6 F@!*%!-Up Movie And TV Roles Played By Politicians
Primary season is here, and that means politicians doing everything to convince us that they're actual electable people and not space lizards who subsist on spinal fluid and votes. One way they do this is through acting in various entertainments. Because nothing says "authenticity" like awkwardly reciting words someone else wrote. Now, you'd think every politician involved in the current election would have plenty of experience looking into a camera and lying, but the following examples paint a disturbingly different picture. This bunch makes everyone in The Ridiculous 6 look like Meryl Streep.
Unless ... are these famous politicians intentionally trying to make us think they're awful actors so that we'll trust them more? That might be the only rational explanation for bizarre on-camera romps like ...
Hillary Clinton Starred As "Hillary Gump" In A Cringe-Tastic '90s Parody
If you think Foreskin Gump (a real thing; don't look it up) was the most awkward-to-watch Forrest Gump parody, oh boy are you in for a treat. In 1995, Gump-mania was running wild, so the Clintons capitalized on it by filming their own version for the Gridiron Club's annual fancy-people dinner.
Meet "Hillary Rodham Gump," waiting for a bus outside the White House despite having a whole damn motorcade at her command:
Not sure if that's a tourist or, like, a regular 1995 inhabitant.
Almost immediately, she drops the first of several "blank is like a box of chocolates" jokes: "The White House is like a box of chocolates -- pretty on the outside, but inside there's lots of nuts." Is ... is that a Bill Clinton joke? That sounds like a Bill Clinton joke. In any case, we know we're supposed to laugh at this point because the video punctuates each joke with an awkward close-up of Hillary looking into the camera.
"Ay dios mio."
Then begins a series of flashbacks, in which we learn that Hillary is in fact the anti-Forrest. Instead of accidentally giving people great ideas, she specializes in shattering political careers. She advised George McGovern to give a speech at 2 a.m., told Jimmy Carter to talk about mayonnaise (he misheard and thought she said malaise), and we find out through a clip of All The President's Men that she was Deep Thr-- OK, that's a Bill joke for sure.
Years later, the real Hillary would learn that every woman in the White House was Deep Throat except her.
Oh, and because this was the mid '90s and Hillary's thing was still "hair," she changes wigs with each new flashback. Apparently "life is like a hairstyle; you just keep changing it until you find something that works." Life is like a pandering stump speech too, in that sense.
Above: The first and last time anyone shoehorned Hillary Clinton, Marilyn Monroe, and Pulp Fiction-era Uma Thurman into the same conversation.
Tourist Bro then mysteriously disappears (exactly like the ... emails or the Benghazis or whatever, we don't watch CNN), and Bill takes his place. Because this was the mid '90s and Bill's thing was still "fat," he steals Hillary's chocolates and makes her produce some McDonald's French fries out of thin air.
This was his one requirement for shooting the video.
Today, this video is played nonstop at the Clinton Presidential Library. Maybe they forgot about it. Because this video is like a box of coconut chocolates: It sits there forever, gathering dust and mold, until you find it one day and it makes you vomit.
Ben Carson Was In A Farrelly Brothers Movie, And There's A Cuba Gooding Jr. Film About His Life
Before he co-opted Donald Trump's bigotry and sexism for the OD'd-on-NyQuil crowd, Ben Carson was a famous and highly respected neurosurgeon. And what are respected neurosurgeons best known for? Acting in Farrelly brothers movies, of course:
In the 2003 film Stuck On You, conjoined twins Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear finally decide to get un-stuck from each other, and Carson's just the sleepyhead to do it. However, we don't get to see him perform the one thing he's good at; he simply puts on a surgical mask and stares at the characters with those handsome, slightly serial-killer-ish eyes of his.
Can more than one Republican candidate be the Zodiac killer?
His only dialogue is a joke that Arrested Development would eventually do way, way better (and not just because they got a real actor to say it). Post-surgery, Carson wakes up the twins' girlfriends to sadly inform them that he "lost them." As they understandably start to cry, another doctor tells Carson that they found the twins upstairs -- he meant "lost them" as in physically, you see. The girls respond to this uproarious swerve by shoving Carson, who reacts exactly as you'd expect him to: as if a soft bit of white noise gently awoke him from a sound, peaceful slumber.
"So, uh, when do we get to the 'hair gel' scene?"
