the versions have defects and therefore do not meet his standards of excellence. One of the clones strongly resembles actor Warwick Davis.

### **Neighbours**

Lääplääpläas' only known neighbour is the laddish Bloke who shouts ANDY (BWSA) who lives directly above him. Though only recent moved in, Lääplääpläas has already had some run-ins with him, due to BWSA's social life causing him to stumble back to his flat quite late at night and often intoxicated, making quite a lot of noise and disturbing Lääplääpläas from his crucial 3.5 seconds of sleep.

On one occasion, BWSA invited some drunken colleages back and began to throw a party, waking Lääplääpläas up only 2 seconds into his sleep. Lääplääpläas angrily knocked on BWSA's door yelling for him to turn his music down. Sadly for Lääplääpläas, he was not able to make up that last 1 and a half second, and consequently was in a bad way the following day.

Lääplääpläas is also unhappy with BWSA's interest in his daughter Jenny.

## Pranks and incidents

### **Our Mate driving home**

Lääplääpläas found great entertainment in frightening Our Mate on his journey home from whatever job he had at the time. He would always try to catch Our Mate in the morning, but would arrive too late. At around 18:00,Lääplääpläas would wait with one of his legs raised by a road Mate would have to drive down. When Our Mate would turn the corner, Lääplääpläas would step out in front of the car with the intention of having Our Mate crash into him. When this first took place, Our Mate performed an emergency brake and attended to Lääplääpläas's contorted body in the road. Even though it was Lääplääpläas, Our Mate still considered calling an ambulance. However, Lääplääpläas lifted himself back up as all his broken bones quickly clicked back into position. Apart from his left leg which took longer to repair than the others, Lääplääpläas would walk off, salute Our Mate and say "see you later". When he got home, he'd complain about the immense pain he was in and question his behaviour.

One evening, the events took a different turn. Our Mate had had an awful day at work, and got into his car feeling demoralised. As he exited a roundabout, he remembered that Lääplääpläas would most likely be there waiting to be run over. Lääplääpläas was there, on time and ready to be smashed into as usual. Noting the time, Lääplääpläas braced himself for the familiar routine. However, something struck him as notably different this time. He looked out to the end of the road and saw the car moving faster than was normal. "He's coming round that corner a bit fast" he said to himself under his breath. Nonetheless, he kept his leg poised ready for impact. He decided to take another look, placing his closed fists before his eyes to use as binoculars. Our Mate was approaching with incredible speed, and Lääplääpläas felt his heart beat a lot faster than it had ever beaten before. Suddenly, he was gripped by a sense of alarm and his body began to sweat. "Oh shit" he cried, and he attempted to turn his leg away from Our Mate's path. However, he was not in time and Mate's car clipped his foot which sent him rolling into the road. Lääplääpläas, whose brim and crown were beginning to slip due to the volume of sweat, looked up and saw Our Mate's car come to a halt before his reverse lights flickered on. Lääplääpläas's heart raced as he tried to crawl back onto the path. He patted his pockets but could not find his car keys. He tried calling out for his car but she didn't come, so he dragged himself onto the path, narrowly missing Our Mate's next attack. He managed to escape back to his flat by the skin of his teeth, reflecting on this new sensation he had never experienced before: fearing for one's life.

### **Ice cream man**

For God knows what reason, Lääplääpläas decided he wanted to go undercover as an ice cream man. He told his car to disguise herself as an ice cream van and then visited a street nearby. As he was arriving in the street, he played an ice cream van melody to attract customers. When he parked, he waited a few minutes until people started to notice him. Eventually a little girl, encouraged by her mother, went over on her own to ask the "nice man" for an ice cream. She skipped over to Lääplääpläas' van, raised herself to reach the counter on her tip toes, and asked very politely for a 99. Lääplääpläas hadn't shown his face to the girl yet, so when he span around she winced and took a step back. However, she then laughed at Lääplääpläas' "funny mask". She then repeated what she wanted from him, but Lääplääpläas stood motionless except for his eyes that were fixed on hers.

