Fear and Loathing in Doonesbury

Sad Colbert didn’t get on the ticket? For some additional comic relief, why not go back and relive the horrors of the 2000 election with Doonesbury’s Reform Party Candidate, Ambassador Duke? Duke ran an e-campaign from the E-Z Motor Lodge in Coon Rapids, Minn., in Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury. But in addition to running his campaign in black and white on dead trees, Duke announced his candidacy on Larry King Live in live, 3-D animated living color. A whole video series of stump rants from the “Duke 2008: Whatever It Takes” campaign were created back in 2000 and are just now available on YouTube.


Duke’s platform revolves around Francophobia, personal profiteering and a six-pack. The 3-D motion capture animation is surprisingly fluid, honoring Trudeau’s ink, and has the overall effect of Jack Nicholson playing Hunter S. Thompson. Why hadn’t you seen these before? The YouTube channel claims: “His cutting-edge 3-D motion-capture animation campaign spots were so ahead of then-existing bandwidth capabilities that only now, two election cycles later and thanks to YouTube, can they be widely viewed and fully appreciated.” As of this posting Doonesbury.com couldn’t be reached for comment.

Broken up into 35 separate vignettes, Duke lays out his entire political agenda, from the immediate invasion of France to the “fat tax.” With his running mate Kathie Lee Gifford (it’s likely he’s ignorant of her French roots), Duke speculates on appointing Martha Stewart as Secretary of Housing and promises to put the rest of the cabinet positions on eBay.

The videos are snappy, dynamic, and consistent to the point of mild repetition. Ranging in topic from health care reform to his illegalization of poodles, the videos include television appearances and ferocious soliloquies, including a Raoul Duke meltdown.

Duke’s official announcement video runs a full 10 minutes, but most of the videos average around three minutes in length, with over 100 minutes of total content. The entire series is also available on DVD and through Doonesbury’s online home, which is hosted by Washington Post-owned Slate. There you can watch an infinitely gyrating Duke spit out a loop of tepid one-liners or hear a Magic 8-Ball style Duke not answer your questions.

Despite all of the free content that clogs the site, Trudeau surprisingly requires a $16.95 annual fee to access the complete Doonesbury archive. A picture of Duke appropriately oversees your credit card transaction, but the penance does not seem fitting with the strip’s anti-establishment roots.

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