Woody from 'Toy Story' reminds Sean Spicer he has a friend in the White House
Oscar Wilde once said that life imitates art more often than the reverse.
Proving that's true empirically might be tough, but Sean Spicer doesn't need to anymore. He can rely on personal experience.
The same day the former White House press secretary was quickstepping to "You've Got a Friend," as he recreated the character of Woody from Disney's "Toy Story" franchise on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" -- he was getting a reminder of who his own pals are.
One of them is President Trump, who took time out from his 2020 re-election campaign to urge TV viewers to vote for his former "good guy" employee; another is the actor Scott Baio, who gained fame in the 1970s playing Fonzi's cousin Chachi on "Happy Days." Both leveraged their Twitter followings -- Trump's totals more than 62 million -- on the politico's behalf.
Spicer, who launched a thousand memes as press secretary and was satirized by the comedian Melissa McCarthy on "Saturday Night Live," has taken plenty of Twitter barbs since his network television debut -- as well as a few pointed critiques from "Dancing With the Stars" judges.
The reviewers gave him a thumbs-up, however, for Monday's performance, which the 48-year-old dedicated to his father, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2016. The performance earned Spicer and partner Lindsay Arnold their best score yet, 19 out of 30 points.
Woody isn't the first movie character to inspire Spicer. Earlier this season, he donned a knockoff of the iconic white leisure suit that John Travolta wore while playing disco prince Tony Manero in 1977's "Saturday Night Fever."
While the judges were far less complimentary about that effort, copying Travolta was a far higher hurdle -- he was less than half Spicer's age when he filmed the movie, and he possessed an energy that Chicago Tribune movie critic Gene Siskel compared to a "peacock on amphetamines."