Invisible President

Nobody behind the Resolute Desk? He's there. You just can't see him.

"Well, who did you expect to see — the President?"

— Droopy Dog, in the theatrical cartoon Droopy's Good Deed

Whenever a scene calls for the President, but the show is meant to be set "in the real world" (and thus, a fictional president is undesirable, and an impersonator wouldn't be sufficiently convincing), the President is generally implemented as He Who Must Not Be Seen, especially The Faceless. If the President is vague to the point that even the President’s name is never said, this is done to keep the show from being dated once the president’s term is over (think of how every sitting president since George H. W. Bush has been parodied on The Simpsons while the titular family stays the same age). The British counterpart would be the appearance of the outstretched hand of the Monarch or Prime Minister, unseen on the other side of the door.

To a certain degree, this also keeps the work from getting unintentionally political; putting controversial real-life politicians in your story is risky business, doubly so if the in-story president is specifically depicted in a positive or negative light. Compare the Chrysanthemum taboo on depictions of the Emperor of Japan in Japanese media.

See also No Party Given. For celebs that are neither politicians nor actors, see Invisible Celebrity Guest.

Note: this is only for when the political leader is supposed to be a real historical person — FDR, Margaret Thatcher, whoever. If the leader is a fictional character, it's one of the other tropes for never-seen characters, like He Who Must Not Be Seen, The Faceless, or The Ghost. Contrast No Celebrities Were Harmed.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• During the Beach Episode of A Certain Magical Index where a worldwide spell switches everyone's bodies, Touma sits down in a lounge and watches Kuroko make a presidential address in place of Obama.
  "Yes. We. Can!"
• A scene of Death Note has one of the organizations talking to the President of the U.S, but is referred to as "Mr. President". But only in the anime. The president is David Hoope in the manga. He commits suicide after Mello threatens him with the Death Note in order to prevent nuclear war. Zigzagged in Death Note Special Chapter, however, where the President clearly resembles Donald Trump, but behaves and talks like a generic U.S. President. The same goes for his Chinese counterpart, who resembles Xi Jinping but also has generic speech and mannerisms.
• Hellsing obscures both the faces of Her Highness the Queen and His Holiness the Pope. And yet Alucard still flirts with the former.
• Heroman plays this...a bit oddly: the President of the United States appears onscreen and has quite a few speaking lines, but looks a lot like former Japanese Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers flip-flops between showing leaders and hiding their faces. Given the nature of the series, readers can usually guess who the leaders are.
  • Averted in the case of Austria (Maria Theresa), Prussia (Frederick II), Russia (Stalin) and possibly Sealand (Roy Bates or his son).
  • Played with for the US Presidents. While their faces are never fully seen, there are subtle cues that hint to who they actually are, such as with Franklin D. Roosevelt in the World War II strips.

Comic Books

• Jimmys Bastards: The comic by Garth Ennis uses "the current administration" (written in 2017-2018) when the villains are discussing what would happen if they were to use their Gender Bender phlebotinum on the U.S. According to them, said reaction would involve firing Tomahawks at the UK (finding somewhere else to play golf) and modifying his gender views to include "grabbing women by the dick". These are clearly references to the president at the time, Donald Trump.
• Largo Winch: Used when Largo's company gets targeted by a foreign plot to destroy the U.S. economy by secretly buying up majority shares in most Wall Street companies and running them into the ground at the same time, all for less than the cost of a missile barrage. Once the details are learned, he's debriefed at the same time as the President, who has a Face Framed in Shadow and Scary Shiny Glasses.
• The Mighty Thor: In Thor: Vikings, the President's voice is heard discussing the fallout of a nuke being dropped in New York to stop the Viking zombies. He is depicted as oblivious and incompetent, unable to tell that Washington might be affected given the short distance between the two cities and complains that nobody told him about this little fact.
• Secret War: This is used in the comic, but considering Nick Fury details a terrorist threat to the U.S., and the president simply dismisses it, they had to or they would face very serious legal trouble.

Comic Strips

• Doonesbury carries this to its logical extreme by literally showing the president as invisible. This began with George H. W. Bush, to poke fun of his weak stance on issues. Later presidents were shown with floating symbols — Bill Clinton as a waffle (as in "waffling on the issues"); George W. Bush as an asterisk, a cowboy hat, and (after 9/11) a Roman centurion helmet^note  which became increasingly dented and battered as the war dragged on and on. This extended to other politicians, such as Dan Quayle (a feather) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (a Cartoon Bomb).
  • Prior to this, strips featuring the President simply showed establishing shots of The White House. Then there was the time Ronald Reagan appeared as "Ron Headrest".
  • Trudeau has stated that this started at least partly so that he doesn't have to try to draw a recognizable depiction of an actual person, which he claims to not be very good at.
  • Didn't stop him from doing a perfect take on the Obamas as the Bumsteads.

Fan Works

• While the President seems only to have a vague awareness of the FBC and what they do in AWE Arcadia Bay (Rogue_Demon), it seems that they have little say in what the FBC does. Their gender isn't even given, this showing just how little they matter outside of the occasional information regarding paranatural threats.

Films — Animated

• The Iron Giant has a brief shot of President Eisenhower being briefed on the situation with the Giant, seen from the back. A portrait of Ike is visible in an earlier scene, hanging in the mayor's office.
• Despite Team America: World Police being about international terrorism and American patriotism, George W. Bush, his cabinet and the White House are never seen or even mentioned. This was done on purpose by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, since they felt jokes about Dubya were already overdone by that point, and that they couldn't find anything new or interesting to say about him. (Also, they already parodied Bush before in That's My Bush!)

