Those of us who grew up in the 1990s are still experiencing a good deal of cognitive dissonance over the person who currently resides in the White House. Donald Trump was, to many of us, nothing more than a pop culture figure for many years. His self-aggrandizing appearances in movies like Home Alone 2: Lost in New York as well as a kind of weird Pizza Hut commercial pretty much assured that no one of a certain age was able to take Donald Trump seriously. He was spoofed in MAD Magazine, and endlessly namecheked in countless films and TV shows; I even recall his name once being used as a punchline in the short-lived UPN sitcom Platypus Man.
But some where along the line, the pop culture clown somehow shed his buffoon image, gained a good deal of positive political clout among a good deal of Americans, and gained traction as a viable candidate. In 2016, as you may have read, Donald Trump barely squeaked out a presidential victory. Who knew?
Of course, the president has been present within the pop firmament pretty constantly since his first break into the public consciousness in the 1980s. He has became such a well-known character “type” that screenwriters and filmmakers have constructed various spoofs and analogues of him with something approaching a regularity. Indeed, even before the inception of Celebrity Apprentice, the word “Trump” was more often used to describe a stock character than an actual person.
For those who have been taking stock of that stock character, you may have seen him the the following places…
13 Donald Trump Characters from Popular Culture
Top Photo: Universal Pictures
Witney Seibold is a longtime contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon. He also contributes to Legion of Leia and to Blumhouse. You can follow him on “The Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
Donald Trump Analogues in Pop Culture
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Max Shreck from 'Batman Returns'
An evil energy baron with weird hair, and named after the actor who played Nosferatu, this Trump analogue has no qualms about abusing and murdering underlings who find out about his energy-sapping, money-making schemes.
Image: Warner Bros.
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Daniel Clamp from 'Gremlins 2: The New Batch'
Donald Glover enthusiastically played the rich, tower-dwelling Daniel Clamp in one of the goofiest flicks of the 1990s. Satirical, perhaps, that Clamp Tower should be destroyed by creatures.
Image: Warner Bros.
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Biff Tannen from 'Back to the Future Part II'
In an evil, alternate timeline, Marty McFly's main rival, Biff, became the well-moneyed ruler of a dystopian slum. Yes, he lives at the top of a tower with his name emblazoned on it.
Image: Universal
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Gordon Gekko from the 'Wall Street' Movies
Oliver Stone made one of the sharpest criticisms of yuppies culture with Wall Street, which targeted the policies of Reagan. And who couldn't be possible without Reaganomics? More than just Gordon "Greed is Good" Gekko.
Image: 20th Century Fox
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Barry Tarberry from 'The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage'
No one remembers the short-lived sitcom/adventure show from 1991 (other than Canceled Too Soon), but in it, a Donald Trump-inspired hero teams up with a pirate ghost to save 100 lives. Also, they had a super-boat.
Image: Disney/NBC
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Donald Grump from 'Sesame Street'
Back in 2005, the good people at Sesame Street were able to use the blind greed of a yuppie-like character with bad hair to show how wicked selfishness and greed could be. They named him Donald Grump.
Image: Sesame Workshop
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King Koopa from 'Super Mario Bros.'
In the much balleyhooed video game adaptation, Dennis Hopper plays a real-estate-hungry wealthy dinosaur who, yes, lives at the top of a tower and plots to invade Earth for its natural resources. He's also a germophobe.
Image: Buena Vista
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Hollis Doyle from 'Scandal'
The smug bastard from Scandal is a rich, variously married would-be politician who runs for president in the 2016 elections. Unlike in real life, however, he's actually undone by an illicit secret recording of his unfiltered views.
Image: ABC Television
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M.O.D.A.A.K. from Marvel Comics
In the Marvel Comics universe (in an issue of Spider-Gwen from 2016), the real Donald Trump, in a plot to force Mexicans to build a giant border wall, became ensconced with a high-tech organization that enhanced him, turning him into the Mental Organism Designed As America's King. Or M.O.D.A.A.K.
Image: Marvel Comics Publishing
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Ronaldo Rump from 'Biker Mice from Mars'
An evil - yet incompetent - ultra-rich businessman, Ronaldo Rump moves about the galaxy, looking to buy and own everything. He was a secondary villain in the rebooted version of Biker Mice from Mars.
Image: Genesis Entertainment
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Victor Baron from 'Castle'
From the comedy/cop series Castle, the figure played by Michael McKean is married to a supermodel, has weird hair and bad suits, and behaves suspiciously 100% of the time.
Image: ABC Television
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The Canadian Candidate from 'South Park'
South Park knowingly spoofs the politics of the day on a regular basis, so it makes sense that The Donald should eventually be skewered. Only, in the spoof, he was running to be president of Canada. So it's totally not the same person.
Image: Paramount Television
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Charles Montgomery Burns from 'The Simpsons'
Although C. Monty Burns was fashioned from many older 'evil rich guy' archetypes, he has more and more become associated with The Donald in recent years.
Image: 20th Century Fox
