Daddy Strong Legs (2025) at Fallout Theater

Gar­rett Buss daz­zled audi­ences with Dad­dy Strong Legs in the last few months of 2024. The one-man, four-char­ac­ter show was a chance for Buss to invite all of his per­sonas togeth­er for an hour of com­e­dy and spec­ta­cle. The orig­i­nal iter­a­tion saw five per­for­mances and was so suc­cess­ful that the Fall­out The­ater is let­ting him do it all again. Dad­dy StrongER Legs (as Buss dubs it) fea­tures brand new char­ac­ters and some return­ing favorites. 

This new ver­sion of the show begins much like the last; Buss’s open­ing standup is quick­ly diverged into an uproar­i­ous set by his alter ego Gar­rett Cuss. The utter­ing of a sin­gle swear word is the acti­va­tion phrase for Buss to tear away his pants and unbut­ton sev­er­al lay­ers of shirts until he is in full bad boy get­up. The trans­for­ma­tion is made com­plete with sun­glass­es and a bull-whip. Cuss tells the jokes Buss doesn’t want you to hear.

After sev­er­al whip cracks, Cuss exits the stage to make way for the first of two new addi­tions. This char­ac­ter shuf­fles onto the stage hold­ing a can­dle­stick and don­ning a night­cap. In the last Strong Legs we saw Buss take inspi­ra­tion from A Christ­mas Car­ol in his Tee­ny Tom char­ac­ter (an overt par­o­dy of Tiny Tim). This time Buss por­trays Ebenez­er Scrooge out­right and posits a ques­tion nev­er answered by Dick­ens: what new thing should Scrooge hate now that he likes Christ­mas? On a black­board he brain­storms a list of ideas before he finds that what’s stronger than hate is his love for singing pop­u­lar songs. Scrooge once again has a change of heart.

Next in Buss’s line­up is the ghost of real film pio­neer Louis Lumière. In life the Lumière broth­ers amazed audi­ences with their 50-sec­ond film of a train pulling into a sta­tion. The Arrival of a Train, as it’s fit­ting­ly titled, was a mod­ern mar­vel at the time of its release in the ear­ly days of film. 130 years lat­er the ghost of Lumière isn’t con­tent to rest on those lau­rels. In fact, he has sto­ry­boards for all the movies he’d like to make that all end in his sig­na­ture way.

Boney Skele’Tony makes his Strong Legs return. Once try­ing to find his place among the skele­ton dat­ing scene, he’s now faced with a new inse­cu­ri­ty: how does an old skele­ton like him­self fit in with the youth of today? Boney sets out to do what any cool kid would and tries his hand at skate­board­ing. With­out mus­cles he’s doomed to fail at this, and he does, but it isn’t all for naught. He learns to accept him­self for his unique abil­i­ty to play his rib cage like a xylo­phone, some­thing skele­tons do all the time that a per­son with flesh could never.

Fans of Buss can rejoice that there is a whole new hour of his comedic odd­i­ty. Whether you’re new to his style, or com­ing back for more, catch Dad­dy Strong Legs at the Fall­out Theater.