“Lil’ Bush: Resident of the United States” is a cartoon created by writer/producer Donick Cary (“Letterman,” “The Simpsons”). The idea started out as a series of five-minute cell phone cartoons for Amp’d Mobile in September 2006, and has now become a half-hour series on Comedy Central with two 10-minutes cartoons in each episode.
Lil’ Bush pals around with other young versions of his administration including Lil’ Cheney, Lil’ Condi, and Lil’ Rummy. Lil’ Tony Blair, Lil’ Barack Obama, Lil’ Bill Clinton, and all sorts of other lil’ political leaders have made appearances since the television episodes starting airing June 13, 2007.
If you go to Amp’d Mobile’s site promoting the series, you can watch a “Behind the Scenes of Lil’ Bush,” that contains a short interview with Cary. In it, he explains that he always liked the concept of “shrinking people down” and making them little versions of themselves.
Making a cartoon of a young Bush administration made sense to Cary because “on a basic level” the politics of Washington seem “so childish…it in some ways seems like a schoolyard or like kids just screwing around.” The narrow-minded and supremely confident judgments made by Lil’ Bush and his pals work because they are just innocent kids. It’s funny because you can disassociate the outrageous content of the cartoon (Lil’ Bush giving Bush Senior an Iraqi orphan called “Lamey…because he can’t walk so good” as a feel-good Father’s Day gift to make up for all the negative press coverage from Iraq, for example) from the real, more outrageous problems facing our nation on account of our leadership.
To create the show, Cary collaborates with a group of internet designers and artists from Bulgaria, one of them being a childhood friend. He explains, “It’s been sorta funny, uh, the translation of stuff, cause’ they don’t totally understand why you’d make fun of your president. They were sorta like ‘Isn’t that your leader? You all support him, right?’ And it’s like, n…ah, it’s kinda, you know, 30% of us do and the rest kinda just shrug, you know?” He stumbles through the interview trying not to be “too political” or perhaps, too honest about how the majority of Americans view the President.
I am sure the artists in Bulgaria are not the only ones perplexed by our reported overwhelming disapproval of the President and our endorsement of fake news shows like “The Daily Show” and satirical cartoons like “Lil’ Bush.” Part of living in a democratic state means questioning our elected representatives and having a system of checks and balances. However, have the politics in Washington become so unbelievably unbalanced that the only way to accept the reality is to think of it as fake? Are we accomplishing anything by laughing it off?
I’ll admit, I watch the entire Comedy Central lineup of “Lil’ Bush,” “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” every week, and “Lil’ Bush” makes me laugh out loud – every week. I don’t know if I necessarily feel good about it though.
“Lil’ Bush” currently airs on Comedy Central, Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m., Eastern and Pacific times; 9:30, Central time.