Amazingly, this borderline-pointless cameo got him invited to the film's premiere, probably to resuscitate any spectators who slipped into comas during the screening. Carson was so beloved before he blew it all in favor of the dumbest presidential run since Mondale that he got an even dumber TV movie made about his life. Released in 2009, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story was notable for, well, not much, aside from proving that Cuba Gooding Jr. would let absolutely anyone show him the money by that point.
Gooding is now typecast as "beloved black celebrity in the news for the wrong reasons."
It's not even about Carson's career for the most part; the bulk of the film concerns his childhood, and how he went from a straight-F student with a violent temper to a medical genius more laidback than a hundred Bob Rosses. You could find and watch the whole film, but you've got better things to do, like bleed out slowly. So here's a brief snippet, just to show you what kind of schmaltzy crap TNT resorts to when the Hawks aren't playing.
Bernie Sanders Was In Two Obscure Romantic Comedies
Saturday Night Live has been milking Bernie Sanders' resemblance to Larry David for months now, but what you may not know is that the former has an arguably more successful film career than the latter. For starters, he played "Rabbi Manny Shevitz" in the 1999 romantic comedy My X-Girlfriend's Wedding Reception. The low-budget film currently has a 67 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which likely has nothing to do with the epic plot and everything to do with this year's tomato tossers feeling the Bern.
The scene gives us a taste of what Sanders' State of the Union speeches might be like if the 74-year-old develops dementia before finishing his term. His character starts to speak of celebrating life and all that other wedding crap, but quickly descends into a weird aside about how baseball ain't what it used to be because the Dodgers aren't in Brooklyn anymore.
The bride, Debbie Gibson, silently prays for the Wayback Machine to send her to 1988 where she belongs.
The rant continues, as Sanders says, "I remember when the Dodgers played the Yankees, and you bought a ticket. That ticket was good for ten years." (PolitiFact might take issue with that statement.) After promising to get back on track, he immediately goes off about how much "that free agency crap" sucks hardballs. "That's $2 million dollars here, they spend $12 million there, what's so free about that free agency? I can't take that anymore!" It's the "Why do they call it a driveway when you park there" of low-budget sports rants by frazzled old men in yarmulkes.
Holy shit, he's Jewish?!
The end of the rant is ambiguously optimistic enough to be at home in any political speech, though: "All in all, it's not so bad. When it's good, it's good. If it doesn't feel right, just say no. There's always tomorrow. It could be worse." Excuse us, we have something in our eye.
That wasn't Sanders' only star turn, though. Eleven years prior, he had a ten-second cameo in Susan Sarandon's Sweet Hearts Dance as "Bernie," a guy giving out Halloween candy while some dad accuses him of cheapness. Way to fight those Jewish stereotypes in the media, Bernie.
He was probably too distracted by all that free agency crap to remember to dole out a second Twix per kid.
Joe Biden Insulted The Host Of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego
Of all the politicians with Hollywood aspirations, you'd think that Joe "Oh Yeah, I'm Vice President" Biden would be the most natural. There's no way his wacky drunk uncle shtick wouldn't translate to madcap comic insanity, right? It seems there is, judging by his wooden, pre-taped cameo on Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?, the greatest show to ever let egghead kids make adults feel like complete morons (since Jeopardy only does that once a year).
Because being a Delaware Senator leaves you with lots of free time, Biden calls the ACME Detective Agency -- a company he's so fond of that he keeps a shrine to it in his office.
"I feed exclusively on live roadrunners."
Rather than help the contestant deduce where Carmen spent her unlimited frequent flier miles this time, Biden chooses to troll Greg, the show's host. According to Biden, Congress was prepared to name him Detective of the Year, but several rounds of bickering whittled the honor down significantly. First he was Detective of the Month, then of the work week, and finally, they settled on "The Somewhat Notable Detective of the Next 12 Minutes." That's pretty sad, but it's still a higher honor than vice president.
Looks like Phil Collins didn't have much going on in the '80s either.
Adding to the indignity, the wonderfully monotone roast is followed by a cartoon mouse calling in to (literally) rat on Sandiego. A guy with a plastic rodent nose and a tattered cheese sweater shared equal billing with the future Mr. One Heartbeat Away. And they say kids' shows are silly.
But hey, that was 25 years ago. Maybe Biden's comedic chops have improved since then? We'll bet his cameo on Parks And Recreation was chock-full of hilariously surreal Bidenisms:
Or not. Still, he sure can stand there awkwardly while Amy Poehler fangirls with the best of them.
Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy Has Been In More Batman Films Than Anyone Else
Bernie Sanders may be all over your TV, but Patrick Leahy, the other senator from Vermont, likely got there first. Not because he wants to be president, but because everybody loves Batman and he shows up in Gotham more than crime.
Leahy is a huge Batman fanboy, and regularly uses his clout as the third-most-powerful guy in Vermont (behind both Ben and Jerry) to appear in many of the Dark Knight's wacky adventures. He debuted in Batman Forever in a role so brief that it's not even on the Internet. He followed that sterling performance by going animated, voicing a Teddy-Roosevelt-looking politician in a western-themed Batman: The Animated Series episode which stole Wild Wild West movie's plot before the Wild Wild West movie existed.
Had it been a present-day episode, he would have voiced Harley Quinn.
Two years later, he made a cameo in the movie George Clooney still owes you money for: Batman And Robin. He played a party guest exposed to Poison Ivy's horndog gas, though he suspiciously stayed silent while everyone else bid millions to win her love. We assume he was too aroused to even form words.
Like the rest of the universe, Leahy took time away from the franchise after that movie. He sat out Batman Begins, but by The Dark Knight, he was back -- he's the unfortunate party guest who threatens the Joker with, "We're not intimidated by thugs," only to come within seconds of earning a permanent smile:
His role in The Dark Knight Rises was much less life-threatening. He plays a Wayne Enterprises board member who tries to save Bruce's job, but gets rudely cut off by some slimy suit who wants to run the company himself. Bane unceremoniously breaks that guy's neck later. You do not fuck with the senior senator of America's second-least-populous state and live.
He's not done, either. Leahy is set to appear in Batman v. Superman, presumably in a role less important than Affleck's but more important than Aquaman's.
So why does this guy get so many Batroles, when really any old dude who can shit himself while being knifed would do? It might have something to do with the fact that Leahy loves him some copyright law, and Time Warner love themselves some "pushing legislation to block sites like The Pirate Bay from the Internet." Batman movies appear to be another way to keep their favorite Net Non-Neutral advocate happy for the next time the Internet riots over possibly having to pay for stuff.
Donald Trump Played Himself In A Ghost-Themed Sex Comedy
Donald Trump is the ultimate typecast actor, in that he only plays one role: himself. He's appeared in over 200 shows and movies, and he almost never plays anyone but "Donald Trump." His version of challenging himself is to play "Donald Trump" under a different name, like "Forbes Cover Billionaire" or "VIP Patron." And yet, even with all that practice with the most slam-dunk role imaginable, he's still probably the worst actor of all time. Case in point: Ghosts Can't Do It, a 1990 sex comedy that will make you never want to have sex again (with ghosts or otherwise).
The film concerns an old man (Anthony Quinn) who kills himself because he's too old and weak to fuck Bo Derek. Derek and Quinn's spirit need a young body to murder so Quinn can occupy it and be young and erectily-functional again, and this somehow brings them to Trump's boardroom. Because when you think "young and virile," you think of ol' dyed-skunk-head.
Anyway, Ghost Quinn tells Derek what to say, because Derek is giggly and girly and can't make big boy business decisions by her giggly, girly self. (Actual line: "From the look of this room, it isn't woman's work we're doing here.") Trump, for his part, gawks at her with a creeptastic smile that all but says, "Hey, you're not my daughter, so ..."
"A wall isn't the only thing I'm gonna promise to erect despite lacking the resources, baby."
At one point, Trump threatens her with, "In this room, there are knives sharp enough to cut you to the bone, and hearts cold enough to eat yours for hors d'oeuvres." That makes no sense, though "Cannibal Hearts" would be an awesome band name. Derek finally responds with a non-ghost-hubby thought. Unfortunately, it's "You're too pretty to be bad." Star Wars requires less suspension of disbelief. And speaking of which, Trump's reply is the closest he will ever come to being Harrison Ford: "You noticed."
The cameraman had an aneurysm while they shot that line.
Ghosts Can't Do It won multiple awards (Razzies, but still), and proved that the only possible upside of a Trump presidency is that he'd be too busy ruining the country to ruin Hollywood anymore. So ... eight more years?
Jason doesn't care who wins, because he'll be old enough to run in 2020 and plans to crush whomever's in charge. Get on the Facebook and Twitter trains now, and he'll make you secretary of state. All of you.
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For more bizarre places that politicians have turned up, check out 6 Hilarious Attempts At Brainwashing Kids With Comic Books and 5 Insane Celebrity Product Endorsements By Historic Figures.
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