Amazon Prime Cancelled Our Anti-Trump Comedy

Jeff Bezos wants me to cease and desist.

by Rich Herschlag

You can learn of bad news so many different ways these days, but one of the most primal ways is by looking at someone else’s face. A couple of weeks ago my director and I were on Zoom as he checked our Filmhub web page, and as modern as all that was I nonetheless knew old school something was wrong when his face turned the color of a hospital sheet.

Our glorious, subversive, anti-MAGA comedy film, Dictator for a Day, had been cancelled by Amazon Prime. Six weeks earlier they had licensed it, but it never seemed to “go live,” and on this fateful day it was suddenly marked “removed.” There was no human being to consult because human beings are gradually exiting the world of entertainment like they are exiting the world itself. Our baby was dumped as unceremoniously as it was welcomed earlier—in complete and sterile anonymity. But to find a plausible explanation we didn’t have to look beyond the unceasing fire hose newsfeed of the Trump era.

It all began right after Thanksgiving 2022 when I was sinking into depression. My mother-in-law had just passed. My dad was starting to become very ill. And the little handicapper that lives inside my cerebral cortex told me the chances of Donald Trump returning to the White House were around 50-50. As a one-off attempt at self-therapy I checked into my friend’s music studio in Bethlehem, PA to record Jesus Was Born January 6, a countrified send-up of MAGA at its most lethal and hypocritical. I had the lyrics and chords worked out and I did what I always did—bass, vocals, keyboards. Mike, a true professional musician and audio engineer, did what he always did—guitars, programming, mixing.

The result was at least twice as good as either of us expected. So in the coming months we did another song and another, never at a loss for absurd Trump themes and sound bites. By early 2024, with a dozen songs in the can and a growing organic fan base, my friends and I were seriously discussing putting together some sort of Mel Brooks-ish, Tom Lehrer-ish show built around the songs.

Dictator for a Day did a successful run of three shows off-Broadway starting October 4, 2024 at the Producers’ Club. We packed the place and taped all three shows with three cameras in high def. I scratched probably a dozen items off my bucket list in one blur of a weekend as my twisted dream came true strictly with the help of a bunch of likeminded rebels who seemed to appear out of nowhere and validate the old Goethe promise: “Act boldly and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

Those forces included Thomas Ryan Ward, a director and producer with more vision in his left pinky than most people have in their high school graduating class; Rory Scholl, a Broadway caliber performer who could actually evoke a “singing Trump” on stage; Sammy “The Deuce” Kassin, who brought to life Bernie Sanders and a cavalcade of characters only a star utility player could; and Jim, Marc, Rick, Brian, Billy, Matt and Meredith along with a whole crew of lifelong friends willing to part with both time and some money from their 401(k)s that might not be returning anytime soon.

Last but opposite of least was J-L Cauvin, our “main Trump.” Against my better judgment I spent the spring and summer of 2024 hunting down every potential Donald Trump in the country and overseas. Most never returned my emails, texts, voicemails, DMs or flaming arrows, or if they did they either didn’t understand we were building the Third Coming of Second City or were too busy doing their shtick on TikTok to venture anywhere near the Great White Way.

When J-L Cauvin came aboard it was like Jalen Brunson coming to the Knicks, except J-L is six inches taller. J-L’s Trump is a sight to behold. It’s not exactly an imitation or an impression. It’s more like something Stella Adler might have created if she held a talented comic hostage for a few years in a dank basement and made him watch reruns of The Apprentice. You see, J-L is Trump. For however many minutes he chooses to allow the Orange One to inhabit his soul, J-L speaks, smirks, squints, bobs, weaves, double-fists, and essentially becomes Trump. It’s frightening.

And here we are in the summer of 2025 in a time and place where law firms, universities, cable news networks, newspapers, tech titans, and social media megalomaniacs genuflect to Trump. A time and place where thoughtlessly dumping a pesky little live comedy special like Dictator for a Day without even an “A-list” star in it feels like swatting a gnat tickling your ear. Where is the reward for risk when the reward is, at best, a great little piece of timely satire and the risk includes lawsuits, financial ruin, and bullets through your living room window?

So, we at Dictator for a Day just made our gem available PPV at DFAD . Our motto is Make America Guffaw Again, and we very well might be the Rocky Horror Picture Show of the 2020s. We will eventually get our major streaming deal, but as 47 and company gut both our Constitution and worldwide moral standing there is no time to waste. Every bittersweet laugh is a blow against the empire.

Donald Trump and his insidious approach to politics was in part enabled by a fatal flaw in many human beings and countless Americans—the inability or unwillingness to empathize with “the enemy,” “the opposition,” or anybody not currently in your rotisserie league. The final blow to 47 will not be a mass visceral reaction to the sight of brown U.S. citizens being crammed by ICE into cattle cars but rather the ten-dollar loaf of Wonder Bread. After all, if it doesn’t happen to you personally it isn’t real.

This, the cancelling of our tiny entertainment juggernaut, a First World problem of sorts, was sadly my wakeup call, though I was pretty woke to begin with. They really are coming for whatever you hold dear. If they haven’t they just haven’t gotten to it yet. So I’m hanging my hat on Dictator for a Day, not only because it brings mirth and laughter to the weary and beleaguered, but because Jeff Bezos wants me to cease and desist.

Check out the official website for Dictator For a Day here!

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