Films — Live-Action

• Another obvious Invisible LBJ "appears" in the 1966 film Batman: The Movie. A close-up from the "President's" perspective (thus faceless) shows him reclining in his seat, stroking his dog, and congratulating the Dynamic Duo on the phone, in a cartoonishly stereotypical Texan accent (he even says "Howdy!") provided by Fort Worth-born Van Williams of The Green Hornet.
• In Cold Turkey President Richard Nixon appears in the town of Eagle Rock, but the news producer present complains that none of his cameramen can get a clear shot of him.
• The Comedians: In this film about the murderous savagery of Francois Duvalier's regime in Haiti, Duvalier is only seen once, from a distance and behind, as he ascends some stairs in the presidential palace.
• The Crazies (1973). The President is shown on a Video Phone, but sitting with his back to the camera. If he had turned round, the audience would have seen it was director George Romero.
• Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966). The President is only an LBJ-sounding voice on the hotline to Colonel Benson, always preempted by the strains of "Hail to the Chief".
• Japan's Longest Day: In this film about the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, Hirohito's face is never shown clearly. His face can be glimpsed a couple of times from a distance and not quite in focus, but for most of the movie we see the back of his head, or we see his gloved hands as he grips his chair, or his face is hidden by a Scenery Censor. It was considered taboo at this time to show the Emperor's face onscreen (and it would remain taboo until a Russian film about Hirohito called The Sun was shown in Japan in 2006).
• In the Rowan Atkinson comedy Johnny English, the queen's hands are shown, and her voice is heard, but everything else is just outside the frame.
• Mission to Moscow shows the back of FDR's head as the President is appointing Joseph Davis as U.S. Ambassador to Moscow.
• The reenactment of Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth in the National Treasure sequel shows only Lincoln's back and a part of his head even though it is very obvious that it's him and using his name and likeness is legal under the protection of the First Amendment.
• Never Look Away: Only the back of Adolf Hitler's head is visible, as Elizabeth hands him a bouquet as he passes by in a motorcade.
• Our Man Flint from 1966 has a scene where the President, addressing the world to announce capitulation to the bad guys, is told to stall — he hems and haws in a Johnson-esque drawl.
• The 1967 film comedy The President's Analyst shows the title character entering and leaving the Oval Office, but never shows the president or mentions his name. Even the country's intelligence agencies are aliased to the FBR and the CEA (possibly under pressure to do so), but it's clearly LBJ; one character describes himself as liberal in the same tradition as the president ("you know...we're for civil rights!") In an exterior location shot, we see his beagles being walked on The White House lawn.
• Sister Act shows the Pope from behind as he listens to the nuns' concert. (It's clearly meant to be Pope John Paul II, as shown by his coat of arms.)
• The Spy Who Dumped Me: This trope is deployed not with a political leader, but with Edward Snowden, notorious hacker and spy. Morgan calls her old boyfriend Snowden to hack into the flash drive. The actor who plays Snowden is only shown from behind.
• In the 2017 South Korean thriller Steel Rain, the plot involves the leader of North Korea, who's been wounded in a coup, being protected by a loyal North Korean agent. Kim Jong Un is never fully shown, just a body lying on a stretcher with the camera angle obscuring his face. He's never referred to by name, just as "Great General" or "Number One". Even a statue of their Glorious Leader shown toward the end of the movie has its head cropped by the top of the movie screen.
• That Night in Varennes is about the flight of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette from revolutionary Paris, and their capture in the country town of Varennes, as told from the perspective of the passengers of another carriage traveling behind on the same road. The king and queen are seen only briefly, and only from the waist down, in a scene where Thomas Paine and Countess Sophie peer from the stairs down below through the doorway to the royal family's room.
• A short from The Three Stooges has them prospecting for gold and inadvertently breaking into a federal gold vault. They explain they were trying to pay for a sick kid's operation to a heard but not seen FDR, who pardons them and pays for the operation, because he's a swell guy.
• The 2007 Transformers movie featured a president whose face was blocked by a pair of feet wearing red socks, who asked an assistant to bring him a Ding-Dong with a Texas accent. This is his only appearance in the film, though the Secretary of Defense later mentions that the current crisis could define his presidency, and after the climax, he dissolves Sector 7 and orders the remains of the Decepticons be dumped in a very deep ocean trench.
• Virginia City: When Julie is begging Abraham Lincoln for mercy, all we see is the back of Lincoln's head and his silhouette on the paper he's reading.
• Water:
  • Used for satire: the President (implied to be Ronald Reagan) is sitting in the Oval Office with his back to the audience as his staff (facing towards the audience) urge him to invade Cascara to preempt a communist revolution.
    "The decision appears to be unanimous, Mr. President. [Dramatic Pause] Well, shall we wake him?"
  • Averted with Margaret Thatcher who is referred to by name and played by a well-known impersonator.
• In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Elizabeth II shows up offscreen at an auction to bid on a crate of candy bars (It Makes Sense in Context), and Wonka later mentions offhand that he "really must answer that note from the Queen."
• The Yellow Rolls-Royce: King George V and Queen Mary are in attendance at the Ascot Gold Cup, where Charles has a horse running. They're only shown from behind or the neck down.
• The Promised Land: Despite his role in the plot, the Danish king's name is never given, and he only appears in one scene. We only see the back of his head. He's supposed to be Frederick V, whose infamous alcoholism is referenced by his ministers.

