The Memes Have Spoken: Anthony Scaramucci Is 'That Guy' From 'Futurama'

The animated sci-fi sitcom Futurama ended four years ago, but one character has just been reincarnated and hired at the White House. When Anthony Scaramucci gave his first speech to the press as the Trump administration’s new communications director on Friday, the internet couldn’t help but notice the uncanny resemblance between him and Futurama’s satirical take on a 1980s businessman “That Guy.” Twitter has since exploded in memes, and they are excellent.

“That Guy” is the nickname of the character Steve Castle, a businessman who suffered from the illness “boneitis” and went into a cryogenic sleep in the 1980s to wake up in the year 3000, when Futurama is set. (Incidentally, Scaramucci came of age in the 1980s.) This might be the most famous scene with “That Guy,” featuring some of his iconic, empty corporate jargon:

In the spirit of “don’t you worry about blank, let me worry about blank,” Scaramucci is going to have to excel at pivoting, evasion, and similar communications strategies if he’s going to pull off this job better than Sean Spicer. Users on Twitter and Reddit agree, and seem to feel that he was born for the task.

“He’s the embodiment of ‘the 80s guy,’” wrote one redditor. “Watch his debut on cspan. It’ll make you vomit a little bit and you might need a shower.”

Another wrote, “Trump would be naturally susceptible to that slimy 80s salesman-like charm so much that he would pick someone so close to a literal parody of it to be his comms director.”

Meanwhile, on Twitter, the memes are beautifully out of control.

It’s truly an exceptional resemblance.

Futurama’s been great at predicting the future. It even depicted the disembodied head of Richard Nixon riding a populist wave to a third presidential term in an outsider storyline akin to President Donald Trump’s.