Years ago on “Rick and Morty,” President Andre Curtis fumed that he can’t coexist with Rick Sanchez, a living god who won’t submit to his will. Giving the man his own spinoff is one way to fix that.
In “President Curtis,” America’s POTUS is an egomaniacal ’80s-vintage superhero who treats the White House as his lair. That’s not too far removed from the real commander-in-chief’s mindset, but any suspicions that co-creators Dan Harmon and James Siciliano are parodying Trump 2.0 are off base. The show’s only satirical tool is Curtis himself, a myopic blowhard (voiced by the charismatic Keith David) who, to paraphrase one skeptic, uses taxpayer dollars to play Batman. Flanked by his cyborg chief of staff (Stephanie Beatriz) and a half-leprechaun special agent (Jim Rash), Curtis would rather police America than govern it. (To that end, the show’s “Hill Street Blues”-adjacent theme is another genius grace note.)
But “President Curtis” is only as strong as the viewer’s affection for “Rick and Morty.” If you can’t get enough of that show’s visual irony, metatextual references and winking at entertainment tropes, here’s 10 more episodes of the same feeling, only Earthbound. Not that I’m complaining. There’s something about David, the mellifluous voice of Ken Burns’ America, committing to every expletive-laced punchline that makes me absolutely giddy.
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Sealing this TV candidate’s victory are all the ways Curtis shows himself to be more effective and dangerous than real politicians, in that he gets the job done. As he brags about singlehandedly ending Paul Bunyan, “I’ll say this much to anyone who thinks they’re taller than the law: ‘Timber, b***h.’”
“President Curtis” premieres at 11:30 p.m. Sunday, July 26 on Adult Swim and streams the next day on HBO Max.
