Stephen Colbert's Animated Donald Trump Series Will Hold 5 Minutes For Topical Scenes [TCA 2017]

Stephen Colbert is producing an animated series for Showtime about Donald Trump and his family. Speaking with the Television Critics Association, Showtime President and CEO David Nevins described the series as an animated sitcom. He also outlined a technology that will allow the writers to fit in at least one scene each episode addressing the current week of the Trump administration.

"It'll be a scripted family comedy with ongoing characters and ongoing storylines, but there will be the ability to do three to five minutes per episode that's incredibly topical," Nevins said. "Because of the computer generated kind of animation, we'll be able to do at least a portion of each episode that maybe gets written on a Thursday and is in the episode on Sunday. So whatever is happening that week, the show will be able to reflect."

Since Trump has often tweeted about Saturday Night Live early Sunday mornings, Nevins understands this show could be on his radar. He welcomes the attention any angry presidential tweets could bring.

"Couldn't hurt," Nevins said. "I'm hoping that we can do a show that will piss off everybody a little bit because it's going to piss off some people. Some people don't want to make the President likable, so it can go both ways. The family comedy form is going to have interesting repercussions, interesting effects."

Most assume that a satirical animated comedy about Donald Trump would appeal to people who don't like the President. Nevins things Trump supporters may like it, too.

"I think they might," he said. "The show is going to attempt to reflect the inner life of this character. I think people will want to understand that and want to see Stephen Colbert's take on that. You watch Colbert every night, you may think you know what the show is going to be. I think it's going to be a little bit different than that. I've experienced little bits of it and it feels different. I've only seen tests and we've had a lot of theoretical conversations about what it is, but it's not going to be obvious."

The only holdup is that Colbert is hosting the Emmy Awards in September, so won't start on the Trump series until after that.

"He didn't want to have to go full time hard on this until the Emmys were over," Nevins said. "So we're going to be post Emmys. He's way, way into it and I think we're going to get a lot of Colbert in it."

The Donald Trump animated series will be on the air by the end of 2017.