Showtime's Trump White House Comedy Finds Its Writer

Showtime is bringing the reality show host-turned-President back to TV in animated form in a new half-hour comedy series, and thanks to a report by Deadline, we now know who will be in charge of running the show.

The untitled cartoon series, which will be a workplace comedy centered on the Trump White House, is being headed up by the writer R.J. Fried, who has a long career in writing topical comedy for TV. 

Recently, Fried was the head writer for Comedy Central's Problematic with Moshe Kasher, and the writer has also worked on projects for acts as diverse as David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Conan O'Brien, Robert Smigel, Sacha Baron Cohen, Andy Richter and Bill Murray. Before that, Fried was a two-sport varsity athlete at Harvard University who was drafted by hockey team the Florida Panthers in the 2000 NHL Draft.

The Trump White House animated project is on its way from executive producer and Late Show host Stephen Colbert, and will run for ten episodes on Showtime with production wrapping up very close to the series' premiere date in an attempt to keep the show as topical as possible. The head animator on the series will be Tim Leucke, who previously produced the animated Trump segments on Colbert's Late Show.

"I know a lot of people wanted to do this, and I'm honored that the Cartoon President invited our documentary crew into his private world," Colbert said of the new animated series. "I've seen some of the footage, and I look forward to sharing the man behind the MAGA."

The untitled Trump White House comedy is slated to premiere in early 2018, and we'll have more on the show as news comes in. For more in the world of bawdy, headline-mocking animation, check out our in-depth feature on the untold truth of South Park.