Literature

• The President during the time period that The Adventures of Fox Tayle takes place (late 2005 to early 2006, so far) is George W. Bush. Fox Tayle was created in a canceled government project and he escaped, and now the FBI is after him. His long-term goal is to talk to the president to try to get some personal rights and to stop being chased (so far, Bush has only been mentioned twice in the story).
• In Angels & Demons, the deceased Pope's name and nationality are never stated, although it's pretty obvious that he was a highly-fictionalized John Paul II (Incumbent at the time of its writing). The film adaptation names him "Pius XIII", from a brief glimpse of his ring before it's destroyed.
• In book 21 of Animorphs, the main characters break up a summit of several world leaders, and go to great lengths to not refer to the president, or any of the other heads of state, by name. They even decline to mention what country one of the leaders represents, as he had had a little too much to drink and refuses to get out of the way of a rampaging elephant. Averted in the last book, which explicitly refers to President Clinton.
• There's a double-whammy in the Doctor Who New Adventures novel The Dying Days; it's set in 1997, but at the time of publication (1996) both the American and British national elections were being contested, thus meaning that the identities of both the President and the Prime Minister are deliberately kept vague.
• Stephen King's novel Dreamcatcher was finished in mid-November 2000, at which time the outcome of the US presidential election was still in doubt; as such, when the President gives a national address regarding the events of the novel, the book strains to avoid mentioning whether the president was meant to be George W. Bush or Al Gore.
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: The POV character of the first chapter is simply "the Prime Minister". The real PM at the time these scenes take place was John Major, but there are several references that make it unlikely the PM in the book is supposed to be him (for example, Fudge refers to the PM's predecessor as "he", when Major's predecessor was Margaret Thatcher), so he might just be wholly fictional.
• From Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series: In an unusual case, Executive Orders does not refer to the President of Iraq by name when he is assassinated. What little characterization there is is entirely in line with Saddam Hussein (who was still in power when the book was published). Noteworthy in that Saddam Hussein was one of the few heads of state who would probably have been referred to by name in normal conversation, and that the book also uses invented leaders for Iran, India, and Russia.

