During the Presidential campaign and in the weeks following Donald Trump's election last fall, actor Alec Baldwin was responsible for the definitive - satirical - impression of the incoming President. Baldwin's Trump routines on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" made headlines for poking fun at the headlines the President-elect himself was making.
But since the inauguration, some of the most popular voices lampooning the new President have originated in Europe - sort of.
Trump's inaugural address, which made repeated reference to his desire to place "America first," inspired a segment on the Netherlands' answer to the American TV program, "The Daily Show." The video segment introduced President Trump to the small sea level country, and implored him to - at least - place the Netherlands second.
The original YouTube clip quickly gathered over 22 million views, and reposts on various other sites brought the total to around 70 million within a couple weeks. The first segment inspired versions originating in other countries - Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, and elsewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELD2AwFN9Nc
But much of the humor in the original is derived from an uncannily Trump-sounding narrator. It's a voice that belongs to Amsterdam-based comedian Greg Shapiro, who grew up in the Chicago area (and whose sister lives in Milwaukee). Shapiro says he's been polishing his Donald Trump imitation for more than a year, in concert with his writing partner (fellow Chicago native Pep Rosenfeld).
"At one point we realized that he [President Trump] doesn't sound like a New Yorker," Shapiro says. "Some of the more famous impressions out there have a 'New Yawk... Daw-nald Trump sound, like a typical New Yorker.
"But to me he sounds more like a California surfer dude, for reasons I cannot explain," he says. "If you just turn his hair around so he looks like Owen Wilson, then-" he continues, morphing into his Trump impression, "-he talks about how we're gonna go down to the beach, we're gonna catch some rays, we're gonna get some waves, it's gonna be totally tubular. It's gonna be so gnarly, you can't believe it."
The "America First, Netherlands Second" video pokes fun at President Trump's call to build a wall on the Mexican border (it claims The Nethlerlands built the Atlantic Ocean to secure its own border with Mexico). But it also makes self-deprecating fun of some Dutch institutions - the Ponypark Slagharen theme park, a (true) Christmas blackface tradition - and the Dutch place in the geopolitical landscape.
"I think that's pretty accurate about how Dutch culture sees itself," says Shapiro, who has lived in Amsterdam for 20 years and has written a book called How to Be Dutch: The Quiz. "I think part of the charm of making this video about making The Netherlands second was being very well aware that we'll never be number one."
Shapiro moved to Amsterdam as a group of fellow Northwestern University graduates sought to practice the Chicago improvisational comedy style someplace besides Chicago. The result was the group, Boom Chicago, which has been a Dutch comedy staple ever since. Shapiro broke off to do solo work, which also includes another political satire video that went viral. A 2004 video, "Florida Voting Machine," collected millions of views before the advent of YouTube.
With international attention on his comedy work, Shapiro's next project is a series of videos, "The United States of Europe," which he describes as "The Daily Show" for the European Union. "There's so much ridiculous news coming out of Europe every day," he says, "and no one is ridiculing it on a big enough scale. I think we might be in kind of a golden moment."
