SNL's Best Political Sketches
Saturday Night Live is probably better known for its less sophisticated brand of humor--who hasn't exchanged a reference to the Schweddy Balls skit, or Will Ferrell banging on a cowbell, at a party?--but there's another kind of SNL joke that endures particularly well in our cultural memory: The political one. In some cases, the four-decade-old institution has even tipped the scales of public opinion in one direction or another, as some say it did with Sarah Palin after Tina Fey's famous 2008 impersonation.
Sunday is the 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, so it seems an ideal time for Politico Magazine to take a look at the most influential, spot-on or just plain side-splitting political acts on the show. Here are some of our personal favorites.
First up: Tina Fey's Sarah Palin impressions in 2008. Not only was Fey's impression spot on--coupled with the fact, of course, that she has a striking natural resemblance to the former governor of Alaska--but it also had an impact. Research showsthat the impression actually damaged public perceptions of McCain's running mate, particularly among Republicans and Independents. Palin, after being painted as a gun-toting, intellectually empty Republican pin-up girl, would eventually make an appearance on the show herself. 'I know that they portrayed me as an idiot, and I hated that,' Palin said, according to the 2014 book Live From New York, 'and I wanted to come on the show and counter some of that.'
In the video above, Sarah Palin, played by Tina Fey, and Hillary Clinton, played by Amy Poehler, address the nation, primarily to discuss sexism. "I was so excited when I was told Senator Clinton and I would be addressing you tonight," Palin opens. "And I was told I would be addressing you alone," a resentful Clinton responds.
The earliest on this list, the sketch of Nixon's final days in the White House appeared in 1976, during the first season of SNL. Dan Aykroyd played the outgoing president, wandering around the Oval Office drunk and distraught, fuming to former presidents' portraits and close aides. "You--you, Kennedy, you always look so good. They're gonna find out about you someday--having sex, with women ... within these very walls," he says to a portrait of JFK. "That never happened when Dick Nixon was in the White House--never!"
Former Attorney General Janet Reno--tall and not exactly supermodel material (as male attorney generals, of course, so often are)--was a favorite target of Saturday Night Live. In the 1997 video above, Reno, played by Will Ferrrell, hosts a dance party with a group of high school students where she slow dances with Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. Clinton, played by Darrell Hammond, makes an appearance to plead with her to come back to Washington. "I want you to know that no one holds you responsible for the events that transpired at Waco," he reassures her with southern, Bubba-style slickness. "Waco? Dance party takes away Waco! Get out!" she fires back.
In this 1977 sketch, Walter Cronkite hosts a CBS radio series called "Ask President Carter," in which Dan Aykroyd plays a smoother-than-expected Jimmy Carter. When a 17-year-old constituent having a bad trip calls in, Carter stops Cronkite from disconnecting the call so he can "talk him down." "Were they barrel shaped?" Carter asks about the pills the caller took. "Uh, yes," the caller responds. "Okay, right, you did some orange sunshine, Peter." Carter goes onto recommend the Allman Brothers and to tell him "just mellow out the best you can, okay?"
Bush's "No New Taxes" opener was just one of several sketches that cemented Dana Carvey as the Bush impersonator.
In 1992, Phil Hartman played Slick Willie in one of the most famous Clinton sketches in the show's history. Flanked by two Secret Service officers, Hartman's Clinton stops by a McDonald's after a three-block jog and works the room, complimenting newborn babies and answering questions about foreign affairs. He answers a question about Somalia by demonstrating how any aid could unintentionally end up in the hands of warlords by sneaking his audience's fries, chicken nuggets, a milkshake, a BLT and a hot apple pie into his own mouth.
In October 2013, amid the government shutdown and the heyday of the Miley Cyrus song "We Can't Stop" SNL did a parody: "We Did Stop (The Government)." The video featured a John Boehner (played by Taran Killam) dressed in his underwear, copious amounts of gold jewelry and ultra-orange makeup. "If you're not ready for healthcare/Can I get a hell no," Miley Cyrus, dressed up as Michele Bachmann in a sexy blazer-and-skirt outfit, sings.
In 1986, Phil Hartman portrayed Ronald Reagan as an incompetent, mild-mannered old man who was secretly pulling all the strings in his administration behind closed doors.
In the 1992 presidential election, candidate Ross Perot's running mate Admiral James Stockdale had little experience--and less than a week's notice--before the vice presidential debate, in which he would be going up against seasoned political vets Al Gore and Dan Quayle. When asked for his opening statement, Stockdale famously asked: "Who am I? Why am I here?" The above video pokes fun at some of Stockdale's most ridiculed moments.
In "How a Bill Does Not Become a Law," a parody of the School House Rock cartoon, Kenan Thompson plays a bill (on Capitol Hill) that gets pushed over by Obama and bullied by his thug friend--who's dressed up as "Executive Action." Yep, it's the November 2014 executive amnesty order, decried by many of the president's critics as a near-monarchical abuse of power.
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