Fake Presidents

Uma Thurman is the faux potus in Amazon's romantic comedy RED, WHITE, AND ROYAL BLUE. Taylor Zakhar Perez is the young, handsome First Son whose public feud with a young, handsome British Prince (played by Nicholas Galitzine) threatens his mom's reelection campaign.  But things get even messier when the hate gives way to VERY different feelings for each other... Can a congresswoman from Texas win...

A special doll-centric Halloween episode! Did you know that the latest season of CHUCKY, the TV series based on the CHILD'S PLAY horror movies, takes place in The White House? Did you know there  was a CHUCKY, the TV series? Neither did we! Ben watched it because Eric is a fraidy-cat and reports back with all the juicy political goodness in the first couple episodes. Is it enough to get Eric to ge...

IDIOCRACY , co-written and directed by Mike Judge, barely got a theatrical release in 2006, but has it persevered enough to become a cult classic since then?  Or is its biggest cultural footprint simply its title? One thing we know for sure: The movie's faux POTUS -- Terry Crews as the one, the only, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho -- is on our Fake President Mount Rushmore for a re...

Eric and Ben are pretty sure there's going to be a fake president in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART TWO when it comes out next year, but they're less sure who it's going to be. Ben thinks it'll be a familiar face to the series. Eric thinks it'll be someone new. Are there any clues in PART ONE? (Yes! Kinda! Maybe.) Also: We finish up our MARVEL'S SECRET INVASION coverage. Did Dermot Mulr...

Dermot Mulroney's fake President is back in Disney Plus's MARVEL'S SECRET INVASION , and so are we! After covering episodes 1 & 2 in our last look of this series, we now get into episodes 3 & 4.  Who was right in our bet on who would be a secret Skrull in this series? We got our answer way earlier than we expected... And then, at the 32:00 minute mark of the podcast, we discuss the returning fake...

Ben and Eric are doing something they've never done before -- covering a TV series as it airs in (near) real time! But first, they got some more FOR ALL MANKIND stuff to talk about, now that Ben has FINALLY seen the show. THEN they just had to dive back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe when they saw that the MCU was introducing yet ANOTHER fake president. The POTUS is not William Sadler from  IR...

Michael Bay's THE ROCK has peak Nicolas Cage, silver age Sean Connery, and a shockingly effective (if completely unnecessary) fake president. Best summer movie ever? Could be! Best fake president ever? Let's discuss... Find us on @INSTAGRAM or email us at fakepresidents [@] gmail.com for join the convo!

A special episode! From mayor to television legend, few people are as representative of the cross section of politics and pop culture as the late, great Jerry Springer.  And did you know that he also played a fake president in a movie? We didn't! Not 'til we read about it one of his many obituaries. Jerry Springer is the President of the United States in 2004's THE DEFENDER both starring and direc...

Our first trip into the Clancy-verse! Amazon Prime's  TOM CLANCY'S JACK RYAN stars John Krasinski as the titular CIA analyst turned field agent. In season one, he saves a president's life. In season three, he saves a president's ass. Join us as we tackle the big questions: How does THE OFFICE alum Krasinski stack up to the Jack Ryans of Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine? Do...

It's Presidents' Day! Which means we're back with another very special episode for this very special holiday. This time we're asking the question: What already existing fictional characters from pop culture should become POTUS within their movie/TV universes? From famous commercial pitchmen to the world of superheroes and even a dip into the works of Pixar, we leave no stone unturned as we look fo...

After an unexpected hiatus, we're back! And so is Morgan Freeman! This time, Olympus isn't falling. It's the sky that's falling. 1998's DEEP IMPACT features an iconic fake president that originally made our Mount Rushmore of fake presidents, but does this speechifying fake prez still feel so iconic two decades later? One of us certainly doesn't think so... Got a question? Email us at fakepresident...

Eric is a big fan of Apple TV+'s sci-fi drama FOR ALL MANKIND. Ben has a never seen an episode. Will Ben want to watch the series after Eric tells him all about the alt-history presidential politics of a world where the Soviets beat the Americans to the moon and the space race never ended? Let's find out... Find us on Twitter ( @Fake_Presidents ) and Instagram ( @Fake_Presidents ) or email us at f...

This week, Ben and Eric head back into world of Marvel comic book adaptations with the 2nd entry in 20th Century Fox's long-running X-MEN movie franchise. Not only is there a fake president in it, but there's a whole lotta action in the White House! X2: X-MEN UNITED stars the usual gamut of mutants -- Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, James Marsd...