He then elegantly reached out his hand, coiled it around her shirt, and gently lifted her from the ground towards his face. As she was forced closer to him, he lowered his face so his jaw wouldn't get in her way and she noticed he had become more fish eye. She saw his nostrils twitch, and then they flared open and a vehement gust of wind made her hair and skirt billow uncontrollably in his direction. In fact, this gust of wind swarmed the entire street, uprooting trees, moving cars and setting their alarms off and even dragging prams away from mothers. After a brief respite he inhaled again, unleashing a colony of bats that fluttered out of his left nostril. He gave a satisfied - almost orgasmic - groan and then placed the girl back on the ground. She stared at him in bewilderment, so he shut the hatch door and sped off into the distance.

The street was left in disarray, similar to the effects of an earthquake or hurricane, but restricted to one street. The council have yet to comment on the matter, purely because they have no idea what the fuck happened.

### **Tesco**

Late one-night Lääplääpläas felt a bit peckish and decided to head out to his local Tesco to get something to eat. He was also aware that Our Mate had recently got a position on the tills there, and decided it would be a good time to mess with him.

Lääplääpläas gathered a trolley full of products, anything from juice cartons, to the boxset collection of Taggart. When finding Mate's till, he began offloading the contents of his trolley onto the conveyor belt, which Mate then had to scan in. Lääplääpläas had also selected a lot of items which did not have a barcode, such as individually picked fruits and vegetables, and meats from the delicatessen, just to make Mate's job more difficult. When the final total flashed up, Lääplääpläas poised himself with his credit card (which was actually a Joker playing card) over the chip-and-pin reader, and slid it carefully in. Without hesitation, Lääplääpläas began poking his card numbers, slowly at first but soon it was noticeable that Lääplääpläas was creating a tune. The tune soon became recognisable as Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells'. Before long a whole choreographed performance took place, which included Mate's co-workers dancing down aisles, strobe-lighting and smoke machines, all whilst Lääplääpläas punched his number into the card. Just before the song ended, Lääplääpläas swiped his card away, along with his lengthy receipt, as the message 'transaction complete' flashed upon the screen. He vanished as the final note of the song played, and he left the end of the till full of all his previously collected items, which Mate then had to carry back to their original places, and subsequently got fired for being away from his till.

When Lääplääpläas returned home it dawned on him how much debt he was in due to these elaborate pranks. Sitting on the edge of his bed, jacket off, he shook his head in disbelief at the receipt from Tescos, comparing it to how little money he had left in his Barclays account.

### **Costa Coffee**

On one occasion, Lääplääpläas decided to drop in (probably literally) for a coffee with his Car. He ordered a coffee, and waited fairly patiently in the queue. Car just had a cup of oil. When the barista pulled out the stencil, Lääplääpläas interjected with "no, no, use this one..." and then passed her his own stencil which, to her amazement, featured an animated GIF of his own face, mouth opening and closing with *GIF Hub* in the bottom right corner. She did her best to get the image on the top of the froth and asked Lääplääpläas "..like that?", which he replied 'oh yeah!', but this time his nodding head appeared as if being viewed through a fish-eye go-pro lens, which appeared to be attached to a bracket on his head. After paying he went and sat down with his coffee with Car.

Lääplääpläas had an unusual method of attracting the attention of the baristas. He once decided that he would stop blinking. When a female barista walked by and noticed his distress, she asked what the matter was. "I haven't blinked for half an hour" he said, his eyes throbbing with red veins and streaming tears. The barista urged him to blink, so he did with great relief. He thanked her, and then offered her his cold coffee.

### **Peep-hole**

Simular to the Costa Coffee incident, when viewed through a door peep-hole, Lääplääpläas seems to be a handsome Scandinavian man, as two young women witnessed, after receiving a knock at their hotel door on a skiing resort in Switzerland. They were quite excited to open the door after seeing who was waiting outside. Unfortunately when they were greeted by the real appearance of Lääplääpläas, who had actually knocked to complain about the noise, they were rather disheartened.

