Brow Beat

Scott Baio Just Endorsed Trump. Here Are Some of His Other Terrible Decisions on TV.

Scott Baio endorsed Donald Trump on Saturday in an appearance with Fox News personality (and The Jinx prosecutor) Judge Jeanine Pirro, telling her that:

It’s very simple, because when he speaks, I understand him. He speaks like I speak. He communicates with people very well. I want him … to go to Washington and blow it up.

As frightening as it may be to see the depth of the country’s support for a politics of racial resentment, Baio’s endorsement may be a positive sign. Because if there’s one thing we know about Scott Baio, it’s that he has a long history of making awful decisions on television. While the nation waits for the third act (Scott Baio learns a valuable lesson), here’s a brief video treasury of some of the other appalling decisions Scott Baio has made on our television sets over the years.

Drinking Too Much in The Boy Who Drank Too Much, 1980:

“Get off my back, all of you!” says Scott Baio in this CBS special presentation. Though viewers didn’t know it at the time, Baio’s denial about his alcoholism would foreshadow his later denial of Trump’s winking appeal to white supremacists.

Being Mean to His Gay Friend Alex to Get Into West Point in The Truth About Alex, 1986:

Even though Scott Baio eventually stands up for his gay friend—and even goes to his piano recital—Baio’s initial discomfort with modernity will be familiar to Trump supporters everywhere.

Agreeing to Have Anything at All to Do With Baby Talk, 1992:

Maybe Scott Baio was trying to teach heartland viewers a valuable lesson about bicoastal liberal condescension when he appeared in the second season of this horrible sitcom. “This is how little they think of you,” he seems to be saying. “They think you’ll lap this garbage up.” Or maybe the toddlers in this Look Who’s Talking spinoff spoke like Scott Baio spoke, in a way Scott Baio could understand. Either way, a terrible, terrible decision.

Getting Stoned and Hitting His Brother Over The Head With an Oar, Nearly Drowning Him, Right Before an Important Swim Meet in the ABC Afterschool Special “Stoned,” 1980:

The long, slow series of catastrophes Scott Baio causes after deciding to get stoned in this Afterschool Special echoes the way the GOP’s embrace of the Southern Strategy inexorably led to Trump. Here’s hoping a cool, anti-drug teacher (Mitt Romney?) can teach the Republican Party a valuable lesson about peer pressure (and tax breaks for the rich) before things get too out of hand.