Stephen Colbert animates inner workings of Trump White House in "Our Cartoon President"
No one is safe from mockery in Stephen Colbert's new series "Our Cartoon President." The animated show takes a satirical look at what's going on both inside and outside the volatile Trump White House.
Colbert promptly took the opportunity to zing Omarosa Manigault-Newman -- the latest Trump insider to make headlines -- at the "CBS This Morning" table Friday morning for whispering her concerns about President Trump on "Celebrity Big Brother" while wearing a mic.
"You do a very good Omarosa," co-host John Dickerson joked.
"Thank you very much I've been working on it for a while," Colbert replied.
"The Late Show" host's weeknight takes on the news often target Trump -- so why make a cartoon about it? For Colbert, there's always more to say. "There's all the things that happen when the camera isn't pointed at him. There's everything that we hear about happening at the White House that we never get to see," he said.
Content aside, the initial idea for the show came from a real-time animation program developed by Adobe.
"So I could actually interview the president sitting in the seat next to me and we did it on our live shows," Colbert explained. "After we did it a few times, he came up with everybody in the White House. He came up with basically wireframe animated puppets of everyone."
One of Colbert's producers thought it could be used to make an animated series. Showtime agreed.
Co-host Gayle King asked Colbert to address the half of the country she thinks will probably be upset by the portrayal of the president.
"I don't know if that's true. Some people might think we're being too nice to the president, some people might think we're being too hard on the president. But I think that there's a big chunk of the middle of the country that's gonna enjoy seeing the curtain pulled back. It's really – it's not jokes on what he said or did today because I pick that bush every day. There's not a berry left on that bush by the time I'm done with my monologue every day. This is relationship comedy. This is a workplace comedy. It's 'The Office,' you know, but oval."
Despite his explanation, King still bet the comedian that President Trump won't be making an appearance on his show any time soon – or ever. It's a bet Colbert took gleefully.
"You think this cartoon is going to say something I haven't said on my show?" Colbert asked King, who replied, "Well, that's true."
Part of Colbert's philosophy is the notion that laughter makes room for thinking.
"If you can laugh, then you can think. And we've got to think our way out of this 'cause we felt our way into this problem with fear and anger," he said. "I think we can think our way into being an American community again, which is what laughter allows you to do."
He said bringing people together through laughter is precisely what he hopes to do every night.
"It's a group of people who had this experience watching or paying attention to the news that day and then we come together and we laugh about it and that gives you a sense that you're not crazy, that other people might be seeing the world the same way you do."
Colbert revealed the animated versions of all the "CBS This Morning" hosts, but it was the depiction of Dickerson's forehead that prompted the question "Are you mad at John, Stephen?"
Dickerson joked about the oversized feature, saying, "You could put an ad for a personal injury lawyer on that forehead."
"Our Cartoon President" debuts on Showtime with two back-to-back episodes Sunday, Feb. 11 starting at 8 p.m. ET/PT.