Trending: 'Senator Rick Sanitorium' is back on HBO. Sort of...
Wednesday 20 June 2012
Related articles
Until now, the closest former US presidential challenger Rick Santorum had got to HBO was when Tony Soprano saluted "Senator Sanitorium" for his comparison of homosexuality to bestiality. No more!
Alan Ball, creator of HBO's True Blood, reveals that a character in the new series of the show was inspired by the rise of Santorum. The plotline involves Chris Meloni playing a theocratic leading member of the vampiric political system. It will, one assumes, be less bloody than the real Republican race.
Of course the most famous case of fictional surrogacy for a politician was Matthew Santos – the character played by Jimmy Smits in The West Wing. In a case of art imitating life imitating art, West Wing writer Eli Attie was inspired in 2004 by then Illinois state senator, Barack Obama. The Santos character's rise to the White House was then weirdly mirrored by its original inspiration in 2008. Others in the administration aren't so lucky.
On Monday, Sky Atlantic airs the first episode of Armando Iannucci's Veep featuring a slightly hapless gaffe-prone Vice President. You'd have to ask Joe Biden if he has any idea who inspired Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Selina Meyer.
-
That's some guestlist! Stunning images show huge dynastic wedding between Ultra-Orthodox Jewish families which attracted 25,000 guests
-
'Sickening, deluded and unforgivable': Horrific attack brings terror to London’s streets
-
National archives: Edward VIII’s phone calls - and how MI5 bugged them
-
World news in pictures
-
Eyewitness Ingrid Loyau-Kennett gives extraordinary account of her confrontation with Woolwich attackers
- 1 'Sickening, deluded and unforgivable': Horrific attack brings terror to London’s streets
- 2 Mothers' diets may harm IQs in two-thirds of babies
- 3 Far-right French historian, 78-year-old Dominique Venner, commits suicide in Notre Dame in protest against gay marriage
- 4 Eyewitness Ingrid Loyau-Kennett gives extraordinary account of her confrontation with Woolwich attackers
- 5 Woolwich attack: The EDL might have a sinister plan as a soldier is murdered in suspected Islamic terrorist attack
Get your summer started with British Military Fitness
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
Visit York
Find out what The Independent's resident travel expert has to say about one of the most beautiful small cities in the world
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Independent Dating
Day In a Page
Edward VIII’s phone calls - and how MI5 bugged them
Hollywood's random acts of red-carpet kindness
Not secure any more: G4S boss heads for exit at last
How to say ‘I’m a sellout’






Comments