Live-Action TV

• The Queen and Prime Minister both appeared as outstretched hands from behind doors in Are You Being Served?.
• In the Batman (1966) episode "The Mad Hatter Runs Afoul", the White House telephone operator takes a call to inform the President of Batman and Robin's apparent death. The office is decorated with mounted longhorns and a vase with a yellow rose. Why yes, LBJ was President at the time, why do you ask?^note for those who didn't get the joke, longhorn cattle are an iconic cattle breed in Texas and the yellow rose is associated with the state, from which Lyndon Baines Johnson hailed
• Dharma & Greg and fake Southern accents and Al Gore. Enough said.
• Doctor Who:
  • The classic serial "The Green Death" also portrayed the Prime Minister as an outstretched hand and as the unheard half of a telephone conversation with The Brigadier. In the phone conversation, he was called "Jeremy", a reference to the then leader of the Liberal Party Jeremy Thorpe (who was never Prime Minister). This was an allusion to the brief resurgence in popularity the Liberal Party was seeing in the early 1970s after their severe decline following World War II.
  • In "Aliens of London", the Doctor asks Rose (after accidentally landing a year late to her home time) who the Prime Minister is. She stares at him cluelessly and explains it has been a year. The corpse of the Prime Minister himself is later found in the episode, though they make sure not to focus on his face. The extra playing the PM was hired on the understanding that he was a Tony Blair lookalike, but when he turned up on set it was discovered the resemblance was not as strong as hoped, so he is less visible than intended in the final episode, although other references to the Iraq War and a female MP "not being one of the Babes" make it clear who he is intended to be. (Although the episode was to be broadcast very close to the General Election, the huge majority Blair already had and the unpopularity of the opposition coupled with their low starting point meant that the result was never seriously in doubt.)
  • "The Idiot's Lantern" used archival footage of the Queen's coronation since it was set during the event.
  • Averted in "The Sound of Drums", which has the Master kill off a fictitious president who likely was designed to be a parody of then-president George W. Bush.
  • "Voyage of the Damned": When the Queen and her staff (and corgis) first evacuate the palace and then wave to a passing spaceship, she is only seen from the back. It is, however, clearly meant to be Queen Elizabeth II, and she even gets a line of dialogue (voiced by impressionist Jessica Martin, who had also voiced her in series such as Spitting Image).
  • "Extremis" features the President of the U.S., but he's dark-haired and faceless because he lies face-down on his desk, dead. The episode was written before but filmed after Donald Trump's election, and the latter is implied to be President in the following episode. The unnamed President with dark hair is, in fact, not a true person in-universe but a part of a computer simulation in which the whole episode is set.
    Bill: I don't know the President. How would I know the President? I mean, I wouldn't even have voted for him. He's... orange.
• The Pentagon drama E-Ring had an extreme example where the president was never even mentioned, even though in real life he'd be heavily involved in the military missions each episode featured.
• The Expanse does this with the UN Secretary-General in Season 1, who is repeatedly mentioned, but never makes an on-screen appearance. Subverted as of Season 2, when he finally appears. At the same time, however, Season 2 does give a new example in the form of the Martian Prime Minister, who is likewise repeatedly mentioned but has yet to make a physical appearance.
• Get Smart:
  • CONTROL had a direct phone line to the president. When Chief makes contact, the voice of the president is coming from a stuffed steer head mounted to the wall. The voice was an impersonation of LBJ. "Let us reason together".
  • One episode had Max needing to convince his pal (Don Rickles) he was a spy; he puts Rickles on the hotline and he says "Uh-huh. Right. And I'm Sidney Bird." After he's convinced, he tells Max "Hey, I never met the guy, but I use his baby powder all the time!"
• One episode of the The Golden Girls shows Dorothy meeting the President (George H. W. Bush) right in her own home, but all the viewer gets to see is the President's hands through the open door. (His voice is heard, provided by Harry Shearer, using the exact same impression he would later use in The Simpsons — it's a bit distracting.)
• The Goodies. Played straight with the Royal Family (usually via the waving hand version, or a Face Framed in Shadow) but averted with politicians like Margaret Thatcher.
• In Hannah Montana, Miley points out that she's intolerant to raspberries after a childhood incident where she won a pie eating contest, and puked on the Governor of Tennessee when he presented her the award. The Governor is only shown from the back, and is not identified, though the flashback happens in 1999, during which Don Sundquist served as Governor.
• The Australian series The Hollowmen is based around a department designed to add a positive spin to any and all of the federal government's policies. Despite there being at least a dozen meetings with the Prime Minister and various other politicians over the course of the series, not one of them is ever shown — the audience only ever gets to see just inside the door of the PM's office.
• Similarly, on an episode of Hustle, the Queen's feet were shown, as was her corgi. Earlier in the episode, in a scene at Buckingham Palace, a bell marked 'HRH' was seen to ring in the butler's pantry, suggesting that the Royal Highness in question was calling for assistance.
• I Dream of Jeannie: the trope appears in "My Son, The Jeannie". Harold, the inept son of the Chief of the Genies, arrives to apprentice for a day with Jeannie. To make things more chaotic, that evening Major Nelson is chosen to host the Commander-In-Chief for dinner. After several minor disasters (including Harold blinking up a belly dancer to celebrate), Major Nelson greets the unseen, unnamed president while dressed in a Revolutionary War era uniform. The fact the unseen man is wearing a cowboy hat is a nod to the identity of then-president Lyndon Johnson.
• Old and very funny example. There was an episode of The Lucy Show where Lucy and a Girl Scout troop went to visit President John F. Kennedy at The White House. Lucy (Lucille Ball) feels faint and sits down on a historical piece of furniture, Abraham Lincoln's boyhood rocking chair. The chair is too small and gets stuck to Lucy's adult-sized posterior. As she is stumbling around trying to get this thing off, a voice off-camera in the oval office says "It's nice to meet you. I see I am not the only one around with a personal attachment to rocking chairs." This, of course, was an impersonation of JFK. Lucy waddles into the oval office as dignified as she can, patriotic music playing in the background.
• In Parks and Recreation, Mayor Gunderson isn’t shown until the penultimate episode as a corpse. Possibly Justified as under Pawnee’s town charter the Mayor appears to be a ceremonial figurehead with actual power vested in the City Council and City Manager, so he likely wouldn’t be involved in day-to-day government business.
• Person of Interest. In "Synecdoche", the Victim of the Week being protected by Team Machine turns out to be the President. We not only don't see him, but even his name is redacted by the Machine as "Relevant One".
• Petticoat Junction: In "Joe Saves the Post Office", Uncle Joe impresses a crowd at the Lincoln Memorial by reciting the Gettysberg Address by memory. The invisible president comes to shake his hand, at which time Uncle Joe uses the opportunity to convince the president to save the post office. The episode aired in the February of 1969, soon after the inauguration of Richard Nixon.
• Spy Game: we never see the president. All that is shown is his voice level analysis graph on the communications monitor.
• The President is never seen or mentioned by name in Stargate SG-1 until a new one gets elected in the show's seventh season (though prior to that there's at least one fake-out involving a Body Double).
• The POTUS in Succession is only referred to as the "California Raisin". He is never shown, nor is his side of the voice call heard whenever he speaks to Logan.
• Taken: With the exception of Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton, every U.S. President from Harry Truman to the then incumbent George W. Bush is mentioned or at least alluded to in the series. However, John F. Kennedy's brief meeting with Owen in "High Hopes" is the only time that a President ever interacts with one of the characters on screen. The audience's view of his face is distorted by the vat containing one of the alien bodies discovered at Roswell. This is because Stock Footage of Kennedy's television address to the American people regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis is seen later in the episode. Real footage of two other Presidents is seen in later episodes: George H. W. Bush during the 1980 presidential election in which he was the Republican vice-presidential candidate in "Maintenance" and Ronald Reagan giving a speech before the United Nations General Assembly concerning aliens in "Charlie and Lisa".
• In The Thick of It, Prime Minister Tom Davis is never seen. His predecessor was known only as "the Prime Minister". The leader of the opposition, 'JB', is also never seen.
• In Veep, the Transatlantic Equivalent of The Thick of It, the President is never seen, and his name is not revealed until he resigns at the end of season 3.
• In the season 1 finale of Veronica Mars, the Kane family throws a party where the Governor of California is a guest. Based on the episode's air date and a few chance remarks, it's pretty clear that the governor is intended to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, but his name is never mentioned and he never appears onscreen.
• The President on The West Wing was originally intended to be almost entirely unseen — Martin Sheen was originally only contracted for four episodes of the show's first season. In his one scene in the pilot episode, he was so amazingly impressive that they changed their minds and effectively made him the main character.
• During season 2 of Wonder Woman (1975) the IADC received missions directly from the President, whose vaguely Jimmy Carter-esque sounding voice played over a speaker but who was never seen.
• While Hacker was Minster for Administrative Affairs in Yes, Minister, many characters mentioned the Prime Minister, but the PM never actually showed up on-screen despite occasionally determining the outcome of an episode. Averted once Hacker got the top job himself. Notably, the PM was referred to as 'him' despite Margaret Thatcher being in office at the time. This aided the goal of obfuscating Hacker's party membership: referring to the PM as "her" would have led many the erroneous conclusion that the show was specifically a satire of the current government and/or that Hacker was a Tory. (The series stuck very closely to No Party Given.)

