That's My Bush!
The parody of sitcoms from the creators of South Park

When Trey Parker and Matt Stone reupped with Comedy Central for another three years of South Park, part of the deal was for them to create another TV series.  Originally entitled Family First, it was to place the next President of the United States in sitcom situations.  The parody would hinge on the leader of the Free World dealing with Presidential stuff second, and crazy family situations first.  Having grown up watching sitcoms like Diff'rent Strokes, Parker wanted to skewer the cliches.
    The deal was signed just as the 2000 Presidential campaign kicked off, and whoever won, Al Gore or George W. Bush Jr., would be the central character.  Parker and Stone had done live action films, but not a sitcom.  They took the roles in BASEketball to learn more about making movies.  For the sitcom, they toured the set of Everybody Loves Raymond to see how things are done.  Afterward, Parker reportedly turned to Stone and said, "Dude, we are so fucked!"
    Production on the eight episodes was scheduled to start shortly after the election to start broadcasting on Comedy Central in February 2001.  Parker and Stone came up with two seperate pilot scripts so they could cast and go.  The one for Al Gore had him get a robot that looked like him to take some duties and let him spend more time with his family, but people started having problems telling the two apart.  But when Al Gore strung out the election, it delayed the start of production.  When it was finally settled, they raced to get it started for an April launch.  Timothy Bottoms was cast as Bush.  Parker and Stone also garnered some press because they toyed with the idea of depicting Bush's twin daughters as having an incestuous lesbian relationship.  Comedy Central hit the brakes on that, and evidence suggests Parker and Stone weren't serious anyway.
    A point that should be raised is that Parker and Stone are both avowed Republicans, but in interviews they said they weren't thrilled with the R's nominee.  Also, just before the first episode aired, Stone told the cast and crew to "get your shit together, 'cause we're ALL getting audited this year."
    The first episode ran April 4, 2001, and scored the second highest rating in Comedy Central history and the highest debut rating in Comedy Central history.  It even outperformed the (rerun) episode of South Park that preceeded it.
    One of the problems with sitcoms is that they are so formulatic that how much they are enjoyed depends on the quality of the jokes.  The quality of the jokes in That's My Bush vary a bit between episodes, hence this comprehensive episode guide.  It will feature a synopsis, notes, a rating, and best line(s).

The cliches:
That's My Bush is primarily an attack on sitcom conventions and cliches.  The main target is the wacky misunderstandings that drive most sitcoms.  Most everything is initiated by George simply not communicating with his wife or vice versa.  Tying it for most frequent target is the little morality plays done time and again ad nauseum.  The episodes end with the characters talking about what they have learned from their little growth experiences.
    The laugh track features the cliches.  When George or Laura enter the show for the first time, there is an ovation.  George's catchphrase said at least once an episode, "One of these days, Laura, I'm gonna punch you in the face," features the audience saying it with him.
    The characters fit the sitcom mold, too.  George is an easy target for jokes in real life, but on the show, he's portrayed as a classic befuddled dad, trying to maintain his status quo but never quite sure how to accomplish it.  Laura Bush is the wise wife who stands by her man and props him up, easily the smarter of the two.  Despite her intelligence, she is the last person Bush talks to about the problems in his life.
    Princess Stevenson is the President's assistant.  She is blonde, sexy, talks in a breathy voice, and is dumber than sack of dirt.  As befits a sitcom character, she dresses in outfits completely inappropriate for professional business.  Whenever she first appears or appears in a different outfit, the canned audience sounds include "Wooo!"s and wolf whistles.
    Karl is the President's advisor and the first line defense, trying to keep George on the straight and narrow.  The problem is Karl is such a self-centered asshole he doesn't do a very good job.
    Larry is the President's neighbor, despite the fact that the White House doesn't have any neighbors.  He waltzes in without any apparent interference from the Secret Service, helping himself to a bottle of beer from the minibar before sitting in a chair and putting his feet on the coffee table.  His every entrance has a running gag, baiting with questions like, "There's some snew on your lawn."  "What's 'snew'?"  "Nothing, what's 'snew with you?"  He is the Eddie Haskell of the show, usually instigating the events George finds himself mixed up in.
    Last but not least, there is Maggie, the typical sitcom housekeeper.  She spends much time lounging around and doing nothing.  She is always insulting George because he can't think of fast comebacks.  If you are wondering why she is never fired, she is also Laura's confidant.  As she is a spitfire, she usually gets the funny lines.
    While the show does play the sitcom game with the cutesy jokes that aren't quite funny, it's obvious that Parker and Stone easily get bored with the concept and "safe" topics they've signed on for.  As a result, the anarchic South Park mentality pops up.  The resulting infusion creates a much needed spark.
 

