That's My Bush!
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| Genre | Sitcom/Satire |
| Running time | 21-23 minutes |
| Creator(s) | Trey Parker Matt Stone |
| Starring | Timothy Bottoms Carrie Quinn Dolin Kurt Fuller Kristen Miller Marcia Wallace John D'Aquino |
| Country of origin | USA |
| Original channel | Comedy Central |
| Original run | April 4, 2001–May 23, 2001 |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
That's My Bush! was a short-lived live-action political satire/sitcom from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It aired on Comedy Central in first run from April through June 2001.
That's My Bush! centered around the (fictitious) personal life of United States President George W. Bush (played by Timothy Bottoms, who would later portray the President in the somber DC 9/11 telefilm). Carrie Quinn Dolin played Laura Bush, and Kurt Fuller played Karl Rove. The show itself was a lampoon of classic American sitcoms, with characters such as klutzy bimbo secretary Princess (Kristen Miller), know-it-all maid Maggie (Marcia Wallace), and supposedly helpful "wacky" next-door neighbor Larry (John D'Aquino). Every episode ended with George saying "One of these days Laura, I'm gonna punch you in the face!", a parody of Jackie Gleason's line from The Honeymooners, "One of these days, Alice ... Bang, zoom! Right to the moon!" Episodes dealt (with deliberate heavy-handedness) with the topics of abortion, gun control, the war on drugs, gay rights, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the death penalty.
The show was more of a spoof of the banality of TV sitcoms in general rather than a cutting political satire. As The AV Club put it: "[That's my] Bush!'s irresistibly gimmicky premise—a workplace sitcom centering on Bush and his wife Laura—represents a perverse act of extended misdirection. While audiences waited for Parker and Stone to tear into the Bush administration, they instead attacked the hoary conventions of '70s and '80s sitcoms, which proved a surprisingly apt target for satire and pop-culture riffing."
Although the show received a fair amount of publicity, according to a studio spokesman, "the cost per ratings point was just too expensive" (at about $700,000 per episode) and after the 9/11 attacks Comedy Central decided not to continue not only this series but also Strip Mall, as part of a cost-cutting move. Although there was talk of a spinoff feature film for the series, but it was never produced.
Parker and Stone stated before the 2000 Presidential Election that they would create a satire about whoever won. According to their DVD commentary, they were "95% certain that Gore would win" and started developing the series under the title Everybody Loves Al. When the final election results were in limbo, production was delayed until the winner was determined. With George W. Bush's election, the title became the entendre-rich That's My Bush! The final episode involved Dick Cheney impeaching Bush and featured an alternate title music named What A Dick!
Unlike most Trey Parker and Matt Stone creations the pair do not act or appear in the series at all, except for additional voices/voice-overs and the theme song which their band DVDA performs.
A DVD set containing the entire series, plus commentaries by cast and crew, was released in North America on October 24, 2006.