Theatre

• Hamilton has John Adams get mentioned several times, but he never makes an onstage appearance. (This is because John Adams already has his own show, and Miranda knew that many people, himself included, would automatically picture that version of Adams.)

Video Games

• Fallout 3 may or may not be an exception, with President Eden being a computer. It probably counts as an exception, since we do — in a manner of speaking — get to see his face. That is, his monitor. There is also some uncertainty as to whether he legally speaking is the President, since the person to tell the surviving Enclave that he was a part of the previous President's cabinet was Eden himself, and we do know he lies and bends the truth...
• President Graham from Resident Evil 4. We never see the president himself (except possibly in some incredibly blurry photographs right before the final boss fight), but we do meet his daughter.

Webcomics

• Downplayed in Ozy and Millie; the president is never shown, but he is given speech bubbles from out of frame. He's also outright stated to be Bush Jr.
• ZigZagged in Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. The president in early strips was a dim-witted, grey-haired white man who, although never identified by name, was clearly intended to be George W. Bush. Following the 2008 presidential election, the president was African-American, but was significantly older than then-president Barack Obama, with a bald pate, grey beard and glasses. His election opponent, who appeared in a single strip, also strongly resembled Mitt Romney. During the Trump administration, the president was always either off panel or in silhouette. A female president also appeared a few times.

Western Animation

• In the Batman / Superman crossover "World's Finest" Superman stops a hijacking of Air Force One. After the rescue, they cut to Superman saying "Happy I could help out, Mr. President," through the window of the President's limo, which then drives off.
• The Droopy cartoon Droopy's Good Deed used this at the end, after Droopy's character, a Boy Scout, had won a visit with the President. Droopy lampshaded this after The Unreveal with the page quote above. This also subverted MGM cartoons' tendency towards surprise live-action cameos at the time.
  • Also, at the beginning of the same cartoon, when Spike first learns that the winning scout would meet the president, a thought bubble appears over his head as he imagines himself at Washington DC shaking hands with the president, whose body is all but shown entirely, his head out of the thought bubble's frame. So even if the president did appear in the ending, he would probably be given the same treatment that Spike's fantasy gave him.
• The Earthworm Jim cartoon used a generic president. The practice was lampshaded by whoever was meeting/kidnapping him and always introducing himself with "I'm one of those generic presidents they use to keep cartoons from becoming dated."
• The Loud House:
  • The episode "Not a Loud" shows a flashback of Lincoln's birth, with the then-President and First Lady delivering him. They do get body shots, but their skin is completely covered.
  • "Road Trip: Bringing Down the House" has the Louds visit the White House on the current President's birthday, but the President and First Lady are unseen.
• Schoolhouse Rock!: In "I'm Just a Bill", the viewers see nothing but one of the President's arms when the Bill imagines the President signs it. When the President does turn the Bill into a Law, it happens offscreen and the viewers only know it happens because somebody shows up to announce the news.
• An episode of Spider-Man (1981) has a faceless President refusing to give in to Doctor Doom's demands, and promptly ordering an airstrike on his nefarious device (this puts Spider-Man's life at risk, since he's there trying to thwart the plan himself, but he doesn't know that). Later, however, at the climax of the show's world-conquering Story Arc, the President — now in complete silhouette — is forced to give up his seat to one of Doctor Doom's robotic proxies.
• An episode of The Simpsons has Homer fantasizing about receiving a medal from the president, who is just a white man in a suit with grey hair. When his fantasy ends, Homer wonders aloud, "What president was that? He looked pretty generic."

Real Life

• In a meta version of this trope, Clint Eastwood appeared at the 2012 Republican Convention and appeared to have a conversation with an empty chair representing President Obama. Immediately, the Internet was awash in pictures of vacant chairs, and a new meme was born.

Exceptions

Anime & Manga

• Because they have to sign off on the hiring, whenever the US government hires Golgo 13, the president in office at the time of the story's writing will make an appearance.
• The Read or Die OVA has an unnamed fictional US president in two episodes. He spends most of his time on screen cringing, and caps off both appearances by wetting himself (though on both occasions with good reason; first the White House is getting blown up by a flying man shooting electricity, the second because the US fleet just had no effect on a weapon about to destroy the world).
  • In the TV show, the president slumps to the ground and wets himself again because the US was politically and diplomatically bested by Mr. Joker and Great Britain. Said President is speculated to be George W. Bush.