The Perfect Collection

Important life lesson(s):  Marriage is about understanding and compromise.  A wife will understand if an important meeting comes up, as long as the husband makes time to be with her.  Some political issues are too devisive because both sides have valid points, so agreeing to disagree is the best option.

Best gags:  The head of the Pro-Life movement, a sentient fetus that survived the procedure and gets called "Chucky" at one point.  Despite being First Lady, Laura wears rubber gloves and polishes furniture in one scene.  Bush does the classic "changing outfits" as he dashes between the two dinners, but the two outfits he swaps between are identical, right down to the gold tie.

Rating:  A

Notes:  Watch for the tour group to come by.  The woman leading it is Toddy Walters, who has appeared in all of Parker's other projects--South Park, Orgazmo, BASEketball, and Cannibal--The Musical.  He also used to date her and apparently blew the relationship, but they must still be friends since she keeps popping up.  Now then...where's Dian Bachar?
    Supposedly, Parker provides the voice of the anti-abortion leader, but in A Poorly Executed Plan, one of George's frat brothers has a voice strikingly similar.
 

Important life lesson(s):  People change, and true friends understand and respect what you become.  You shouldn't have to impress your friends.  Killing, even criminals, is still wrong.

Best gag(s):  The tape recording of George pledging to let his friends stay at the White House.

Rating:  D

Notes:  Networks now send out video tapes of shows to Emmy Award voters for consideration.  Comedy Central put two episodes of That's My Bush! on their "For Your Consideration" tape for the series.  This is the first episode on that tape.  The other is S.D.I. - Aye AYE! (Episode 4).
    It's obvious that Parker and Stone don't much care for improv comedy troops, although I think there is a distinction between the stuff on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and the Gut Busters featured in the episode.  Not only that, but Marcia Wallace started out in an improv group called "The Fourth Wall" before she was signed for The Bob Newheart Show.  One of the weaker episodes.
 

Important life lesson(s):  Banning guns will not solve violence.  Phone psychics are a scam.  Anything that makes you distrust your friends is terrible.

Best gag(s):   The extensive bank of Miss Cleos waiting to take calls.  The Tarot deck that features a "Gay" card.  The Charelton Heston impersonator.  Laura diverting her attention from calling Miss Cleo by getting hammered on vodka.  Princess tricking herself into thinking the phone is ringing.

Rating:  C

Notes:  Despite the plot point that slams Miss Cleo, the company running her phone service bought sixty seconds of commercial time in several first run episodes after this one.  I'm guessing they just noticed the ratings and not the focus.
 

Important life lesson(s):  Stealing from big companies is still stealing.  Too much power in one set of hands is bad.

Best gag(s):  The problems with getting the cable company to do its job.  The Austrian liasons mirroring the cast of That's My Bush!, complete with its own Princess.  The entire subplot where Princess discovers she's actually stupid and tries to do something about it.  The opening gag about Limmy Winks The Squirrel.

Rating: C

Notes:  Toddy Walters pops up again as a tour group leader just before the climax.
    For those looking at specific episodes instead of the complete list:  networks now send out video tapes of shows to Emmy Award voters for consideration.  Comedy Central put two episodes of That's My Bush! on their "For Your Consideration" tape for the series.  This is the second episode on that tape.  The other is A Poorly Executed Plan (Episode 2).
    This is the episode where Princess reveals her middle name is "Lynn".  This might be an animation inside joke.  Lynn Stevenson worked on the Gumby animated shorts.
    The scene where George and Larry are watching Win Ben Stein's Money and Larry says he wouldn't mind Nancy Pimental giving him a hand job is an inside joke.  Before she took over for Jimmy Kimmel with Mr. Stein, Pimental was one of the staff writers for South Park.  And some people think your bosses forget you when you change jobs.
 

