Review: Our Cartoon President “Senior Vote”

Trump gets so lazy he forgets how to climb stairs, is this show predicting the future now?

Overview:

Trump is in pursuit of raising his popularity. Instead of connecting with the youth vote, or any other group, he decides to aim for a demographic that he feels can be easily swayed and convinced, the senior vote. But, once he is put on the cover of the American Association of Retired Persons magazine it all becomes a little too real. The vain Trump cannot handle being looked at as an aging man.

Meanwhile, the 40-year-old father of five Don Jr. finally realizes that living like an irresponsible college kid just isn’t going to help his father’s situation. He tries to connect himself with his inner middle-aged man. Once he is able to become the guy focused on rebates, grills, and crown molding, he quickly realizes that he has become boring and uninteresting.

Our Take:

This episode kicked off with a satire of Rudy Giuliani that may have been the best one minute of the entire series thus far. The king of putting his foot in his mouth was characterized as just moving his mouth and seeing what happened. Honestly, that is the best description of this guy who has made headlines recently for letting his gums flap. And that wasn’t even the best part. It cracked me up when he was described as being the biggest surprise for not being called out as part of the ‘me too’ movement. This whole opening segment was pure gold.

Maybe not as strong as the intro, but pretty darn close, was Trump’s campaign commercial focused towards the elderly. A pure scare tactic offering the fear of change, it ended up being a perfect example of ageism. But, in a humorous manner. Threatening that livestock will take over the theatres, or terrorists will cause doilies to disappear. This was another clever moment that also changed up the typical formula of the show.

Saying that the whole episode was a bit of a shake-up of the formula that I was just complaining about becoming stagnant a week ago. It was frustrating me that an animated show that has the potential to go anywhere was so focused on putting two people in a room and talking. At least this episode tried to add some extra moments of humour that steered away from strictly politically focused jokes. Trump’s admiration for a stair lift comes to mind, adding something a bit more simple to bring depth to the humour.

In fact, the whole plot of the episode didn’t rely on political humour. There was an overall theme about aging, and laughing at how immature Trump and family can be. It made the show more inclusive of a wider audience that may not catch all of the references that typically drive an episode. More episodes like this can only help the show in the long run. Any good story should carry a deeper theme and not just bring one trick to the party.

Overall, I think I can safely say that this was the strongest episode in the series so far. It may not have been my personal favourite, which still belongs to the episode that brought Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the show, but I believe that the inclusiveness of this particular episode was well needed. It makes the whole series feel more enjoyable. More episodes like this one, please.