Comic Books

• Often averted in comic books. Kennedy appeared more than once on page (Superman infamously revealed his identity to him in an issue published after his death, and Teen Titans featured an Elseworlds story wherein Kennedy became a space-traveling hero) and Barack Obama was famously given a back-up story in an issue of Spider-Man (after reporting that Stephen Colbert won).
  • We see the back of JFK's head in an early '60s Dennis the Menace (US)(!) comic book, uttering his famous "Let me say this about that...", and he's talking off-panel in a Wonder Wart Hog comic of the era.
  • After the aforementioned Spider-Man backup story, most every time Obama is pictured in Marvel Comics, he either has his Face Framed in Shadow or is shown from the back. The closest they ever got was with some partial (although heavy) shading on his face in an early issue of Dark Reign, when he has a meeting with Norman Osborn and Doc Samson.
• The usual unwritten policy at both Marvel and DC was that the president's face could be shown, but his name never be used; he would always just be called "Mr. President". Marvel broke this rule with a few appearances by Barack Obama in which he's referred to by name. DC went the opposite route in 2000 when Lex Luthor was elected president. Ever since then, the president in the DCU has always been a fictional character, which obviously allows them to do whatever they want with him. Until the New 52, which had Bush (at the end of the first arc of Justice League) and later Obama.
• An issue of The Avengers has Captain America speaking via viewscreen with Jimmy Carter.
• In Black Summer, the protagonist — a renegade superhero called John Horus — brutally kills President George W. Bush and his colleagues for sending America into the second Iraq war. Bush is seen dead on the cover of issue 0.
• In Buck Danny, both Kennedy and Reagan appear on panel, the latter being actually referred to by name (which by the way makes Comic-Book Time harder than ever to swallow as the main characters did not noticeably age between both stories).
• A double-sized issue of Captain America has Cap (in his alternate guise as USAgent) trying to stop a Serpent Society plot to contaminate the drinking water of Washington D.C. with a chemical that turns people into Lizard Folk. Cap ends up at the White House, where he gets attacked by a reptilian Reagan. When the effects of the toxin wear off, Ron is dazed and confused, but otherwise unharmed.
• Richard Nixon appears in a relatively early issue of Daredevil, specifically identified as Nixon.
• Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt play a fairly large role in the adult comic Doc Dare.
• During the Crisis Crossover Millennium (1988) Ronald Reagan is depicted as the President and First Lady Nancy has been murdered and replaced by a Manhunter!
• Played with in the Runaways/Young Avengers Secret Invasion (2008) crossover miniseries. During the final battle against Chrell, Speed grabs Molly Hayes and Klara Prast and dumps them somewhere far away from the fighting. Klara looks around and suddenly exclaims "Mr. President!" It turns out they've been dropped off in front of Mt. Rushmore.
• The original run of Suicide Squad includes Ronald Reagan in a very prominent and extremely unflattering role in while he is portrayed as a charming but self-centered politician whose only concern is his own legacy and is fully willing to throw Amanda Waller under the bus to keep his own use of the Squad under wraps. However as mentioned above his name is never mentioned (unlike his Soviet counterpart Gorbachev, who is named explicitly in his appearances).
• Superman: Then-president Bill Clinton actually delivered the eulogy at Superman's funeral. His face was clearly visible, and Hillary was there, too.
  • In a less glamorous moment for Slick Willie, his Marvel Universe self also personally kicked Captain America out of the country after Cap had been accused of treason. Of course, once Cap's name was cleared, he welcomed him back.
  • Bill and Hillary also played a significant role in several issues of Supreme, and while he was never shown, Obama was mentioned in the revised 2013 series.
• The Transformers (Marvel): One UK issue had Optimus Prime and the Autobots seek an audience with Ronald Reagan. Optimus wanted to explain the Autobots' reason for being on Earth, but were attacked by Decepticons and retreated before their meeting could be concluded.

Fan Works

• ITS MY LIFE!: By the end of the first fan fiction "the President" appears to give most of the protagonists medals, but it is not revealed who he is. (And, because of the confusing writing, one would assume he is Cave Johnson.) By TEEN FORTRESS 2 we figure out that he is... Abraham Lincoln.

Film — Live-Action

• A clip of Ronald Reagan appeared in Alien Nation, the producers using the "If not us, who? If not now, when?" quote from his second inaugural address to reference the legislation that recognized the aliens as refugees (and future citizens).
• Another controversial use was in Contact where the filmmakers cut together and digitally altered footage of Bill Clinton to make it sound like he was talking about the extra-terrestrial message. The White House was not pleased since they felt that it could imply that the President co-operated with and supported this particular film.
• In a highly controversial exception, the mockumentary Death of a President digitally superimposes the face of George W. Bush onto an actor as he is killed by a sniper.
• National Lampoon's Senior Trip, which ostensibly takes place in the mid-1990s, depicts a fictional President who looks less like Bill Clinton and more like Franklin Roosevelt (minus the wheelchair).
• The Naked Gun:
  • In the first film, Queen Elizabeth II attends a baseball game, which turned out to be the setting for an assassination attempt.
  • The second film includes President Bush at a state dinner attended by Drebin.
• To Live and Die in L.A. had William Peterson as a Secret Service agent trying to take out a terrorist during a speech by President Reagan. We don't see him, as the scene takes place on a rooftop, but audio clips of "the Gipper" are played to make it seem like the speech is in progress. The President doesn't appear again, as the film is about the other job of the Secret Service: stopping counterfeiters.
• Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen: Director Galloway is explicitly described as President Obama's National Security Advisor and repeatedly states that he's acting on behalf of the president. He spends the whole film making bad decisions and butting heads with the military, making himself a Strawman Political of President Obama's defense policies.
• A photograph of Ronald Reagan was prominently displayed in the NORAD command room in WarGames. (probably there because it's Truth in Television — US federal government buildings usually display a photograph of the current President, as with the French example below — but admirers of the "Gipper" have accused the movie of Anviliciously cutting away to his picture every time the Defcon alert was raised.)
• In The X-Files: I Want to Believe, Mulder and Scully walk into a government office, where Mulder spies a picture of George W. Bush. He gives Scully a wide-eyed look. Cue the X-Files theme.

