Postal Dude

"I regret nothing!"

- The Postal Dude on his actions.

"Oh, yeah, that's the ticket!"

- the Postal Dude's famous punchline when he is pissing.

Postal Dude (Jr.) is the protagonist villain and playable character of the Postal video game franchise. He is voiced by Rick Hunter.

Appearance
Postal Dude is depicted as a middle aged tall, thin man sporting a goatee. He is always seen wearing sunglasses and a long trench coat whose color varies between games, as well as a t-shirt with a alien stamp. Despite never being stated to have any previous experience with firearms, PD is very skilled with them, as well as being able to make use of improvised weapons.

Postal
In the first game, the Postal Dude had no backstory at all, being shown just as a common postal service worker who goes on a killing spree believing his eviction was the cause of a conspiracy, deciding to kill everyone in town. The manual mentions that he believes the town to be under some sort of madness outbreak and that it is up to him to stop it, as well as the in-game diary of the Dude ranting about "cleansing" the Earth.

His story is better developed in the sequel, the developer Running With Scissors having confirmed that the Postal 1 Dude is not the same one as in the sequel.

Postal 2
Postal Dude moves to the town of Paradise, Arizona, after being hired by the independent game company Running With Scissors Inc. He lives in a trailer with his pet dog Champ and his unnamed obnoxious wife, whom he just calls his bitch. At the beginning of Monday, his wife gives him a list of errands to complete. PD goes to RWS office but ends fired, claiming to his wife that he's on a sort of vacation, so she gives him errands for the rest of the week. Every time the Postal Dude returns to the trailer, he is heard talking with his wife, often in a hostile tone.

PD's errands are often very simple things (like buying milk on Monday or getting signatures for a petition on Tuesday), however they often end with PD having to confront various groups. Shortly after getting his paycheck and being fired, the RWS office is attacked by protestors, forcing PD to deal with them, and when he goes to the bank to discount the check the place is stormed by armed robbers.

During Tuesday PD goes to the church to confess, but the place is attacked by Taliban terrorists. When he goes to the library to return a book, a hate-group against books burns the entire place with PD and other people still inside. Lastly he goes to the mall to get an autograph of Gary Coleman, which he intended to sell on Ebay, but shortly after getting it Gary is surrounded by the police, prompting a gunfight. On Wednesday PD is forced to confront a group of rednecks when he gets a X-mas tree and is later knocked unconscious by them while pissing on his father's tombstone. They put him on a gimpsuit, so he is forced to go to the laundry to pick up his clothes.

During Thursday PD goes to the mall to buy a Krotchy doll, but Krotchy informs him that all dolls are sold out, so PD invades the shop's back room to steal one, which prompts a gunfight with the police and Krotchy himself. PD decides to buy napalm to get rid of the weeds on his garden, but the napalm factory explodes after a worker vomits on a control panel. PD also wanted to buy some steaks to attend a meeting, so he goes to the butchery but since nobody was attending the place he invades the back room, only to find a group of butchers grinding people alive, which of course don't want PD to leave the place alive.

On Friday, PD goes to the Parcel Center to get a package addressed to him, but when the parcel explodes the carriers attack PD. PD also goes to the junkyard to get a new alternator for his car, but an accident causes the dogs on the place to be set free and attack him. The last errand has PD going after his Uncle Dave to give him a birthday gift, but since Uncle Dave's cult had taken over a compound they end confronting the ATF's forces.

After all errands are completed and PD passes through a Load Zone, the Apocalypse begins and all hell breaks lose on Paradise, with everyone turning hostile and shooting each other while cats rain down from the skies. Once PD finally returns to his trailer, his wife asks him if he remembered to bring her her Rocky Road, which she had asked him to on Monday. Distressed, the Dude shoots himself on the head.

Apocalypse Weekend
On Saturday, the PD wakes up in a hospital, discovering that he somehow had survived the bullet. Leaving his bed, he walks by the hospital to donate his semen to gain money so he can go eat something. However, on his path he starts to have weird hallucinations, seeing a distorted version of the world because of the wound in his head. He gets some get well cards in the hospital, one of them being from his wife telling him she had left him, and others telling him his dog Champ had been taken to the dog pound. As he walks through the city, he notices everything has gone crazy, as now zombies roam the place.

Because of the bullet wound, PD has constant hallucinations, seeing the world in a distorted madness. After helping a police officer by killing diseased cows and pigeons to get some money, he is re-hired by Vince Desi of RWS, who wants the Dude's help due to their employee Mike J having been infected with mad cow disease. Vince tells PD to invade the office of a rival company to steal a program. PD retrieves it after invading the company's office and confronting their CEO Phraud Hopslog, so Vince invites PD to a party at his house.

