''The Oval Office Tapes'' is a scripted podcast that imagines what the conversations in the White House might sound like. The show was created by documentary filmmaker

R.J. Cutler R. J. Cutler (born 1962) is an American filmmaker, documentarian, television producer and theater director. His work includes the documentary films ''The War Room'', '' A Perfect Candidate'', ''Thin'', ''The September Issue'', ''The World Accord ...

. The executive producers are

, Scott Conroy, and Jason Blum. The producer is Trevor Smith. The writers are R.J. Cutler, Scott Conroy, Lesley Hollingsworth, and Mike Schneider. The podcast is a production of Blumhouse Productions, Cadence13, and Cutler Productions. The show premiered in 2018, and made its live-taping debut at

Politicon Politicon was an annual, non-partisan political convention in the United States. Politicon's vision was to bring "Republicans, Democrats, and people of all political stripes together to banter and spar over the most topical issues in smart and e ...

2018.

describes coming up with the idea for the podcast: "I'm not alone, I think, these days in being fairly obsessed with what's going on in Washington D.C., what's happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and it occurred to me that if we could hear what was going on within the rooms there, the private rooms, it'd be very interesting, and that's what The Oval Office Tapes is."

Format

In an interview with Hollywood Reporter,

described the production of the podcast, "We write every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we record on Thursday, and we drop on Friday." Each episode contains segments telling the story behind the week's news. Instead of reading copy directly from the advertisers, The Oval Office Tapes employs the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln, Totally Real Paid Protestors, and the Backbone of the Republican Party to read the advertisements.

Critical response

The show premiered to positive critical response, with praise from celebrities such as

Alec Baldwin Alexander Rae Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor, comedian, and producer. In his early career, Baldwin played both leading and supporting roles in a variety of films such as Tim Burton's ''Beetlejuice'' (1988), Mike Nichol ...

and James Carville. The Hollywood Reporter called it, "comedic gold." In April 2019, it gained a nomination for the Webby Awards for Best Comedy Podcast.

Episodes

Cast

* Mary Birdsong *Nicole Collins * Ian James Corlett *

Chris Cox (voice actor) Chris Cox is an American voice actor who has worked on films, animated television series, and video games. Career In television, he is best known for his work in ''Family Guy''. He is also known for his work in ''Jak and Daxter'', ''Skylanders'' ...

Quinton Flynn Quinton Flynn is an American voice actor and comedian, who has provided the English voices of video game characters such as Raiden in the ''Metal Gear'' series, Marcus Damon in ''Digimon Data Squad'', Lea and Axel in the ''Kingdom Hearts'' seri ...

*Melvin Jackson Jr. * David Kaye (voice actor) *Bruce Locke *Brendan McKay * Scott McCord *Danielle Morrow *

Jeff Rector Jeff Rector (born September 12, 1958) is an American actor. He has appeared in over 60 feature films and television programs. On 28 April 2012 he hosted the launch party of the Burbank International Film Festival. He has an identical twin brot ...

*Jonathan Von Mering *

Phillip Wilburn Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularize ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oval Office Tapes 2018 podcast debuts Political podcasts American political satire