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Fireworks — tick. Political theatre — tick.
Eye-rolling, finger-pointing, forced chuckles, big grins — yes, this was the spectacle Americans tuned in for.
It's also the reason they dislike these candidates.
The 12 key moments
Missed the debate? Recap the key moments — like when Mr Trump blamed the democrats for creating Islamic State.
Both hammered each other on their failings. It went on and on until the finale — Hillary Clinton's brutal, calculated and strategic assault in the final minutes of the evening.
"Pigs, slobs and dogs," she said Donald Trump had variously called women. Then she went on to claim he had attacked Alicia Machado, a beauty contestant as "Miss Piggy" and "the housekeeper because she's Latino". Simultaneously on Twitter the Clinton campaign rolled out a new ad featuring — you guessed it — Ms Machado.
This works in Mrs Clinton's favour. Mr Trump has a long list of insults and outrageous statements including his five years of support for birtherism — denying the first black US president was born in the US — a blatant "racist lie", she called it.
That takes care of the two demographics that she has in her corner in large numbers — minorities and college educated women — two groups Mr Trump needs if he has any chance of winning the White House.
In the first debate Mr Trump stuck to script, but didn't advance his case. He was meant to come out presidential and calm, but after the first 10 minutes was anything but. Yes, he attacked Mrs Clinton over her emails and her record in the Middle East while highlighting his plans for the economy and creating jobs.
But he also repeatedly interrupted her and failed to land a significant blow.
Afterwards Mr Trump, with wife Melania beside him, told me he did "really well" adding: "With her it's all talk, nothing happens, all talk and nothing happens, nothing ever happens."
His campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, following behind him, told me: "I wasn't surprised she went there (on sexism). Her entire campaign has been gutter politics, sewer type of messages, it's very disappointing to the public that she spent over $US200 million ($260 million) on negative advertising."
Except those negative ads feature almost entirely the words of only one person — Mr Trump.
Opinion: Clinton unties Gordian knot
Hillary Clinton showed she is the candidate who is more capable to assume the presidency, writes Bruce Wolpe.
Mrs Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook told me that they thought she had a "knock out performance".
"This (Donald Trump) was the one we feared and the one the American people should fear. He's a bully, who lacks the temperament to make good judgements and who is woefully unprepared to be our next commander-in-chief," she said.
So much was riding on this debate for Mr Trump, who needs this free TV to decisively advance his case. As I've mentioned before — he is behind in money and so has effectively conceded the airwaves to Mrs Clinton's ads and he's also behind on ground game so needs to inspire more people to become his volunteers.
All that means is Mrs Clinton is likely to keep her lead in the polls for now. They'll go at it again in two weeks time.
Dave R.
