SALT LAKE CITY — A clip from an old Western series called “Trackdown” has gone viral for having a character named Walter Trump who wants to build a wall.
What happened: In the clip, the Trump character, who is billed as a con artist, says he can stop the end of the world by building a wall.
Alex Hirsch shared the clip Wednesday night. Since then, it has received more than 40,000 likes.
The clip shows Trump, played by Lawrence Dobkin, calling for a wall to stop a “cosmic explosion.”
Connections: There are other connections to President Donald Trump, according to News.com: “For one thing, the TV character threatens to sue Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman for insulting him. Sound familiar? That’s because Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to sue anything and everything that’s portrayed him in an unflattering light, including U.S. media outlets, nonprofit organizations and the nearly dozen women who accused him of sexual assault in 2016.”
- The Walter Trump character even says, “I am the only one. Trust me. I can build a wall around your homes that nothing will penetrate. You ask how do you build that wall. You ask, and I’m here to tell you.”
This draws immediate comparisons to Trump’s “I alone can fix it” speech.
Fact check: Snopes.com reported that the clip is real. The episode, called “The End of the World,” aired in 1958 on CBS.
- A representative of MeTV, which airs reruns of the show, told Snopes.com the show is real.
Full description: Classic TV archive offered a description of the episode, which you can read below.
- “Ranger Hoby Gillman is on the trail of the notorious Marple Brothers and their gang wanted for murder and robbery. He tracks them to the town of Stockton, Texas, and finds that the outlaws are holding women and children hostages in the local church. He must take the Marple Brothers without endangering the townspeople's lives.”