As PD wakes up on Sunday, the place is attacked by zombies, so PD confronts them. Leaving the place, he is approached by the owner of a preservation site, who asks him to kill some elephants so he can make waste baskets with their legs. He is once again contacted by Vince, who asks him to get something to toast the competition, so PD has the idea of finding a good explosive. He invades a terrorist training camp and confronts the Taliban forces there, but is unable to find any explosive weapons. As he attempts to flee the place, the National Guard arrives and arrests everyone, including PD. Taken to a military base, he makes a escape while fighting the military forces, finding a nuclear warhead along the way. He returns to the rival company's office and places the warhead there, using a hole in the wall to reach the dog pound, where rednecks have been training animals to kill people. He confronts the rednecks and trained animals until he is cornered by a group of dogs, but Champ breaks through the glass ceiling and saves him.

PD and Champ then attempt to escape the city by taking the bridge which is the only exit of the place, but not only it is overrun by zombies but the National Guard is also on the place, attempting to bomb the bridge so the zombies won't leave the place. After PD crosses the bridge and finds his trailer, he is attacked by Mike J, who mutated into a large demon-cow hybrid and claiming to be the Lord of Hellfire. PD confronts Mike J and defeats him, then gets into his car with Champ, leaving the town as the nuclear warhead explodes and decimates the town.

Postal III
Please note that RWS confirmed that Postal III is a spin-off and is non-canon on the Postal series.

The Dude's car runs out of gas, and he is forced to stop in Paradise's twin city, Catharsis, which is extremely similar to Paradise but much smaller. Out of Gas, money and food the PD decides to work on the city trying to get some money, so he can continue his trip out of the country. During his path, the PD finds several odd jobs, but he is unable to make much money out of them due to various groups which get in his way. There are three endings on the game: the bad ending, in which the Postal Dude is arrested, the normal one, where he obtains gas and simply leaves the town and the good ending, where PD defeats the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and becomes the new president of the U.S.

When Paradise Lost got released, all events of Postal III were retconned into a nightmare that PD has during his coma.

Paradise Lost
As PD is escaping the nuclear meltdown on Paradise, Champ jumps from their car to chase after a cat, so PD is forced to make a u-turn to chase him, but an hallucination causes him to crash and become comatose. During his coma, PD has strange nightmares of a "dark future" (the events of Postal III). PD wakes up from his coma 11 years later, deciding to return to Paradise to search for Champ.

After getting a piece of map from a passerby, PD asks around for Champ's whereabouts, but people gets scared and run away in terror upon seeing his photo. As PD asks a person why people are having this reaction, the person tells him to meet the "Wise Man". Hungry, PD stops by the Cock Asian Restaurant, but once he gets his order the place is attacked by rabid dogs, one of them knocking the restaurant's sign and blocking the entrance. Forced to take the employees area to leave the place, PD discovers the employees have been killing dogs and using them for meat. PD goes to the animal pound on the old mall, but after seeing none of the dogs there were Champ he once again ends trapped after a group of protesters release the caged animals. He finds a secret laboratory inside, where scientists were mutating animals, escaping after confronting the protesters and releasing mutated monkeys who help him.

With no more clues, PD decides to meet the "Wise Man", who was living in the old RWS office. The Wise man turns out to be Krotchy, who shows PD a video explaining what happened in the town in his absence. When Champ returned to the town, he was affected by the radiation and grew to a monstrous size, terrorizing the townsfolk until a group of them cast a spell trapping him in hell. After that the town was split into various factions, each one with it's own leader. Krotchy tells PD that he must help the faction leaders if he wants to rescue champ and warns him about a dark persona living inside of him. On his way out PD is surrounded by zombies but is saved by Vince Desi, who invites PD to his church and promises him to help rescue Champ if PD do some errands for him.

When PD wakes up in the Tuesday, Vince greets him and gives him the errands: to buy toilet paper, deliver some motherboards and attack a rival company's office. While doing the errands, a voice continuously talks with PD from inside his head, giving him a few hints. When the toilet paper vendor asks a ridiculous price for the product and PD kills him, the voice suggests him to just enter the employees area and steal some. When taking the motherboards to the arcade owner, he turns out to be an arms dealer, who asks for PD's guns in exchange for taking the motherboards. If PD kills him, the voice tells him to just install the motherboards himself. PD returns to the church after the errands are complete, but the place is attacked by zombies. PD escapes the place, but is ambushed by Mike J, who orders the zombies to capture him. He wakes up the next day inside a cage on the junkyard, and asks the voice inside his head on who he is, but the voice tells him to not mind him since he "would be leaving his head very soon".

Mike J shows up and releases PD, deciding to not kill him since he was making preparations for his wedding, so he tells PD to get some stuff for him in exchange for his life. He first has to collect donations, which Mike J tells him to do "the old fashioned way" as he gives PD a coffee mug. When PD leaves the junkyard, he sees a poster telling that Zack Ward was now living in the town, so the voice suggests that he should meet Zack instead of collecting donations. PD asks the denizens around for donations, but only gets some pennies, while the voice continuously insists on meeting Zack. Seeing that he wouldn't get much money in time, PD finally decides to go after Zack Ward, finding him on the Winter Wonderland (the old police district). Zack, who was clearly high, asks PD if he was a fan, but PD replies that he doesn't remember his movies, so Zack starts enumerating each one, including the Postal movie, but PD still don't remember him. Pissed off, Zack decides to kill PD, forcing PD to kill him and his goons, after which he get the money from the vault.