### **X-ray**

Lääplääpläas randomly decided to pretend he needed physiotherapy, so he went to the local hospital and asked the nurses to help him perform some exercises. One of the nurses said he required an x-ray. She took him to the room and set up the x-ray machine and then asked him to stand in front of it. When the x-ray was taken, the nurse looked at the result and was shocked to see Lääplääpläas' rib cage being photobombed by Lääplääpläas himself. She naturally assumed the machine was faulty, but decided to take more. The next few results were even stranger, showing x-rays of a squirrel, a bike, Gyles Brandreth, a cat, the Magna Carta and Lääplääpläas performing in Cirque du Soleil.

### **David Bowie**

When Lääplääpläas' Wiki page was first formed, David Bowie's Wikipedia entry was used as a template, as McCauliffe didn't even know where to start.

### **Puppet**

In some sketches, Lääplääpläas is portrayed by a type of puppet common in West End productions. His puppet version is operated by a human who is dressed to be inconspicuous to create the impression the puppet exists on its own.

### **Stolen car keys**

On an ordinary Tuesday morning, Our Mate got up and ready to go to work. However, he was unable to find his car keys and searched the house thoroughly. Finally, he found a piece of parchment that had a riddle scrawled on it. Mate solved the riddle and realised it was telling him that his car keys were in Lääplääpläas' Mayan temple.

Mate made his way to Plaapsy's flat and, seeing the door was unlocked, made his way in to the temple. Searching the temple far and wide, he finally found his car keys standing on a plinth with a single column of light illuminating them. Aware that taking them would set off a trap, he replaced the keys with a bag of sand that he for some reason had that weighed the same amount as the keys.

Thrilled with his victory, he took a step forward and stood on a loose tile. This set off a series of traps, which Mate escaped from with the skin of his teeth. However, as he began to relax he heard and felt a rumbling. Suddenly from the ceiling descended what appeared to be a boulder. Yet in the small time frame he had for closer inspection, he realised that the boulder was actually Lewis Barański pummelling towards him curled into a ball.

He dashed for the exit, overcoming hurdles and obstacles and John Williams' score for Indiana Jones being performed live as this was all taking place. He barely escaped with his life, and then when he got to work late was scolded by Boss and told he wouldn't be paid for the day.

## Holidays

### **Planning**

Lääplääpläas has some unusual rituals for whenever he travels. Every time he travels, he always brings his own chair made of wicker (that he doesn't use when he's at home incidentally). When he's on a plane, he will place his wicker chair in the middle of the aisle, even though there is an empty seat for him that he had booked. It is during the flight where he performs his most unusual ritual: looking at every single person on the plane. From his seat, he will stare intensely at every single person for 3.5 seconds from his wicker chair, craning his neck and looking over chairs if he needs to. If someone is asleep, he will go over to them and wake them up just to simply stare at them. He will even go into the cockpit and look at the pilot and co-pilot. However, he doesn't perform this in a helpful order; he won't look at people who are seated next to each other. Instead, he'll look at someone in aisle B, then aisle F, then aisle A. This means he will have to visit the cockpit twice, once to look at one pilot and then another time to stare at the other.

### **Switzerland**

One of Lääplääpläas' favourite holiday destinations is the skiing resorts of Switzerland, not because he is an active skier, or is interested in Switzerland as a whole. He just enjoys sitting in his wicker chair with his arms folded and fingers wrapped around his arms, looking out the window at the ski-slopes. His holidays generally comprise of two weeks, where he just sits staring and hardly breathing. It was on one of these holidays where he met his house cleaner whilst she was cleaning the dust from his room, and from him, whilst she worked as a chambermaid.

### **Waiter**

For who the hell knows what reason, Plaapsy was employed as a waiter at the five-star Rosewood Hotel in London. He was a conscientious waiter, to an extent he was considered overbearing. When guests were dining, he would always remain stood at their table. When they would ask for some privacy, he'd glide backwards by about four inches. He always carried a napkin over his arm and, whenever noticing a diner's drink had had a single drop taken from it, would immediately refill it before the glass could even be set back on the table.

