If you're of a certain age and you see a headline that reads "SCOTT BAIO TO SPEAK AT REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION," you're liable to be struck by a certain feeling. I don't know if there's a word for that feeling, though it may be a distant cousin to the one my grandparents felt when they saw that Ronald Reagan was running for governor of California—in the same way that Chachi Arcola was a distant cousin to the Fonz. If, however, you are not of a certain age, you may be wondering: Who the fuck is Scott Baio and why should I care?

I'm glad you asked.

You may remember him as Bob Loblaw from Arrested Development:

Or perhaps as an early absurdist South Park reference point:

But Baio's c.v. runs far deeper than that.

Along with the likes of Leif Garrett, David and Shaun Cassidy, and Matt Dillon, Scott Baio was in the elite rank of teen idols in the 1970s, bursting off the pages of Tiger Beat, Teen Beat, 16, and Dynamite week after week after week.

You couldn't call Baio's variation of the classic heartthrob pin-up look androgynous, or even especially pretty (unlike the other names I mentioned), but he was skinny and feathered and had a certain got-discovered-hanging-out-at-the-Hot-Dog-On-A-Stick affect that differentiated him from the rest of the lads. He was more accessible. He was a little more common, more runt of the litter, the TV one. To the girls at my elementary school, he was it. One look at this or this or this (or this or this or this or this) will easily tell you why.

How, then, did a teen idol make his way into the corridors of power and prestige? More to the point, what is it about this Scott Baio character that makes Donald J. Trump want him to represent the quest to make America great again?

The answer might be found below:

Baio's acting career began auspiciously, alongside Jodie Foster (gold standard of child actors), with the title role in a stylistically innovative, genuinely bizarre kids musical:

This led, quite naturally, to a cereal commercial:

Early film work tended to emphasize his teen idol associations:

Skatetown U.S.A. (Baio commands the screen as Richie, a naive rollerskater's ambitious, streetwise personal manager, 7:59-9:12)

But 1980 saw Baio expanding his range, and exploring the dark side of substance abuse in a pair of hard-hitting made for TV movies, The Boy Who Drank Too Much...

... And Stoned, in which Baio appears as a bookish young man who tries smoking pot and as a result, nearly loses everything (including his brother, whom he almost kills in a canoe paddle accident that will resonate with all weed smokers).

(He would revisit these themes in 1984's Schoolbreak Special, All the Kids Do It.)

For insight into what was going on in Baio's mind as his star rose and rose, you might care to consult this 1980 interview, videotaped live at the Cavalcade of Customs Automobile Show in Cincinnati, where Baio was making a guest appearance.

All this culminated in Baio's landing the role of a lifetime, as Chachi Arcola, cousin to Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli, on the hit comedy Happy Days, in 1982.

Once Baio had hit the big time, it was only a matter of time before some shrewd producer would recognize Baio's potential as a romantic lead on the silver screen, and that's exactly what happened in 1982's Zapped, in which Baio plays a regular guy who acquires telekinetic powers and uses them to see tons of naked girls.

As Happy Days wound to a close, it was like a no-brainer to create a spin-off about Baio and Erin Moran's characters making a go of things as professional singers:

Joanie Loves Chachi, “You Look at Me”

And a no-brainer is precisely what it was, but nothing gold can stay, and as all great stars must, Baio knew he'd have to prove himself as the leading man on a show of his own. Enter the male nanny world of Charles in Charge, which was born in 1984 as a network sitcom...

...and continued until 1990 in (very lucrative) first-run syndication when it was cancelled after one season.

It would, however, be a mistake to think that Baio was just an actor, or just a model. Consider his work as a singer...

"How Do You Talk to Girls"

“Woman, I Love Only You”

‪Scott Baio Sings "What Was In That Kiss" on Merv Griffin, 1982‬

...and indeed, as an athlete:

Battle of the Network Stars vs. Gregory Harrison

...as a Master of Ceremonies:
1983 Saturday Morning Preview

...and as a Special Guest Star on this early ancestor of reality TV:
Friday Night Surprise Show

All this may provide just a glimpse of what Donald Trump saw in Baio that led to him being tapped to speak tonight at the Republican National Convention. It is, of course, also possible that Trump met Baio at a fundraiser, remembered how famous he used to be, heard how many hot, famous women he has fucked, considered how no reputable celebrities will have anything to do with his presidential campaign, and thought, what the hell, let's get this guy—we can't do any worse!

But don't take my word for it. There's also this 1994 clip of Baio being interviewed by Howard Stern, with special focus on just a few of the famous women of whom he has intimate knowledge. Baio tells Stern that he's so notorious around the set of Baywatch, his friend as taken to calling it "BAIO-watch."

America just doesn't get any greater.