Vegas comic Di Domenico delivers Trump back to Fox

John Di Domenico has long said his Donald Trump characterization would last, even after Trump left office.

This is true, at least vocally, this week. Di Domenico voices the puppet Trump in the Fox comedy series, “Let’s Be Real,” premiering at 9:30 p.m. Thursday. The four-episode run focuses on news of the day (or, week) and pop-culture reference.

Trump is in the news. He should continue to inhabit the news cycle for the foreseeable future, too.

”No matter what, he is an iconic American character,” Di Domenico says. “There is nobody else like him right now.”

Di Domenico follows most sketch-comedy shows, and not such an obvious series as “Saturday Night Live.” He’s also reviewing the British satire series “Spitting Image,” which also uses puppets-as-celebs as its stars.

“In ‘Spitting Image,’ every scene is about Trump,” Di Domenico says. “Even Boris Johnson takes a back seat to Trump in England.”

The show features veteran voice-over actors Piotr Michael as Joe Biden and and Rosemary Watson as Nancy Pelosi. Those are the three original cast members. Di Domenico and Michael are actually seated side-by-side, off-camera, swapping their lines to maintain human authenticity. The show fires at both sides of the political aisle, satirizing Biden and Pelosi as eagerly as Trump.

“We have expanded the cast, and the scope, of the show,” Di Domenico says. “The idea is to reach a wide audience in a single half-hour episode. We are an equal-opportunity offender.”

Robert Smigel, creator of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and “The Ambiguously Gay Duo” on “SNL,” is the show’s writer and executive producer. The series pilot aired in October, leading to the four-show pickup by Fox. Di Domenico says the series could fill a void for satire content not entirely filled by “SNL.”

“There is really no other sketch, pop-culture show along the lines of ‘SNL’ out there right now,” Di Domenico says, adding that Fox actually fast-tracked the show’s premiere by two weeks. “They want a sketch show. They want this to work.”

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.