Important life lesson(s):  People have a right to dignity in life and death.  A wife shouldn't be ashamed to talk with her husband about anything, no matter how sensitive the subject.

Best gag(s):  This episode is full of them, but the top prize has to go to Punkin when it finally activates Jack Kevorkian's suicide machine.  Other great bits include Punkin itself, an animatronic cat that really looks and acts disgusting.  Laura's visit to a Native American tribe that includes filling out insurance forms in triplicate.  George and Larry trying to kill Punkin with Laura's douche.

Rating:  A+

Notes:  Easily the funniest episode of the series.
 

Important life lesson(s):  You never control your drug use, your drug use controls you.  The drug program can't work by teaching drugs are bad, but that drugs become a crutch.

Best gag(s):  When George trips out and starts humming techno music.  The hallucinations.  When Larry demonstrates to George how to induce vomiting and is a little too successful.  The stupid Princess actually not falling for some of George's ploys to get him out of the locked room.  George dressing like a butterfly at an impromtu White House rave.

Rating:  B
 

Important life lesson(s):  It is better to pay someone to destroy their environment for oil than for us to destroy ours.  If a marriage is unsatisfying, hookers beat extramarital affairs.  Trapping people together in a small space to work out their differences actually works.

Best gag(s):  The non-stock footage protesters' signs.  That the characters in the sitcom talk about the plot device from other sitcoms and get trapped in their own cliche.  George falling through the ceiling.  Laura trapped with and talking to her reflection in the bathroom.  Karl so relaxed after his date he is unaffected by the hail of rocks hitting him in the back of the head.

Rating:  B

Notes:  The comment about "the series finale of The Geena Davis Show" is prophetic.  The episode was shot weeks earlier, but it aired the day after ABC announced its fall schedule and that The Geena Davis Show was cancelled.  Eight ball, corner pocket.
    I'm not sure if Parker and Stone think Geena Davis is untalented or if they just didn't like the sitcom, but this is the second shot they've taken at this target.  In the South Park episode with Timmy and his Thanksgiving turkey, when the turkey trainer suggests Gobbles meets with an unfortunate accident, Cartman asks, "You mean like Geena Davis getting her own TV show?"
 

Important life lesson(s):  Framing someone so they get fired and you can take over is wrong.  Sometimes losers become winners.

Best gag(s):  The twist that makes the show parody itself and its own conventions.  The parodies of various sitcoms like Cheers and Welcome Back Kotter.  The poor digital editing putting Cheney's face in the opening credits.  The retitling of the show to What A Dick!  Cheney sitting in a throne and unmasking the Mysterious Loser in a parody of Gladiator.

Rating:  C+

Notes:  I know this is quibbling, but like most every media outlet (including me all too frequently), they mispronounce Cheney's name.  They pronounce it CHAIN-ee, but it's actually CHEEN-ee.  Cheney is good natured enough it doesn't bother him in real life.
    As usual, the episodes can pretty much be viewed in any order, except this one, which makes specific reference to previous events.  Interestingly, the opening, assuming Cheney is naming events from the show, indicates the episodes are being run out of order.  He names, in order, bombing a European nation (S.D.I.-Aye-Aye!), killing a man with drain cleaner (A Poorly Executed Plan), and tripped on Ecstacy (Mom "E" D.E.A. Arrest).
 

BONUS EPISODE!

The cast:

Timothy Bottoms (George W. Bush)--One of three acting brothers (the other two are actually rather obscure).  Bottoms has had a very extensive career.  Unfortunately, not that much is notable.  He started out as Sonny Crawford in The Last Picture Show and was also in Johnny Got His Gun, The Paper Chase, and the TV miniseries East Of Eden.  From there, it was parts in a huge number of movies, but none that really made much of a splash (Yakuza Connection, Texasville, Absolute Force, Invaders From Mars).  He also starred in the TV revival of Land Of The Lost.

Bottoms also produced Picture This - The Times Of Peter Bogdanovich In Archer City, Texas.  Beyond the Fiona Apple-ish title, it was about the filmmaker behind The Last Picture Show and Texasville.  One of the more interesting facts to come out of this was Bottoms confessed to a case of the hot bananas for co-star Cybil Sheppard.  I think that puts him with everyone else who's worked with her.
 