We're back! Hiatus over! Thanks for your patience! Based on a TV show created by comedy legends Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, 2008's GET SMART has some pretty big phone-shoes to fill.  Does James Caan have what it takes to play a nameless President? (DEFINITELY.) Does he deserve better than being asked to do a warmed over George W.? (PROBABLY.) What about skinny Dwayne Johnson?  Can you trust him not...

In honor of the upcoming Presidents' Day holiday, Ben and Eric veto their usual format to elect some fake presidents into movies that don't have one.  Which movies without a fake president deperately needed one? Who would we have cast as the faux POTUS? FIND OUT ALL THIS AND MORE (Okay, not that much more, we pretty much mostly just talk about that) Find us on Twitter ( @Fake_Presidents ) and Inst...

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play astronomers who make a thrilling discovery in the feel-good holiday movie of 2021! Meryl Streep is a fake president that's all "Lady Biz." Jonah Hill is hanging around as the president's son/chief-of-staff! Oh, and Timothée Chalamet is in it, too, but he's not in any political scenes, so we don't talk about him. Maybe in the sequel! Find us on Twitter (...

Before Wolfgang Peterson  directed AIR FORCE ONE  (where the Secret Service completely craps the bed), he directed IN THE LINE OF FIRE  (where the Secret Service almost craps the bed!) Clint Eastwood plays a heroic but haunted secret service agent while a pre-famous John Malkovich plays the assassin Eastwood has to stop. Also in this movie: Rene Russo plays Eastwood's much younger love interest, D...

We take one last look back at the fake presidencies of 2021 before looking ahead to 2022. Topics include: - Our favorite fictional presidents of the last 12 months - Succession - Diary of a Future President - Presidential impersonator changes at Saturday Night Live - Competing novels featuring fictional presidents written by Bill and Hillary that came out within weeks of each other - And so much m...

Tony Stark has PTSD, Don Cheadle has a new superhero name, and the President of the United States is going to need a new plane. That's right, it's Christmastime in the MCU, which means it's time for a story of the redemption and rebirth for Marvel's favorite son...sorta? Writer/Director Shane Black gets to board the Marvel train for his one and only entry in the MCU. Jon Favreau gets to spend more...

After introducing the world to one of the greatest fake presidents in INDEPENDENCE DAY , director Roland Emmerich is back with not one, but TWO fake presidents in 2004's climate-themed disaster movie THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW . Also in this movie's oval office -- a really weird (and distracting) choice of houseplants. (See a photo of this movie's oval office here) Can Dennis Quaid save Jake Gyllenhaa...

Just in time for Halloween it's a SCARY MOVIE . The third one ! The one that introduced Leslie-freakin'-Nielsen as an American president! What happens when uber-republican director David Zucker (of AIRPLANE fame) teams up with uber-democratic producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein (of getting arrested fame) to make a movie with a fake president? Let's find out... Also along for the ride: Anna Faris, C...

Who knew there was a fake president in this 80s mermaid rom-com? Directed by Ron Howard, SPLASH made, um, waves at the box office. It also made Tom Hanks a movie star, Howard an A-list director, and Roger Ebert very angry.  Does this movie have actual politics for us to discuss? (Surprisingly, yes!) Does this movie have a surprise in the end credits? (Sorta!) Does this podcast episode have a surpr...

When an assassin targets the SCOTUS, it's up to Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts to expose a POTUS.   Robert Culp is the nameless (but not blameless) President in this 1993 adaptation of John Grisham's most political thriller. Future fake president Tony Goldwyn is the person who really runs the White House. Stanley Tucci is the mysterious international assassin. And...nobody is the actual bad g...

Ben and Eric will take another dip into the Fake President's mailbag to answer questions about... - Who are their favorite fake first ladies? - What is the beef between Gerard Butler and Morgan Freeman? - Why does James Patterson REALLY want to work with Bill Clinton? - What is Eric's favorite presidential fact he's learned making this podcast? - After the US, what country downloads this podcast t...

Today we take a look at a fake president played by Morgan Freeman. No, not that fake president. The OTHER fake president played by Morgan Freeman, in 2019's ANGEL HAS FALLEN , the second sequel to OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN . Gerard Butler is back as the ultimate secret service agent, Freeman gets a nice promotion into the oval, and...well, that's about all the characters returning from the first two movi...