That’s My Bush The Definitive Collection DVD Review
Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 11.07.2006
The creators of “South Park” send up the Bush administration…or do they?
“South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone brought a second series to Comedy Central in the spring of 2001 with “That’s My Bush.” The major failing of the series is that most thought the show would be a scathing satire of the Bush administration, when it was really a parody of sitcom clichés. Timothy Bottoms as George W. Bush is the standard aloof, goofy husband figure. Carrie Quinn Dolen is the all knowing, brassy wife. The supporting cast is pretty decent with Kurt Fuller as Karl Rove, Marcia Wallace as maid Maggie, Kristen Miller as dim yet hot secretary Princess Stevenson and John D’Aquino as annoying neighbor Larry O’Shea. The episodes are packed with a laugh track, cheers when characters enter a room and the ‘audience’ quoting along with catchphrases such as “That’s my Bush,” and “One of these days Laura I’m going to punch you in the face.” I love the theme song.
DISC ONE
An Aborted Dinner Date: President Bush has scheduled a summit meeting between the leader of the pro-choice and pro-life factions the same night he promised to have an intimate dinner with Laura. Larry talks him into doing both at the same time as we get the standard sitcom plot of George running back and forth between the two parties while trying to keep things straight. The leader of the pro-life movement is an aborted fetus that survived and is portrayed by a foul mouth puppet.
A Poorly Executed Plan: George’s frat brothers from Yale come to visit. They refuse to leave based on a drunken pledge George made to them in 1968 that if he ever became President they could come and stay in the White House for as long as they wanted. They goad him into attending a live execution to prove that he is hard ass and macho. They finally agree to leave, but only if they can go to the execution too. So George schemes to stage a fake execution for them and Karl hires the Gut Busters improv troop. Naturally, communication is bungled up and they go to the real execution with George acting like a complete ass.
Eenie Meenie Miney Murder: George believes that Laura is calling a 900 sex hotline, but she’s really calling a psychic. George gets roped into it and is scared that someone is going to kill him when the death card is drawn. Larry talks him into outlawing all guns. Charlton Heston confronts him on the ban who tells him that people can still get to him, so he buys a bear for protection. He calls back and believes that someone close to him will kill him. He confronts them in standard mystery dinner style.
SDI Aye-Aye!: George is having problem getting cable hooked up, so Larry helps him to steal it. Laura disproves. Larry accidentally splices into the new missile defense system hooked up in the oval office and Austria is inadvertently attacked. They fire missiles back, but the SDI stops them. So the Austrians sneak into the White House to reprogram the SDI to backfire. George mistakes them for the cable company after him. In a subplot, Princess comes to terms with the fact that she’s stupid and takes smart pills. However, she orders mammary pills instead of memory and her breasts get huge. Her swelling breasts break the ropes the Austrians tied them up with and she gets free to save the day.
DISC TWO
The First Lady’s Persqueeter: Laura’s cat Pum’kin is 24 years old. George wants to put her down. Laura overhears George, Larry and Karl talking about the cat, but she thinks they mean her ‘pussy’ is smelly, old and gross. In standard “Three’s Company” fashion miscommunication leads to a comedy of errors, such as George and Larry trying to douche the cat to death. Laura goes off to get a Native American feminine hygiene treatment while George releases Jack Kevorkian from prison to perform euthanasia on the cat. Joseph Ruskin gives a great creepy, vampire like performance as Kevorkian.
Mom “E” DEA Arrest: Barbara Bush comes to help with an anti-drug rally and like most mother in laws she nags on everything Laura does. George accidentally drops ecstasy taken off of the druggie arrested to make an example of and he leaves Laura in charge of the rally. George turns the rally into a rave and Laura eventually stands up to Barbara and brings matters under control.
Trapped in a Small Environment: Laura hooks Karl up with a friend of hers on a blind date. Thing is the Bushes didn’t know that Karl was married and they have broken up his marriage. In another plot Larry is the leader of a pro-environment protest. Popular character actress Valerie Mahaffey plays Karl’s wife Janet. Inspired by sitcoms, George schemes to trap Janet and Karl in a small space to reconcile their differences. However, George and Larry get trapped in an elevator, Maggie and Karl are locked in the green room and Laura and Janet are pinned in by backed up sewage due to Larry’s sabotage. Then Karl and George get stuck in the air vents. Laura locks herself in the bathroom and has it out with herself. Princess is stuck in a meat locker with an Eskimo Karl hired to support oil drilling in Alaska. George winds up in the green room with Maggie. Larry falls into the elevator with Larry. A brilliant episode I would term the best due to the fully fleshing out of the sitcom parody motif.
Fare Thee Welfare: In a fitting final episode, Dick Cheney forces George out of office before he’s impeached due to botching a Middle East peace treaty. In a great bit the opening credits have Cheney’s head over George’s and the lyrics are changed to “That’s my Dick.” The Bushes are then spun off into “Moving on Down” in a reverse of “The Jeffersons.” Maggie goes with them and George gets a new neighbor in Leron. George takes a teaching job and is spun off into the show “Teach Me Mr. B” that is a parody of “Welcome Back, Kotter.” He get fired then works in a bar in a “Cheers” parody. He gets fired there and they stoop low enough to spoof “Just Shoot Me.” He gets fired there too. Leron gets him a gig throwing a wrestling match. If he’s going to be a loser, might as well be a professional one, but he accidentally wins. Meanwhile, Karl, Princess and Larry have to deal with super douche Cheney. Cheney’s first speech as President is trumped in the ratings by George’s masked wrestling debut, so Dick invites him to the White House not knowing he’s Bush. Larry discovers that Dick shredded the peace treaty and framed George and George gets the Presidency back.
Commentaries: Each episode has two commentary tracks. One by Parker and Stone, the other by the primary cast. It was great that they could get the original cast all together to do this. They really cut up and have a good time being back together. They are a bit gushing and over fawning of each other, but that is to be expected. They also don’t quite seem to get the joke that the show was a parody of a regular sitcom and not a real sitcom. Parker and Stone are more analytical and really dissect what they were going for with the series. They don’t cut up too much, but actually discuss the series in a serious manner going over the background and how they conceived characters and storylines. The cop out is that the commentaries are only on the first quarter or so of most episodes.
The 411: Parker and Stone on the commentary admit that they were in way over their heads. The show is as good as it is based on the stellar cast and a pretty good production staff. Yet, they were just not up to doing a live action sitcom and their basic concept went over the heads of many. A sitcom parody can work, a Bush satire can work, but mixing them just doesn’t make either idea come through strong. Although the final couple episodes are pretty strong and one can only guess what a second season might have been.
