Monday, December 10, 2018

MONDAY MORNING MULTIDIMENSIONAL


‘MURPHY BROWN’
“RESULTS MAY VARY”
“BEAT THE PRESS”




In both of these episodes, the actual President Trump was seen onscreen in archival footage.  But when he spoke, the P.O.V. switched to that of the TV characters watching him on TV and then we heard the voice of actor Bob DiBuono doing an imitation of him.  (The script called for him to recite dialogue he never actually spoke in the Trueniverse and this was just a simpler, cheaper way to achieve the effect instead of using CGI on those lips.)

This wasn’t the first time Bob DiBuono has imitated the President.  In fourteen episodes of ‘The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore’, he also imitated Trump.  (i don"t know if that was just a vocal impression, however.)

‘Murphy Brown’ takes place in Earth Prime-Time.  But DiBuono’s impression of Trump in ‘The Nightly Show’ would be relegated to Skitlandia, the sketch comedy TV dimension.

Donald Trump is a member of the Television Crossover Hall of Fame – as is Murphy – but he was inducted as a member of the League of Themselves (April 2009).  The fact that his own voice was substituted with that of another actor doesn’t invalidate the appearances on ‘Murphy Brown’ nor cast it into some other TV dimension, because I’ve got some splainin to do: because of rigorous campaigning across the country during the mid-terms, Trump did some damage to his vocal chords.  This isn’t a permanent condition, so the next time (if ever) he appeared as himself in a fictional show, we would expect him to be using his own voice again.  All he would have to do is keep from speaking for awhile to recuperate.

Good luck on that!

BCnU!

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