Literature

• The Queen is a major character in Roald Dahl's The BFG. Admittedly, she's never directly called Queen Elizabeth II... but in the animated version, she is drawn to look exactly like her.
• One of Robert Rankin's rather insane stories (his most common thread involves Elvis with a time-traveling sprout lodged in his head) features Prince Charles as a love interest for one of the semi-protagonists, including some quite surprising scenes...
• World War Z: Howard Dean, Colin Powell, Paris Hilton, Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, and Nelson Mandela are all described in such explicit detail as to leave no doubt who they mean, but characters go to great lengths to avoid naming them. Fidel Castro is mentioned by name, as the leader of Cuba who gives in to democracy — unfortunately, in a context from which actual history has marched on.

Live-Action TV

• A mockumentary in the UK featured footage of Tony Blair used to talk about a stock market crash.
• Tony Blair appeared as himself in a Comic Relief sketch of The Catherine Tate Show.
• In the Community episode "Intro to Political Science", the Vice President visiting the college is explicitly identified as Joe Biden, but we only see the back of his head and hear his voice.
• Canada's last two Prime Ministers, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper, both claim cameo appearances as themselves on Corner Gas. Many Canadian politicians have also been known to cameo in sketch comedy shows such as the Royal Canadian Air Farce.
• Doctor Who:
  • Historical presidents and prime ministers are usually accurate. The Eleventh Doctor has met both Richard Nixon and Winston Churchill, for instance.
  • Zig-zagged in "The End of Time," which identified the U.S. president as Barack Obama and used actual audio of him, but only showed him from the back or with his face obscured.
• Played with in For All Mankind. Richard Nixon is portrayed via stock footage, but there are also fictionalised 'Nixon tapes' of him discussing the situation with his staff. Later presidents have the same, usually involving phone conversations.
• In an episode of Hannah Montana the Obama girls are big fans of Hannah's (just like every other living person under 13) so she is visited by the president. He is shown only from the back and addresses her as "Miley." When Lily gasps "How did he know?" Miley brushes it off with "Well, he is leader of the free world. I think he can keep a secret."
• A first season episode of JAG used stock footage of Bill Clinton jogging through a park, edited to look like Harm, who was jogging the other way, passed him.
  • The second season opener starts with Bill Clinton presenting Harm with the Distinguished Flying Cross. Again stock footage was edited into the show.
  • In one episode, Bud Roberts carried the so-called "football" for George W. Bush, and archived footage of the President was used in the episode.
  • Stock footage of the presidents of the time were often seen in the background in the bullpen scenes. Later seasons featured regular background footage of then-SECDEF Donald Rumsfeld.
• In The Jeffersons (season 4, George and Jimmy) President Carter was invited by George Jefferson to stay at his house.
• Averted in two ways in Lie to Me. The show has a habit of using still images of famous people to illustrate whatever emotion they're talking about, and a solid majority of these seem to be recent US Presidents (as well as Presidential candidates and Vice Presidents). In addition, President Obama has been referred by name to at least twice so far by the characters in the show.
• This was deliberately set up and then subverted in the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics. Given how many portrayals of the Queen in fiction are limited to a shot from behind of a (usually voiceless) grey-haired head in a pastel pink hat, with a corgi trotting around nearby, when Daniel Craig-as-James Bond walks down a Buckingham palace corridor and steps through a door, that's precisely what he seems to be met with. Then she turns around, and it's the real deal. And There Was Much Rejoicing. (There were seditious rumours that it may not have been the actual Queen who followed Bond in parachuting out of a helicopter into the stadium, however.)
• Real footage of Prince Charles was used and redubbed for the finale of Look Around You, to make it look like Prince Charles was actually presenting the Look Around You Award. They even go so far as to make him express an interest in a sex-change device and later get attacked by a mad scientist with a skin spray.
• Mr. Robot prominently features footage of President Obama using out-of-context and/or dubbed dialogue to make it seem like he's commenting on events in the series.
• "Murphy Brown": Then-Vice President Dan Quayle made a real-world comment about declining family values due to the character of Murphy having become a single mother on prime-time television. The next episode featured archival footage of Quayle with the characters treating his remarks as something that happened in-universe.
  • Another episode used footage of George Bush Sr. with dubbed lines to portray Murphy in the White House press room.
• NCIS steamrolled this trope in their first episode. The president getting who enters Air Force One is, to all intents and purposes, George W. Bush in practically every respect. He's actually played by Steve Bridges who certainly isn't unfamiliar with playing the role. Archive footage of GWB is also used in the series, such as one of him getting into a helicopter as the NCIS learn of an attempt to take down the helicopter.
• Zig-zagged in The New Statesman, which featured Margaret Thatcher as an occasional character, but always found excuses to hide her face.
• Footage of Blair and Bush appeared in an episode of Spooks about a state visit of the latter.
• A Season 1 episode of Third Watch had Hillary Clinton, then the first lady, walking past the main police officers en route to a debate with Republican Rudolph Giuliani during the 2000 Senate campaign.
• While the actual president never appeared in The X-Files, a large photo of Bill Clinton was clearly visible in Skinner's office throughout several seasons. However, no pictures of George W. Bush ever appeared after his election.
• Obviously averted in Veep once Selena becomes President.
• Margaret Thatcher famously appeared as herself in a sketch she wrote for Yes, Minister.
  • When the Prime Minister is the main character, you can't very well keep him invisible, and hence Yes, Prime Minister averts this trope.

