Trump Definitely Didn't Tweet About the Retro Game 'Bad Dudes'
Bad dudes and bad hombres.
On Monday morning, President Donald Trump went on Twitter, as he does every morning, to defend his unconstitutional executive order to ban immigrants and lawful U.S. residents from seven predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East. At exactly 8:31 a.m. on January 30, Trump made the flimsy argument that if his ban had a week’s notice, “the ‘bad’ would rush into our country,” as if terrorists behave like Black Friday shoppers.
“A lot of bad ‘dudes’ out there!” Trump consciously typed as if there was nothing wrong with any of this.
On top of the fact that a sitting President talked about “bad dudes” in “official” communications, it’s abundantly clear that Trump has no memory of 1988 when two real bad dudes actually saved the president. In 1988, the beat ‘em up game Bad Dudes was an arcade hit about two bad dudes named Blade and Striker who were sent by the Secret Service to save “President Ronnie” from a foreign menace: evil ninjas. Meanwhile, that same year, Trump hosted WWF WrestleMania IV in his Atlantic City casino. So, who’s the real bad dude here?
Bad Dudes, also known by its official title Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja from the now-defunct publisher Data East, was a side-scrolling brawler similar to Double Dragon, River City Ransom, and the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games, except that those other games were actually fun.
Bad Dudes has been kept alive purely as a joke based on its absurd, Saturday afternoon action movie premise and casual attitude towards national security. Hardly anyone remembers its brutally plain controls and rudimentary animation, focusing instead on the fact that the game ends with the Bad Dudes getting burgers with Prez Ronnie. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Like Space Jam, Bad Dudes is brought up every so often as a punchline, such in the case of Trump’s own mention of “bad dudes” in official communique. As expected, Twitter had a ball with it.
It’s a safe bet that Trump has probably never even heard of Bad Dudes, as he was mighty busy hosting a snooze of a wrestling pay-per-view. But Trump definitely saw The Dark Knight Rises. Where else did he get his inauguration speech from?