After PD gets the money, as well as some A/C parts and a large breast pump from a farmer, he returns to the junkyard, so Mike J tells him to act as the priest for their ceremony. However, PD sees his old trailer in the place, realizing the bride was none other than the Bitch herself. She jumps out of the trailer, having lost all of her weight in the years that passed, and still angry at PD for not bringing her her Rocky Road attacks him. Forced to defend himself, PD kills her, so Mike J attempts to save her by using his milk, but it makes her return to her normal, obese form. PD leaves the junkyard and is approached by two midgets, but PD just tells them he doesn't want trouble and is just looking for his dog Champ. Realizing PD is referring to "El Perro Loco", the two midgets invite PD to their hideout to meet their leader.

Personality
In the original game, Postal Dude has very little in the way of personality, being shown just as a psychopath who hates everyone and everything. There are hints of at least one mental disease, suggesting that could be one of the reasons for his violent actions.

On Postal 2, PD is shown as a anti-social loner who is just minding his own business. He is a very easygoing guy, usually not minding the stuff happening around him and constantly making sarcastic remarks about them. He also loves his dog Champ dearly, going to great lengths to save him on both expansions of the second game.

The Postal Dude has sixteen known relatives
 * His father, T. Dude Sr. (whom he hates mainly because of his alcoholism and drug use) who died in 1996. His corpse is located in the Paradise Cemetery
 * His unnamed mother (also hated by the Postal Dude) who lives in an unknown place of the country
 * His uncle Dave, a rich guy-esque drug dealer and cult leader
 * His grandfather, Freddie Dude Jr. He is 96 Years old
 * His great grandfather, Freddie Dude Sr. He is 130 years old
 * His great great grandfather, Robert Dude. He is 168 years old
 * His younger brother, David Dude III. He is 33 years old
 * His older brother, Thomas Dude Sr. He is 56 years old
 * His younger brothers, Paul Dude and Mark Dude
 * His older brothers, Chris Dude and Mark Dude Sr.
 * His uncles, Thomas Dude and Alvin Dude
 * His aunts, Jennifer Dude and Sarah Dude
 * His ancestors, ECO Dude and Daniel Dude
 * His descendant, Robot Z-9
 * His sisters, Lisa Dude, Ashley Dude, Melissa Dude and Mary Dude

In the movie
Postal Dude is a very different character in the movie adaptation of the game. There, he is shown as a very unlucky guy who just wanted to live without problems. He can't get a decent job and his wife, who is morbidly obese, cheats on him with everyone in town. Unable to stand for all of this anymore, he decides to get some money to leave the place, so he makes a deal with his uncle Dave, who is the leader of a cult, to steal a shipment of popular dolls (which resemble a scrotum) and sell them at a high price. However, the Al-Qaeda was also after the dolls, prompting a confrontation between the members of the cult and the terrorist group.

Dave's right hand man kills him and imprisons PD in the compound of the cult. After escaping, PD goes nuts and starts a war against everyone, joined only by a bar-woman whom he had met before. As all fanatic groups confront each other, the two leave the town as it is bombarded by nuclear missiles. Postal Dude was portrayed by Zack Ward.

Trivia

 * The Postal Dude's age has never been revealed, the Postal concepts from 1996 mentions that he is 27 years old.
 * In the Postal 2 beta shown at E3 2002, the Postal Dude had no glasses, exposing his reddish eyes, and he was much taller and thin.
 * In the Postal games, he is called the Postal Dude because he is the representative character for the series. In the film, he is called the Postal Dude by the people of Paradise because they blamed him on going postal at the Little Germany festival and causing a massacre, when in fact Al Qaeda were largely responsible for the death toll.
 * In Postal IIIs introduction, the Dude says that he hates his "fucking name". When the announcer asks him if he has a real name, he replies with "Uh, I forget. Kids, don't do drugs"'.
 * In Postal, the voice heard in game play played by Rick Hunter isn't the Postal Dude, it was intended for it to be another voice, possibly of supernatural origin, in his head commanding him to kill. This is verifiable by the fact that within the game files, Hunter's voice clips are labelled as "demon" and that when taking damage, the Postal Dude's grunts and screams sound nothing like the voice actor.
 * In Postal 2, when quicksaving, the Dude may call you out on it: Are you saving again?!, Did you just save?! and My grandmother can beat the game saving as much as you do!
 * It's interesting to note that in Postal 2, the Dude is only as violent as the player wants him to be, as the majority of the missions can be completed in either a pacifist or violent manner. However, it is usually less complicated to go the violent route, as the pacifist solutions often require money, which is very scarce, or the player to avoid confrontation with enemies.
 * If the player clears the game with a perfect pacifist run, he is awarded with an extra screen in the end which says "Thank you for playing, Jesus Christ!"