 

Carrie Quinn Dolin (Laura Bush)--This woman is a mystery.  Really.  There is no record of her on the Internet Movie Database.  One news report credited her with Batman And Robin, but don't know if they mean the sweet animated series or the George Clooney et al. stink bomb.  You want verification on that last one, you watch that dreck again.  I read in a report she's a Broadway actress who was looking to expand her range.  She picked quite a way to do it.

Her resume includes a stint with the Attic Theatre in Los Angeles, performing in Daniel Pearce's Rewind in 1999.
 
 

Kurt Fuller (Karl Rove)--Fuller got his first role as "Cameraman" in an episode of Knight Rider.  Since then, he has had a variety of TV roles, alternating between drama (LA Law) and sitcoms (Ellen, Dharma And Greg, Malcom In The Middle).  His movie roles are also across the map, appearing in Scary Movie, Angels In The Infield, Pushing Tin, The Jack Bull, Macarena (every dance has at least one movie.  Yes, children, it actually happened in this America), Stuart Saves His Family, Wayne's World, Ghostbusters II, and two adaptations of Robin Cook novels--Virus and Harmful Intent.
 
 

Kristen Miller (Princess Lynn Stevenson)--Kristen has only appeared in three movies--Swimming Pool, Cherry Falls, and Dog Watch.  She has mainly worked in television, usually the Saturday morning sitcoms NBC introduced for teens who thought themselves too sophisticated for cartoons (Saved By The Bell:  The New Class, Malibu Shores, Malibu, CA, USA High).  She had a part in Howard Stern's Son Of The Beach, a parody of Baywatch that has garnered more success that it deserves.  Miller also starred in several episodes of the irresponsible MTV series Undressed which purports to show people meeting and having sex for the first time, like a love story without the flowers and bonding.  Her character, Amelia, was so popular in the first year she appeared in a two parter the next season.  Hey, everybody needs to work.  Too bad MTV can't come up with something less reprehesible.
 
 

John D'Aquino (Larry O'Shea)--O'Shea has something in common with Kurt Fuller.  Both of them were on a TV series called Wildside back in 1985.  O'Shea has only had a handful of movie roles (No Way Out, Pumpkinhead, Stompin' At The Savoy, and The Babysitter's Seduction).  His TV work is quite extensive, though.  With appearances in Melrose Place, Baywatch, Xena:  Warrior Princess, and a regular role on SeaQuest DSV.
 
 

Marcia Wallace (Maggie Hawley)--This is the most recognizable person in the cast.  As everybody knows, she was in several episodes of The Match Game.  Oh, and there was some show...The Bob Newheart Show...I never heard of it, hope I'm spelling it correctly (joke).  The Match Game isn't her only connection with TV game shows.  She was a panelist on Hot Potato and a contestant on Card Sharks.

Anyway, she started out with "The Fourth Wall", an improv comedy group.  She impressed Bob Newheart enough that she was signed to play his receptionist on his sitcom where he was a shrink.  She has since done TV and voiceover work.
 
 

Toddy Walters (Tour guide)--she appears often enough in other Parker/Stone projects, it seems fitting to at least mention her here.  She was Polly Pry in Cannibal--The Musical, Winonna Ryder in South Park--Bigger, Longer, And Uncut, Giorgi in Orgazmo, I think she was Squeak's love interest in BASEketball, and was in these South Park episodes.

Chef Aid--Alanis Morressette
Rainforest Shmainforest--Kelly
Merry Christmas Charlie Manson--Mall Hankey Helper
Tweek Vs. Craig--Pearl
Chef's Salty Chocolate Balls--Phylis
Cartman's Mom Is Still A Dirty Slut--Sid Greenfield's assistant
Cartman's Mom Is A Dirty Slut--singer at the Drunken Barn Dance
Tom's Rhinoplasty--singer for "I Remember When"

By the way, the photo above is from the cover of the CD she released.  Yes, she has a CD.  I have one.  And you don't.  Neener neener.
 

