Pint-Size Politicians Rule on 'Lil' Bush'

June 13, 2007 — -- A former Simpson's writer is once again developing sarcastic humor with a look at pop culture, but this time he is squarely taking shots at politics through a cartoon featuring a band of meddling kids known as Lil' Bushes.

"The Lil' gang is kind of like the 'Little Rascals' or the 'South Park' gang -- a classic cartoon group of kids who go out and get into their own little misadventures, except these guys have access to nuclear weapons, Air Force One and all the power of Washington," said Donick Cary, a former writer for "The Simpson's" and the creator of "Lil' Bush."

The Comedy Central cartoon features elementary school versions of current U.S. leaders, who have been satirized in appearance, their mannerisms, their speech patterns, and, most of all, their politics.

"'Lil' Bush' follows the adventures of Lil' Bush, Lil' Cheney, Lil' Condi, and Lil' Rummy as they get into all sorts of hijinks," said Cary. "Lil' Bush lives at the White House with his mom and pop, who are the president and first lady. He goes to Beltway Elementary and gets into constant conflict with the Lil' Dems, Lil' Kim Jong Il and all his little rivals."

While the series is new to cable TV, it's already a hit. It debuted as a series of "mobi-sodes" or cell phone shorts through Amp'd Mobile and the "Lil' Bush" series garnered so much mobile and Internet attention that Comedy Central approached Cary about expanding his spoof to a full half hour.

"I started these originally about a year and a half ago," said Cary. "We made six, five-minute episodes to air on cell phones … as soon as we put these on Amp'd Mobile, it was immediately the most downloaded thing they'd ever had. We got over 1 million hits on Break.com in the first week and out on Youtube it's still getting hits."

Cary said airing these shorts on cell phones was a great way to test the cartoon's material and its sustainability as a half hour show, without any network pressure.