Tanner ’88, now streaming on HBO Max, helped pave the way for The West Wing

The A.V. Club

HBO's Garry Trudeau-created, Robert Altman-directed 1988 political mockumentary series portrayed a Democrat's fictional run for president. "In 2020, Tanner ’88 frequently plays like a time capsule of an analog, monocultured time in American politics, when the evening news was more prominent than Twitter," says Vikram Murthi. "However, you can plainly see the influence the series has had on pop culture’s depiction of campaign politics. For one thing, the larger ensemble is filled with now archetypal figures: the veteran campaign manager (Pamela Reed), the overeager media consultant (Daniel Jenkins), the resident statistician (Jim Fyfe), the ditzy assistant turned fiercely competent aide (Ilana Levine), the cameraman with arty ambitions (Matt Molloy), and so forth. This extends to Tanner ’88’s depiction of the press as hangers-on eager for the latest scoop, inextricably tied to access and the fickle whims of the campaign, desperate to psychoanalyze candidates when there’s no other information available. The West Wing, though more transparently idealistic, simply does not exist without this series."