The first rule of thumb most comedians learn is that the funniest jokes usually have a grain of truth to them. Sadly, as the left becomes more and more anti-comedy, the job of comedians to make us laugh and forget about real life for a bit has become a whole lot harder. Even American icons like “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) in recent years have gone the way of other late-night shows: nothing more than left-wing mouthpieces that are no longer funny. But it’s Maya Rudolph’s portrayal of Kamala Harris and Dana Carvey adding another president to his repertoire as Joe Biden that may have SNL leading the charge to make America funny again.
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For most of us old enough to remember, our first SNL president was Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford. Chase took an incident in June of 1975, where Ford stumbled down the last few stairs getting off Air Force One in Australia and took it up several notches. Chase amplified Ford into a bumbling character who would destroy his surroundings anywhere he was. As a pre-teen at that time, I had yet to understand that most of the fun poked at Ford by Chase was to turn Republicans, in general, into clumsy Gerald Fords.
The next comedy rule of thumb has to be that even something that is years old can still make you laugh. SNL is a treasure trove of gems like that, but in the case of presidential parodies, two stand out: Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton making a stop at a McDonald’s while he is supposed to be jogging and Dana Carvey as George H.W. Bush. As Hartman/Clinton enters McDonald’s, Kevin Nealon, as one of Clinton’s Secret Service agents, begs him not to tell “Mrs. Clinton” they let him go into a fast food restaurant. You know the whole skit is going to be gold when “Clinton” replies, “Jim, let me tell you something, there’s gonna be a whole bunch of things we don’t tell Mrs. Clinton. Fast food is the least of our worries!” Clinton walks through the restaurant, eating customers’ food as he explains his foreign policy. For any long-time viewer of SNL, Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton is a classic.
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But parodies that introduce slang into the American vocabulary stand out the most. That would have to be Dana Carvey’s portrayal of George H.W. Bush. Carvey’s exaggerated hand gestures and phrases like “wouldn’t be prudent” and “notgadait” (not gonna do it) became a part of pop culture. Carvey’s portrayal of Bush 41 even made him an unlikely friend, Bush himself, who reportedly loved Carvey’s impression of him.
SNL took a left turn during the Obama and Trump years. They went relatively easy on Obama, but when it came to Donald Trump, known Trump hater Alec Baldwin got the nod to portray him. It was mildly amusing, but Baldwin is not a comic by trade, and he couldn’t mask his disdain for Trump. These are not the best ingredients for a good parody.
But SNL must have gotten the memos that no one thought they were funny anymore, and fortunately, they have, at least until election time, decided to fix that. My colleague Nick Arama has been reporting on the fact that at SNL, Democrats no longer appear to be off-limits. SNL alum Maya Rudolph is playing Kamala Harris, word salads and all, and once again, Dana Carvey brings the SNL gold as Joe Biden. We’ve been treated to a hilarious “Family Feud” skit and another gem where “Joe” gives up the coup plot to remove him, saying, “I didn’t want to (quit the race)! They made me!” Where SNL might have gone squishy on Democrats in recent years, that is certainly not the case right now.
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Will SNL keep going back to what made presidential parodies funny in the first place and make fun of everybody? We’ll see. If Kamala Harris wins, not much will be funny. If Trump wins, Trump Derangement Syndrome may once again be the order of the day at SNL.