What’s an Omarosa?

Remember back to 1985 and the film “Back to the Future,” where the “Marty McFly” character informs the 1955 version of “Doc Brown” that Ronald Reagan was the president, which inspired the response, “Who’s the vice president? Jerry Lewis!”

The punch line being that one entertainer (remember “Bedtime for Bonzo”) would turn government into a whole crew of entertainers. How ridiculous!

OF COURSE, IT would seem that the ludicrousness of three decades ago is all-too much our modern-day reality. Things we never would have thought credible are the norm of now.

That’s how I’m regarding this whole ongoing situation regarding President Donald Trump and one-time staffer Omarosa Manigault-Newman. The one who these days supposedly says tape recordings exist of Trump using racial slurs, which causes The Donald to now openly refer to her as “that dog.”

The connection between the two goes back to the days when Trump was host of reality television shows, and Manigault was one of the contestants. From what I can tell, her character was the sort-of nasty personality on the program – which I suppose fits some role in the overall show.

I write “from what I can tell” because I have to admit, I never actually watched the show. I never heard of Manigault in those days, and even after I learned that the Trump presidency gave a job to someone who had been a character on his show, I didn’t care enough to really find out who she was.

MEANING I HAD to do some instant research on Tuesday to try to figure out what the big deal was with this instance where Manigault felt compelled to tell of secret tape recordings of Trump and also took the non-disclosure documents she was asked to sign in order to get a job working for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign and provided copies of them to the Washington Post.

I went all this time without bothering to find out who she was because I really didn’t care. I would have presumed that the idea of anyone affiliated with the Trump presidency back in the days when he played television show host would not have been considered a credible persona to be working in the White House.

Shows you how little I know.

Although to tell you the truth, it shouldn’t be surprising that someone as much a political amateur as Donald Trump would put a whole crew of amateurs into positions of power and authority.

SUCH AS MANIGAULT, who may have been a government staffer back in the days of Al Gore as Vice President (personnel people from back then now say she was “the worst hire we ever made”). But her real credentials are the fact she was on The Apprentice and The Ultimate Merger television programs.

So is she really now as incompetent as Trump is trying to make her out to be? She may be. He may be telling the truth, for once!

But why should he have any reason to be shocked? Who did he think he was hiring when he picked her for a spot in the White House Office of Public Liaison (which basically means she was responsible for presenting Trump’s image to the public)? He certainly had no reason to think she had any real credentials for a public service job.

I’d take this whole controversy (yes, I think it sleazy for someone to go about secretly tape-recording their boss to slip him up) as further evidence of how grossly unqualified Trump is to be this nation’s chief executive and how the 2020 election cycle can’t come soon enough to give the electorate the chance to replace him.

ALTHOUGH THERE HAVE been so many more incidents during this Age of Trump to show us how unfit he is to hold public office – and how delusional that segment of our society is that still, to this day, thinks his election in 2016 was a good thing for the country.

Meaning now that I have bothered to look into this, I wish I could undo it. For I fear that bothering to learn who Manigault is has managed to squeeze some more essential (or interesting) knowledge from my memory.

And as for that old “Back to the Future” joke, it doesn’t seem quite so funny anymore.

Because compared to all the level of nonsense that has occurred in this Age of Trump, the idea of Jerry Lewis as Vice President doesn’t seem anywhere near as absurd.

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No more cries of “Jerry Jerry” echoing from our TV screens (except in reruns)

Perhaps it’s the ultimate evidence of just how clueless and unaware of pop culture trivia I can be, but I honestly didn’t have a clue that Jerry Springer’s television program was still in production.

SPRINGER: Rides off into sunset of retirement

At least not until I read the news reports indicating that the production company that puts the show together is no longer going to do new episodes.

FOR THE RECORD, the show that once was a national sensation/embarrassment that was produced from our very own NBC studios in Chicago lasted some 27 years – and there are in excess of some 4,000 episodes in existence.

It hasn’t been produced in Chicago since 2009, and to tell you the truth, I guess I thought the show went off the air sometime shortly thereafter.

Not that I cared much. I never paid much attention to it when it was in Chicago, and wasn’t about to continue to follow something I never gave much thought to in the first place.

Which, if anything, is the American Way of doing things.

IF I FIND something too stupid to spend time with, I choose to ignore it. I certainly don’t go about trying to get it shut down or censored. If enough people were to take that attitude, the ratings would plummet to the point where the tacky TV would just go away.

The type of activity the 'Springer show' gave us … 

Or at the very least, shift over in reruns to those many countless cable TV stations that fill their airtime with all those long-forgotten programs from decades past.

Which is bound to become the fate of Jerry Springer’s show.

A part of me is actually surprised someone hasn’t taken the backlog that has developed through the decades and created a separate Jerry Springer channel. “Jerry TV,” all “Jerry” all the time.

WHERE ONE COULD always tune in to the sight of someone being cracked over the head by a chair, or trying to beat up her husband after learning he impregnated the neighbor’s teenage daughter (only to have them separated by Steve Wilkos or many of the other t-shirted security personnel -- many of whom once were off-duty Chicago cops -- who became an integral part of the Springer program).

… at the show's peak

If you think I’m exaggerating, keep in mind that Springer used to defend his programming choices by claiming he was merely reflecting the reality of a certain segment of our society. Most definitely the tacky parts, but it is real.

Personally, the last time I remember seeing the show, the guest was a woman who used the program to inform her racist boyfriend she was dumping him. She being white and her new boyfriend being a black man.

As though it was somehow enlightening to see some Southern white male feel humiliated on national television. Of course, in this Age of Trump, we’d probably be expected to feel empathy for the white guy, and perhaps we’d allow him to get a sense of public “vengeance” on his girlfriend.

WHOM YOU HAVE to admit engaged in a bit of trashy behavior by wanting to make a spectacle out of dumping the jerk she no longer wanted to have in her life.

Hollywood gave Springer a moment of fame

How big a sensation was Springer? I still recall the 1998 film “Ringmaster,” which allowed Jerry Springer to play the part of himself as host of a tacky TV show called “Jerry” (only based in Los Angeles, rather than our wonderful Second City). Which in my mind is only memorable because it was the first time I ever heard of actress Jaime Pressly (and the sight of Springer clad in a gaudy Western outfit).

Now, it’s all done. Although at age 74 with such a long run, perhaps retirement has been earned.

And we can all spend years speculating on how much our society was degraded by watching such trivial nonsense – even as we watch those reruns over and over and snicker as much at the period fashion sense as much as we do the tacky behavior.

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