Johnny Depp and a host of film and television stars have released a 50-minute video spoofing real estate developer and Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, in the form of a “lost” TV movie from 1988.
Filmmaker Ron Howard, as himself, opens the video, released Wednesday on the comedy site Funny or Die. Explaining that “Donald Trumps’ The Art of the Deal” was “thought to be lost in the Cybill Shepherd blouse fire of 1989,” he describes it as “based on the best-selling Donald Trump autobiography of the same name. In fact, it was written, directed and stars Donald Trump himself. But ‘The Art of the Deal’ was almost never seen. It was pre-empted by ‘Monday Night Football’ in 1988. . . . Trump was furious and vowed never to air his masterpiece. It disappeared for decades until last summer, when it turned up at a yard sale outside Phoenix, Arizona.”
The video, titled “Donald Trump’s The Art Of The Deal: The Movie,” is accompanied by a 1-minute, 9-second trailer. Both are done in the style of 1980s television, using such tropes of the era as on-screen titles pulling back with multiple outlines of the words.
In addition to “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise star Depp, unrecognizable in full hair and makeup as Trump, the spoof includes Patton Oswald as talk-show host Merv Griffin, Alfred Molina as attorney Jerry Schrager, Henry Winkler as New York Mayor Ed Koch, Jack McBrayer as architect Der Scutt, Robert Morse as Tiffany & Co. CEO Walter Hoving, Kristin Schaal as the voice of Trump’s secretary, Andy Richter as NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown from the “Back to the Future” films, the rap group The Fat Boys, the space-alien puppet ALF — whom Trump calls “the only illegal alien I truly love” — and a dog playing 1980s beer-company mascot Spuds MacKenzie. Kenny Loggins performs the theme song.