An interview with Matt and Trey:

What follows came from Entertainment Tonight on April 12, 2001.  No reporter is credited with it.  Just adding this to make it abundantly clear this is not my work.  Believe me, if I was ever in the presence of Matt and Trey, I'd probably be too stunned to do anything but fall on my knees and scream, "I'm not worthy!"  It was entitled, "First Family Frolics."

ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT: Can you talk a little bit about the development of "That's My Bush"?

TREY PARKER: We had the idea for this show about a year ago. This show is not a political show; rather it is a show that satirizes the American sitcom. We knew that whoever the president was, it was going to work. It was either of the two most boring people on the face of the earth who were going to make a great sitcom.

TREY: So we actually had hired writers and producers, we'd gotten studio space and we all got together at my house to watch election night, to see who we were making a show about. And we sat there and watched it and it really seemed like in the middle of the day we were doing a show about AL GORE.  So we were talking about how that affected the show and how it changed things. Then we realized we were doing a show about GEORGE W. BUSH, and then we found out that we probably wouldn't know until the next day who the president was, and we were like, "Wow, we're really, really screwed."

MATT STONE: Yeah, we thought, "We gotta start casting tomorrow. Man, we got no time."

TREY: We were really backed up against the strikes and all that and, it was too bad we're going to lose 24 hours, but it's the way it goes. As you know, it turned into...

MATT: Five weeks.

TREY: It just really became suicidal, because we were watching it die -- the money was going. But finally we got a president. But we're just as excited about the show as ever. It was going to be called "Family First." If anybody knows my background, ironically, the Mormons own that name. So we went through a lot of titles, you know, "Everybody Loves Bush" and....

MATT: "H&R Bush and Stuff."

TREY: "Battlestar Gabushtica."

MATT: All that kind of stuff. The stories that have been out have been basically true that we're pretty much chronic procrastinators-- really the worst kind. Everything we touch turns late. Everything we touch is right up to when it can be delivered. And Comedy Central for weeks was pretty convinced that we were behind the whole election chaos. That somehow we just weren't ready to do the show, so we created this whole scenario so there wouldn't be a president, because we were that late on stuff. (laughs)

TREY: I think that most people on the surface think, "OK, they're going to skewer George Bush." That's something they're going to be doing on "Saturday Night Live" and JAY LENO. That's really not at all what this show is.

TREY: We had been wanting, actually for several years, to do a sitcom that sort of ripped on sitcoms, because we hate them so much. And it came to be that we just said, "Let's just make it the First Family." The whole point of a sitcom is taking a character and forcing you to love that character. So what we are going to do is make everyone love George Bush.

TREY: And you know, everyone thinks we're just going to make him look like an idiot, make him look like a boob, but he's going to do that fine on his own. It's not what we wanted to do, and that's why it didn't matter whether it was Bush or it was Gore, because we're not out to skewer a president, we're out to do something very, very subversive and actually make you really love this guy.

TREY: In the scripts that we've written so far, he's just the greatest guy in the world and so is his wife. That's how sitcom families are. So I think that's the big misconception, which leads us to something we were just going to bring right out that came out about the Bush twins. "Should we do the Bush twins?" We're like, "I don't know, how old are they?"

TREY: And OK, they're of age, fine, and so one of our writers showed us this thing about them being lesbian lovers, which we wouldn't use -- again, we're trying to make a real sitcom -- but it was funny, and we had a good laugh. Suddenly it got on the Internet. Someone took it and put it on "Ain't It Cool News," and now we're basically getting calls from Washington. Which is awesome. (laughs) I mean, it's really cool. We're really, really excited about that. And you know, it's raised this big question of, is it right to portray this President's daughters? And honestly, we don't know. Of course, when you get calls from Washington telling you, "Don't you dare do it," it just makes us want to do it all the more.

ET: Are you going to inter-splice real news footage with this?

TREY: No. I mean, again, what we're avoiding and what the show never was is topical -- this happened this week so let's make fun of it -- because that's what "Saturday Night Live" is going to do, you know, that's what Leno and (DAVID) LETTERMAN do. It's like "South Park." We want to create another thing that in three years time is exactly as funny as it was. And so it won't be a topical show.

MATT: We're trying not to be a political satire so much, or a "West Wing" parody, but just creating this whole family and this whole character, in keeping the issues bigger and broader, issues that will be around forever.