Theatre

• In Sammy J's 2023 show Good Hustle, then current Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appears via video insert to offer Coach the job of Australian Ambassador to the United States.

Video Games

• Infamously in Bad Dudes: If you are a bad enough dude to save him, President "Ronnie" will treat you to a hamburger.
• Duke Nukem 3D's expansion pack Duke It Out in D.C. had what was for all intents and purposes Bill Clinton, tied to a chair and kept in stasis at the end of the game. Clinton and Janet Reno both appear in framed photographs in the Atomic Edition's 4th episode, as well.
• An unnamed fictional President appears in the intro of MadWorld, explaining the government's response to the situation on Varrigan City.
• While he is never named, President Obama can be clearly seen in photographs on the wall of Konrad's penthouse in Spec Ops: The Line.
• A fictional US President, whose name is never mentioned, is clearly visible in World in Conflict cutscenes.

Webcomics

• Hilariously subverted in Grrl Power, as seen when Sydney barges into a teleconference with the Commander in Chief. She first recognizes Barack Obama by his voice, before turning around.

Western Animation

• The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, "Reptiles in the Rose Garden": While the President and First Lady are not named (and only referred to as "Mrs./The President"), the First Lady is a striker for the late Barbara Bush, and, although seen only from the back, the President is clearly meant to represent George H.W. Bush.
• Bill Clinton ended up with quite a bit of animated screen time in Animaniacs, Freakazoid! and Pinky and the Brain as the current President. (Prior series Tiny Toon Adventures used Abraham Lincoln as a generic President). Al Gore doesn't get quite as much, but he does show up a few times. Of course, this isn't quite the actual image, merely an animated version several times.
  • Bill Clinton is in the opening credits of Animaniacs, with the line "Bill Clinton plays the sax."
  • Of course, an exception for Tiny Toons was the Very Special Episode about Media Watchdogs, where the cast went to the capitol to pick on the Bush administration in person (the highlight was, of course, Quayle).
• Arthur had a Bill Clinton-like President in one episode, and a George W. Bush-like one in another. In a 2015 episode, a President character appears with a Barack Obama-like skin complexion.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: Plastic Man doesn't recognize President Obama at the end of "Cry Freedom Fighters!"
• On The Cleveland Show, Cleveland initially does not realize that the Barry Obama he beat at basketball as a child grew up to be President.
• The Fairly Oddparents had two episodes which had the President appear as a minor character. One episode had him look similar to then-President George W. Bush as well as having a Texan accent but he was never named. Another episode had him dressed as George Washington, saying he's going for a "retro look". This was probably done to avoid dating the episode but he still had the Texan accent which strongly implies they're still Bush.
• Family Guy has never shied away from portraying sitting Presidents, having done so with Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
• In an episode of The Flintstones, Fred dreams of teaching a prehistoric version of LBJ (and some of his Cabinet) "The Twitch."
• Al Gore, then-Vice President, appeared as himself in Futurama in 2000. He reappeared 3 years later as his future self, "Al Gore, First emperor of the moon and Inventor of the Environment."
  • Al Gore's daughter just happens to be a writer for Futurama...
  • And of course, the President of Earth in 3000 is Richard Nixon's Head.
  • In a flashback to Fry's childhood, a young Barack Obama appears working as a delivery boy at the same pizza parlor Fry would later work at (before being frozen).
• A fictional president bearing a passing resemblance to George Bush appears in Justice League, albeit in a parallel universe run by the Justice Lords, who now decide when (or if) elections are held. Played straighter in Unlimited, where in the aftermath of the Watchtower being overridden and firing on Earth, J'onn receives a call from the President, who is not clearly shown.
• Unusual variant in the 1953 Looney Tunes cartoon "Ant Pasted": Elmer Fudd has been deliberately targeting an anthill with firecrackers. War is declared on him by an ant version of Harry Truman.
• British Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared as himself in an episode of The Simpsons in 2004, becoming the first serving leader to do so.
• South Park, in accordance to its Equal-Opportunity Offender and Ripped from the Headlines philosophy of satire, has also averted this trope, having addressed Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama both by name and on-screen during its run. One prominent exception to this is Donald Trump, who was substituted with Mr. Garrison in an episode satirizing the 2015 Republican primary as they didn't expect Trump to actually become President a year later. His surprise victory forced them to keep using Garrison instead of Trump himself.

Other

• French films or live-action TV are an inversion of this trope. In France, every police station and town hall is required to display the official portrait of the current president. And during the last half-century, every president had a very long term (the mandate was originally seven years, and Mitterrand was able to run two full mandates). So, it is very common in French films or live-action TV to display the president's portrait, even if the show is about people way too unimportant to deal with the actual president.
• The same holds true in several countries with regimes at least nominally modeled on that of France. This is most especially common in the Middle East, where semi-presidential authoritarian regimes abound; the portrait of Hosni Mubarak in particular became famous across the Arab world because of all the Egyptian musalsalat in which the characters have to go to a government office only to stare at his mug hanging over the head of some petty official.
• Every diplomatic mission of the United States has a portrait of the President, Vice President, and Secretary of State; very often this is at the security checkpoint. So if you go into the gatehouse of the American Embassy pretty much anywhere, you will, as you empty your pockets and submit to scanning, be treated to the smiling faces of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

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