Tanner '88 is a political mockumentary miniseries written by Garry Trudeau and directed by Robert Altman. First broadcast by HBO during the months leading up to the 1988 U.S. presidential election, it purports to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the campaign of fictitious former Michigan U.S. Representative Jack Tanner, played by Michael Murphy, during his bid to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States.

The story is told from a number of different points of view, including Tanner, his campaign staff, the small army of news reporters that constantly follow the candidate, and volunteers. Many political figures of the time appear (some in cameos, some extended), including Bruce Babbitt, Bob Dole, Kitty Dukakis, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, and Pat Robertson. Trudeau and Altman revisited the story 16 years later in Tanner on Tanner.

Plot summary

Former U.S. Representative Jack Tanner of Michigan (Michael Murphy) is an obscure liberal Democratic politician who struggles to find a voice in the early 1988 Democratic primaries. His campaign manager, T.J. Cavanaugh (Pamela Reed), uses an unscripted, impassioned hotel-room speech caught on camera as part of an advertising campaign focusing on Tanner's authenticity and integrity. Using the slogan "For Real", Tanner emerges from a wide field of contenders to battle for the nomination against two high-profile and better-funded candidates: Jesse Jackson and eventual nominee Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.

With Tanner are his college-aged daughter Alexandra (Cynthia Nixon), whose illness was why he earlier left politics and who has left college for the duration of the campaign, and his girlfriend Joanna Buckley (Wendy Crewson), Dukakis' deputy campaign manager. Others who appear on camera are Emile Berkoff (Jim Fyfe), a compulsive statistician with a crush on Alexandra; Deke Conners (Matt Malloy), an East Village filmmaker hired to produce Tanner campaign ads; and Andrea Spinelli (Ilana Levine), T.J.'s innocent and ditzy but well-meaning assistant. The candidate's father, General John Tanner (E.G. Marshall), who has a contentious relationship with his son, also occasionally appears.

Although Tanner does not win the nomination, he does run a serious and credible race. The series ends on a cliffhanger after Dukakis officially becomes the Democratic candidate and Tanner considers a third party/independent run in '88.

Cast

  • Michael Murphy as Fmr. Michigan U.S. Congressman Jack Tanner
  • Pamela Reed as T.J. Cavanaugh
  • Cynthia Nixon as Alexandra "Alex" Tanner
  • Kevin J. O'Connor as Hayes Taggerty
  • Daniel Jenkins as Stringer Kincaid
  • Jim Fyfe as Emile Berkoff
  • Matt Malloy as Deke Conners
  • Ilana Levine as Andrea Spinelli
  • Sandra Bowie as Stevie Chevalier
  • Greg Procaccino as Barney Kittman
  • Veronica Cartwright as Molly Hart
  • Richard Cox as David Seidelman
  • Frank Barhydt as Frank Gattling
  • Wendy Crewson as Joanna Buckley
  • E.G. Marshall as U.S. Gen. John Tanner

Also appearing

  • Cleavon Little as The Reverend Billy Crier
  • Harry Anderson as Billy Ridenhour
  • John Considine as Duke Crodian
  • Robert Gerringer as Farmer Bob
  • Patricia Falkenhain as Mrs. Bob
  • Jeff Daniels as Park Ranger
  • David Allen Grier as Secret Serviceman
  • Ned Bellamy as Secret Serviceman
  • Julius Carry as Secret Serviceman
  • Cameron Thor as Secret Serviceman
  • Betty Lee Bogue as Quilt Show Owner
  • Stephen Altman as Rogan

Cameo appearances

  • Fmr. Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt as Self
  • Massachusetts First Lady Kitty Dukakis as Self
  • Fmr. Colorado U.S. Senator Gary Hart as Self
  • Kansas U.S. Senator Bob Dole as Self (uncredited)
  • The Reverend Jesse Jackson as Self (uncredited)
  • The Reverend Pat Robertson as Self (uncredited)
  • Waylon Jennings as Self
  • Danny Darst as Self
  • John Cowan as Self
  • Lorianne Crook as Self
  • Charlie Chase as Self
  • Rebecca De Mornay as Self
  • Linda Ellerbee as Self
  • Mary McGrory as Self
  • Chris Matthews as Self
  • Tom Brokaw as Self
  • Sidney Blumenthal as Self
  • Peter Edelman as Self
  • Bob Squier as Self
  • Dorothy Sarnoff as Self
  • Patricia Derian as Self
  • Lynne Russell as Self
  • Randall Robinson as Self
  • G. David Hughes as Self
  • Michigan Governor James J. Blanchard as Self
  • Connecticut U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker as Self
  • Texas U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland as Self
  • Massachusetts U.S. Congressman Ed Markey as Self
  • Fmr. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Hodding Carter III as Self
  • Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives Ed Murray as Self
  • Tennessee State Representative Lois DeBerry as Self
  • Tennessee State Representative Robert S. Stallings as Self
  • Tennessee State Representative Thomas C. Wheeler as Self
  • Joan Cushing as Self
  • New Grass Revival as Themselves
  • The Danny Darst Band as Themselves
  • Harlow as Themselves

Tanner's cabinet nominees

Several members of Tanner's prospective cabinet are mentioned, with several making statements to the press accepting the appointment should he become president. Those mentioned include:

  • Lee H. Hamilton, prospective Secretary of State (on-screen cameo)
  • Lee Iacocca, prospective Secretary of Defense
  • Ralph Nader, prospective Attorney General (on-screen cameo)
  • Robert Redford, prospective Secretary of the Interior
  • Jim Hightower, prospective Secretary of Agriculture
  • Studs Terkel, prospective Secretary of Labor (on-screen cameo)
  • Gloria Steinem, prospective Secretary of Health and Human Services (on-screen cameo)
  • Joan Claybrook, prospective Secretary of Transportation
  • Nicholas von Hoffman, prospective Chairman of the Federal Reserve
  • Barbara Jordan, prospective Ambassador to the United Nations
  • Art Buchwald, prospective Ambassador to France (on-screen cameo)

Episodes

Home media

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{| class="wikitable"

!DVD name!! align="center" | Release date!!Region!!Discs!!Episodes!!Bonus Features

|-

|Complete Series<br />Criterion Collection||October 5, 2004||1||2||11||

  • 2004 Sundance channel introductions
  • Essays by film critic Michael Wilmington and culture critic Gary Kornblau
  • A "video conversation" between Robert Altman and Garry Trudeau.

|}

The miniseries was produced and first broadcast on HBO, scheduled irregularly over the real-life seven-month campaigning period from February through August 1988.

In 2004, the Sundance Channel rebroadcast the series, adding new one- to two-minute preludes created by Trudeau and Altman to each episode "in which the actors reflect, in character, on the '88 campaign from the perspective of the present day". That October, Sundance produced a four episode sequel, Tanner on Tanner. In 2020, Tanner '88 was added to HBO Max. As of 2025, the series is also available for streaming through the Criterion Channel.

Production

The hybrid of fiction and reality that came to be the miniseries' trademark was initially accidental. Trudeau described the concept behind the miniseries as wanting to "let the audience feel they're eavesdropping, to create a sense of authenticity by observing the process, to follow campaign culture in all its tribal rites&mdash;not to make a topical movie about 1988."

Reception and influence

Reviews for the miniseries seem to improve over time. In one of the earliest reviews of the pilot episode, The New York Times called the show an "interesting misfire" that "insists too much on its own sophistication about politics". The same paper held the second episode in higher esteem, calling it "humorous cinéma vérité" that's "slick and occasionally witty". In its "Best of 1988" look at television, Time magazine called it: "the year's definitive satire of media politics".

In a 2003 review of K Street, the New York Daily News said "Tanner skewer[s] brilliantly the insanity and inanity of presidential politics". By 2004, Slate was saying:

In 2019, Murphy appeared as Jack Tanner in the documentary, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.

Awards

Altman won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series for the episode "The Boiler Room". Reed won an ACE Award for Best Actress in a Dramatic Series.

References

  • Tanner ’88: Robert Altman's Best, For Real an essay by Michael Wilmington at the Criterion Collection