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Madame Tussauds Made A Meme About The Trump Robot & It’s Such An Epic Burn

by Virginia Chamlee
Mario Tama/Getty Images News/Getty Images

A renowned wax museum threw some serious shade on Wednesday when Madame Tussauds made a meme about the Trump Disney robot. Disney unveiled its Donald Trump robot at the Hall of Presidents, and it's been garnering a lot of criticism for its likeness. But with just one tweet, the wax museum's Orlando branch scathingly compared its own Trump figure to Disney's likeness of the president.

"Me at the start of 2017 vs me now," wrote Tussaud's, along with side-by-side photos of its own Trump wax figure and Disney's rather questionable depiction.

The Hall of Presidents' robotic Trump figure was unveiled at Magic Kingdom on Tuesday. Almost immediately, people took to Twitter to talk about the the figure's face — some called it "nightmarish," while others said it looked like someone else entirely (Jon Voight, perhaps, or even Hillary Clinton). Some theorized that the president's animatronic figurine was designed to look terrible as an insult as an insult, though there's been no proof that this is the case.

Madame Tussaud's unveiled its own depiction of the president in 2017 — a version that looked nearly identical to the real person. Its tweet elicited replies from hundreds of Twitter users, who tweeted their own memes and gifs in response to the shade (and hilarity) of the museum. Others agreed that the burn was absolutely necessary, writing that the museum was "savage" and had fired shots at Disney with the dig.

Disney's Magic Kingdom has operated its Hall of Presidents attraction — which features talking and moving robotic versions of all U.S. presidents — since 1971. The decision to include Trump in the attraction angered many, however, some of whom launched a petition seeking to silence the animatronic altogether.

Ultimately, Disney announced it would include Trump despite the controversy. The Trump robot not only looks (sort of) like Donald Trump, but it speaks, too. Like every sitting president in recent decades, Trump recorded the audio himself. Of course, the Internet quickly dubbed over the speech from the Hall of Presidents with actual audio of Trump, such as his now-infamous Access Hollywood interview and a speech in which he called Mexicans "rapists."

Although it's clearly meant to troll Disney, the Tussaud's tweet also pokes a bit of fun at Trump himself. The "me at the start of 2017 vs me now" meme has become a popular vehicle to encapsulate how terrible the year was for many (largely because of the 2016 election). Many of the memes focus specifically on election day, offering photos of what people looked like on election day 2016 versus election day 2017.

The joke, of course, is that the person pictured in the 2016 photo is well-coiffed, sophisticated, and put together. By 2017, they've gotten a bit more rough around the edges. At press time, the Madame Tussaud's tweet had already been re-tweeted more than 2,000 times, and received more than 5,800 likes.