TREY: And to be honest, NBC wanted this show and we had been in talks with NBC and there was a feeling for a while between Matt and I -- it was right after the movie came out -- that, "Well, is it time to sort of step up to network?" And so, it was the biggest decision of our lives. NBC was very into the idea. But we got calls from a lot of people, friends at NBC...

MATT: Just friends of ours, yeah.

TREY: Who were like, "You guys don't want to come here. You don't know how lucky you have it at Comedy Central." And they said, "You write a script, how many notes do you get on a script?"  "Well, whatever DEBBIE says." That's it, you know, what I mean?  We write a script for "South Park" and Debbie looks at it, and of course the legal department looks at it. But you know, that's it.  And they're like, "You've got to take a step back and realize how lucky you are." And we did that and talked to enough people to realize that yeah, what it would have been on a network is so watered down.

ET: You seem pretty down on sitcoms. Do you think that basically the entire genre is worthless or played out? Or are there some sitcoms that you still like?

TREY: I think "played out" is a better word.

MATT: There's some awesome sitcoms that have done it so right and are great, with great characters. "All in the Family," the NEWHART stuff, DICK VAN DYKE. But just the sheer number of them that try to do the same thing and the amount of people that watched that same thing, it can't do anything but bum you out.
 

LATEST NEWS FROM 9-30-01:  That's My Bush! cancelled!

Yes, I'm afraid it's true.  But it's not exactly the result of the terrorist attack on 9-11-01, and Parker and Stone aren't finished with it yet.  On August 2, 2001, Matt Stone was quoted as saying, "We're not done with this show."  Here's the dirt, and the future of the series.

On August 2, Comedy Central announced it was not going to order any more episodes of That's My Bush!  If you are guessing the budget had something to do with it, congratulations.  "It's a great show. And critically lauded. But the cost per ratings point was just too expensive and unfortunately it was a business decision not to renew the show," said Steve Albani, a Comedy Central spokesman.  The ratings, as mentioned at the top of the page, started strong, but settled to about 1.7 million viewers.  The show is estimated to have cost just under $1 million an episode, making it the most expensive show ever commissioned by the network, although whether this includes the movie rights needed to make Mystery Science Theater 3000 or the cost per episode includes the money lost while the staff was on hold during the election recounts wasn't reported.  By way of contrast, South Park episodes pull in 2.7 million viewers and cost 50-67% of what That's My Bush! episodes do.  Lisa Chader, another rep for Comedy Central, said the network would (appropriately) continue to run the show in reruns and considered it a creative and critical success.  "But financially, we can't move forward with it."  As E! Online wrote, "It's the economy, stupid!"

Parker and Stone (especially Stone, a mathematics major in college) were ready for the axe to drop, so the announcement wasn't really a surprise to them.  "A super-expensive show on a small cable network - the economics of it were just not gonna work," said Stone in an interview the day the show was canned.

Stone also revealed that he and Parker were planning to take the series to the big screen.  By that time, they had already complete a script for a movie called George W. Bush And The Secret Of The Glass Tiger.  "In the movie, we're going to turn him into a superhero who battles enemies of teh country, in this case, the Chinese.  We want it to look like a John Woo action movie."  Supposedly, the Bush twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, would be kidnapped by the Chinese and spur George to seek revenge.  Chances are, that gag mentioned in the top of the page and the interview about the incestuous lesbian relationship between them will get in here (Parker and Stone have already said most of the South Park gags Comedy Central wouldn't let them use on the show wound up in the South Park movie.  And telling Parker and Stone to stop something only makes them try harder.  Just ask Barbara Streisand).  Stone said he was using Police Squad!, the TV series starring Leslie Neilsen that became the hit Naked Gun movie series, as one of the models.  Pitch meetings were set up for the week of August 6, 2001.  The two studios listening were Paramount, one-half owner of Comedy Central and video distributor of the South Park movie, and DreamWorks SKG (!).

As I said, the series was to live on in reruns, like many other passable sitcoms.  But with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Comedy Central pulled the series and was putting it under the microscope to make sure there was nothing that was inappropriate at this tragic time.  They stressed the series would be back someday, but exactly when (and what condition the episodes would be in) wasn't disclosed.  When it comes back, though, I'll be sure to let you know.

Click here to return to my home page.