Before The Apprentice, before he was talking about news anchors' menstruation cycles, before he was accusing the Mexican government of sending hordes of rapists to America (and defending the allegation by basically saying, "a guy told me this was happening"), Donald Trump was just a regular ol' shady businessman who willed his way to mediocre fame by putting his name on every building possible. The National Enquirer started paying attention to him, especially in the early '90s when he got hit with the embarrassing double whammy of filing for bankruptcy AND divorcing his wife, Ivana. But even then, Trump wasn't the kind of guy to just go away. He rose from the ashes of public and personal failure.
He made a pizza commercial.
Behold the clip above, one of the first ads for Pizza Hut's indigestion in bread and cheese form, the Stuffed Crust Pizza, from the year 1995. Trump's looking younger, less rotund, and his hair actually looks somewhat real, instead of the wistful nest of hay it currently resembles:
Considering it stars Donald Trump and is about a pizza whose crust is filled with processed cheese, the commercial is actually sneaky good. It also stars Ivana Trump, who The Donald split up with three years prior to the ad. Ever one to exploit himself, Trump let the entire commercial revolve around his divorce from Ivana, so they're shown—he in a tux and she in... a corset and sleeping pants?—in an ornate bedroom having a conversation presumably about getting back together. "Is this the right thing for us to be doing?" he asks. "What will people think?" she shoots back, to which he responds, "Let 'em talk." And if you thought it was weird that Trump immediately went from being the unsure one to the cocksure one, the next exchange tops that, because they start having their conversation telepathically (note the dissolves):
And then the reveal: "WE WEREN'T TALKING ABOUT OUR MARRIAGE, WE WERE TALKING ABOUT PIZZA! We still hate each other, btw." The ad's kicker comes when Ivana goes for the last slice and Trump tells her, "Actually, you're only entitled to half," which strikes me as pretty dark in retrospect, with the allegation that Trump violently assaulted Ivana in mind.
And one other thing! I need Pizza Hut to explain to me why Donald and Ivana were together, all dressed up and eating pizza the wrong way in the first place. Did Trump, alone with his thoughts, decide to pick up the phone and be like, "Ivana, you've gotta get over here. I've got this pizza with cheese coming out of every orifice that I think you're gonna wanna see. Also, wear some nice pants." Maybe I'm overthinking it.
This is a solid commercial. And remember, this guy could be the next president:
