‘A jerkier cartoon version of me’: Inspired by Larry David, Donny Deutsch finds his sitcom self

As an ad executive in the 1980s and ‘90s, Donny Deutsch created daring campaigns, delivered provocative quotes to journalists on demand and never met a TV camera he didn’t like.

When Deutsch landed his own CNBC talk show, one top media executive at another network described it as “pretty good, but it seems like an awfully expensive way to meet women.”

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where Deutsch regularly holds court as a contributor, he’s been called out for posing on Instagram wearing what co-host Willie Geist calls “Baby Gap T-shirts.”

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“I don’t know if he’d take this is as a compliment, but in many ways he’s in the same league as Donald Trump,” said “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough. “He’s a guy who’s had incredible success. At the same time people like to poke and jab at him, even his good friends.”

Deutsch, 57, knows that his image as an iron-pumping, media-savvy rogue can make him a ripe target for mockery. So he’s decided to do it himself as the star of his own sitcom, “Donny!” which premieres Tuesday on USA Network.

“It’s a jerkier cartoon version of me,” he said during a break from filming the show at his six-story town house on Manhattan’s East Side. “It’s been fun to make fun of myself, the media and wealth.”

Deutsch plays a fictionalized version of himself as the host of a syndicated daytime program, also called “Donny!” — a salacious, low-rent version of “Dr. Phil.” Every episode opens with Deutsch offering wisdom to a guest on his set. He then proceeds to ignore those rules in his own life.

“He is far more flawed than the people he advises,” said Deutsch, who served as a panelist on an advice segment on NBC’s “Today” called “The Professionals.” Another contributor to that segment, who did not practice what he preached, gave Deutsch the idea for the character.

The problems that the fictional Deutsch runs into on “Donny!” are often amplified by social-media gaffes. As an aging bad boy, he has trouble navigating such contemporary conventions as sexting, manscaping, sexual identity and racial sensitivity. He also regularly locks horns with his talk-show producer (played by comic and actress Emily Tarver) and his three assistants.

Deutsch enlisted many of his New York media pals such as Scarborough, “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, “E! News” anchor Maria Menounos and “Today” show stars Matt Lauer, Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford to play themselves on “Donny!” Some of them chronicle Deutsch’s mishaps, which can escalate from a text into fodder for talk shows and tabloids. “All of these genres trip over each other, which is kind of what our world is right now,” said Deutsch.

Much of the action is shot inside Deutsch’s luxurious home, purchased for $21 million and filled with pieces by Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Damien Hirst and other contemporary artists. A well-equipped gym where he works out with 70-pound dumbbells figures prominently in several episodes. Love scenes (including one with a woman who fantasizes about Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly during sex) play out in his actual bedroom just adjacent to the walk-in closets and highly organized shelves that house a vast collection of shoes, designer suits and signature tight-fitting tees.

The rise of the Queens, N.Y. native began in the mid-1980s with a job at his father’s agency, David Deutsch Associates, which specialized in print ads for small upscale clients. The younger Deutsch eventually took over the sedate shop, shortened the name to Deutsch Inc., and oversaw the creation of enough breakthrough TV commercials to be invited to the ad team that worked on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. Two years later, Deutsch shook up the marketing world when his agency produced a groundbreaking spot for the furniture store chain IKEA that included a gay male couple shopping together.

Deutsch continued to rack up new accounts while feeding on the attention and sold his agency to the Interpublic Group in 2000 for $275 million. While he continued as chairman, his ease with the spotlight earned him a shot at hosting his own CNBC talk show “The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch,” which focused on business success stories, and regular appearances on the first few seasons of “The Apprentice” with Trump. After his CNBC show ended, he was offered a chair on the ABC series “Shark Tank” but turned it down. He has no regrets.

“If I did it, I would have been entrepreneur boy the rest of my life,” he said. “And I’m not a shark.”

But pitching a comedy show with himself as the star was considered nervy, even for Deutsch, who is the author of a book titled “Often Wrong, Never in Doubt.”

“We all said, ‘Sure, buddy,’” said Scarborough.

Yet USA Network President Chris McCumber said he bought the idea off the short presentation tape Deutsch financed jointly with production company Left/Right. “The key to his character is he’s the butt of all the jokes,” McCumber said. “I said, ‘If he can do this in a series why not give it a try?’”

Inspired by Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” much of “Donny!” is improvised. He develops the stories with co-executive producer and writer Angie Day, who provides the show with a strong female point of view to counterbalance Deutsch’s absurdly confident character.

“The women on the show usually have the upper hand with me and I often get the short end of the stick,” said the twice-divorced father of three.

Deutsch also puts his advertising skills to work in the show. There are moments on “Donny!” where he goes into a trance-like state and does a product pitch straight into the camera.

It’s a throwback to the cast commercials of the 1950s and ‘60s. Advertisers such as vacuum-maker Dyson, Purity Vodka and online retailer Overstock.com have signed up to get in-program plugs in the six-episode series.

“We’re always looking for ways to innovate and this is old-school innovation,” said McCumber. “When he said he wanted to do this in every episode we said, ‘Why not?’ It’s also funny.”

Deutsch’s friends are happy to partake in the show. Although it is fiction, they do suggest their reactions to the antics on “Donny!” have some basis in reality.

“In the second year of ‘Morning Joe’ he said something so horribly inappropriate to me that he came back the next day with a pair of Louboutins as an apology — which is horribly unself-aware in itself,” said Brzezinski. “But I took the shoes.”

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‘Donny!’

Where: USA

When: 10:30 p.m. Tuesday

Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14)

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