### **Photography**

As Lääplääpläas has decided to trap himself in a 1940s stasis, he struggles to grasp modern technology. On his travels, he'll usually be seen with a casio calculator around his neck. Since he doesn't understand what a camera is actually for, he'll mimic what other people are doing with their cameras with his calculator. He is completely unaware that the whole point of what they're doing is to capture the scene in front of them. He doesn't even use the calculator for basic mathematics. He seriously needs to get laid, man.

## Relationships

### **Adam**

For some unknown reason, Lääplääpläas is incapable of causing any harm to Adam, a former student of Bushfield Community College. Though Lääplääpläas could easily walk away, it annoys him that Adam is so untouchable and devotes a large amount of his time trying to cause annoyance or harm to Adam's life. When Adam was a baby, Lääplääpläas attempted to kill him but his attack failed, weakening his powers. Adam became the Boot Boy Who Lived.

### **Lääplääpläas' Car**

Lääplääpläas' Car (sometimes referred to as Beep) is a quadropedic, anthropomorphic automobile that accompanies Lääplääpläas on his strange tormenting missions. Unlike Lääplääpläas though, Beep is rather naïve, and doesn't seem the malice in any of Lääplääpläas' actions. Beep is said to be a friend of McCauliffe' actual car, Motey, and the two have mini adventures of their own.

### **Jenny**

Jenny is Lääplääpläas and Taaloolaa's estranged daughter. Though she is eager to build a relationship with her father, she finds it hard to achieve this due to his eccentricities and odd behaviour.

### **Joey**

Although he often mistreats and abuses Joey, he is very fond of his companionship. This has caused him to experience intense jealously when Joey socialises with other people. This was highlighted when Joey made friends with BWSA. Lääplääpläas lay awake at night in his bed, listening to the fun Joey was having in BWSA's flat upstairs. He started to cry, wailing so loud that it could be upstairs over the music. Similar to how he serves tea, his tears floated up towards the ceiling and soaked the floor above.

### **Taaloolaa**

Taaloolaa is Lääplääpläas' ex girlfriend/mate, and mother of his daughter Jenny. Though not much is known about their relationship, it is believed that they are no longer in contact anymore, as she rarely appears in any sketches. Taaloolaa's appearance is not dissimilar to Lääplääpläas'; an almost in-drag version of himself, with exaggerated feminine features and clothing. However, unlike Lääplääpläas, Taaloolaa sports a love-heart shaped jaw.

Lääplääpläas first met Taaloolaa in a speakeasy in the 1920s, although this encounter was actually filmed in 2018 and was produced by famously piss poor film studio Bebo. He was sat at a table probably playing some kind of generic (not to be confused with Generic van Dorenkamp) card game when he spotted Taaloolaa across the room through the smoke unfurling from his ash tray. She came over to him, and he asked her "what's a girl like you doing in a dive like this?". The scene was actually replete with anachronisms, including a crew member in cargo shorts eating a BLT sandwich, the sound of an iPhone alarm going off in the background and a boom mic frequently appearing in the shot.

### **Tony**

Tony is the second of Lääplääpläas' henchmen. Unlike Joey, Tony is taller and leaner, and speaks in a slower tone, unlike Joey's Brox accent.

### **Shadow**

Lääplääpläas' shadow is actually its own separate being simply known as Shadow. The nature of his relationship with Shadow isn't fully understood, although it is believed to be symbiotic to some extent. Shadow is ostensibly Lääplääpläas' servant. However, some suspect that Shadow may have more control over Lääplääpläas than the other way round.

Shadow first came to prominence when he appeared alongside Lääplääpläas on an episode of *The Jeremy Kyle Show* carrying Plaapsy's wicker chair for him. Shadow taunted the audience - mostly the elderly - about their increasing closeness to death.