Trump heralds Farm Bill signing by tweeting video of himself singing ‘Green Acres’ theme at the 2005 Emmys – dressed in overalls and clutching a pitchfork
- President once performed ‘Green Acres’ tune with actress Megan Mullally
- He tweeted video of the 2005 Emmy Awards performance on Thursday
- ‘Green Acres’ was about a New York City lawyer who yearned for the farming life and his high-society wife who hated living in the country
- Trump used the footage to promote a signing ceremony for the Farm Bill
- Mullally, 13 years later, tweeted: ‘omg … if you guys need me, i’ll be in a hole in the ground’
Donald Trump once appeared on stage at the Emmy Awards dressed as a farmer in overalls and performing the theme from the 1960s-era TV comedy ‘Green Acres.’ President Donald Trump teased Thursday’s Farm Bill signing event by tweeting the video footage.
‘Farm Bill signing in 15 minutes!’ Trump wrote, along with hashtags for ‘#Emmys’ and ‘#TBT’–shorthand for ‘Throwback Thursday.’
In the video, Trump played the part of Eddie Albert’s character, a New York lawyer who years for life on a farm–and moves to one. ‘Will and Grace’ actress Megan Mullally played Eva Gabor’s pampered Manhattan wife who can’t stand the countryside.
President Donald Trump teased his Farm Bill signing ceremony on Thursday by tweeting a 2005 video of him bringing the house down at the Emmy Awards by performing the theme song from ‘Green Acres’ with actress Megan Mullally
The president said at the bill signing that someone on his staff had found the recording – so he asked them to play a little of it before he took the stage
A mortified Mullally tweeted her shock, complete with horrified emojis
White House aides replayed some of the audio from the event before Trump entered the South Court Auditorium for the bill signing, along with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.
‘omg,’ Mullally tweeted. ‘if you guys need me, i’ll be in a hole in the ground.’
At the time of the Emmy Awards stunt, she told The Wrap that getting Trump to sing was the perfect antidote to his tough-as-nails persona on ‘The Apprentice.’
‘Everybody thought he was this funny guy who was doing this caricature of himself, nobody thought he was really that person,’ Mullally said said. ‘I thought it was fun to see him in overalls and a white t-shirt and a pitchfork and a straw hat.’
It was also part of a competition. Host Ellen DeGeneres held what she called ‘Emmy Idol’ during the broadcast, inviting TV viewers to phone in and vote for their favorite live performance of the night.
Trump and Mullally won, beating William Shatner’s rendition of the ‘Star Trek’ theme song and a young Kristen Bell singing the ‘Fame’ theme in 1980s-style leg warmers.
‘Green Acres’ ran from 1965 to 1971, a sitcom about a New York lawyer who moves with his wife to a farm despite her desire to stay in their Park Avenue penthouse apartment
Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert posed in the show’s opening sequence as the couple from Grant Wood’s iconic painting ‘American Gothic’; Trump and Mullally did their own imitation in 2005
The Emmy Awards broadcast included the pair performing their unlikely duet as part of an ‘Emmy Idol’ stunt contest – which they won
‘He really wanted to win because people were calling in to vote,’ Mullally told ‘Late Show’ host Stephen Colbert last year, remembering that the future president called her in her ‘Will and Grace’ dressing room to congratulate her the next day.
”You know what? We really needed to win that thing and we did,’ she recalled Trump saying. ‘And you were a big part of that, so I just wanted to say that we really needed to win it. Not only did we win it, but I hear we killed them. It was a landslide!’
Thirteen years later, Trump laughed it off.
‘I sang “Green Acres,” and received a very nice award that night. That was really great,’ he chuckled before talking more seriously about the Farm Bill.
‘So we had that, somebody had it. I said, “Put it on.” Not too much of it, but put it on.’