Back in 1997, with his series “Dharma & Greg,’’ TV writer-producer Chuck Lorre started featuring “vanity cards’’ at the tail end of his sitcoms, which have included “Two and a Half Men,’’ “The Big Bang Theory,’’ and “Mom.’’ The cards generally include Lorre’s random thoughts about anything from Jackie Gleason and the Oscars to the death of Leonard Nimoy and his rocky relationship with “Two and a Half Men’’ star Charlie Sheen.
A Hillary Clinton supporter, he has also used the vanity cards to vent his political frustrations. After the Nov. 10 episodes of “Mom’’ and “The Big Bang Theory,’’ the first ones after the election, his card read only “Uh-oh.’’
Lorre’s little pieces flash on the screen for but a moment, but thanks to an invention known as the VCR, viewers in the 1990s could pause that moment in order to read. Now, the cards have gained enough attention to merit their own Facebook page, and Lorre has archived all of them on his website www.chucklorre.com.
I mention them because last Thursday, at the end of “Mom,’’ Lorre ran a vanity card that made me laugh out loud. It was a comic open letter to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange — whom he addresses as “Julie baby,’’ “boychick,’’ “bubelah,’’ and “J-man’’ — asking him to do to Donald Trump what he did to Clinton during the election.
“You promised to use the Internet to expose and bring down all the corrupt bastards ruining our world, and boy did you almost follow through,’’ Lorre writes. Now, he says, it’s time to start hacking around to find material that will sink Trump: “The tax returns, the out-takes, maybe even some freaky-deaky . . . beauty pageant video action. . . . If you wanna be a cyber Fidel, or a digital Che, or a virtual Ho, you’ve gotta stop stuffing your face with arroz con pollo and get to work.’’
He urged Assange “go all Talking Heads on this situation’’ and burn down the house. He signed the letter, “Hugs to Vlad,’’ a joke about Assange’s links to Vladimir Putin and Russia.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.
