WASHINGTON – NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” has been an integral part of the fabric of late-night television for half a century and a consistent creator of classic political satire.
Between a stumbling Gerald Ford, coining George W. Bush’s “strategery” and nearly a decade of viral Donald Trump impersonations, the sketch variety show, which typically earns increased attention during presidential election years, has manufactured moments that have stood the test of time and may have influenced elections.
“[“SNL”] has become an institution,” William Horner, author of “Saturday Night Live and the 1976 Presidential Election” and a University of Missouri political science professor, said. “They have generated the expectation that they’re going to engage in campaigns, so everybody wants to see what they do.”
This year has been no exception, as “SNL” has caricatured President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump, GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance and Democratic vice presidential hopeful Tim Walz.
“There really is a focus with SNL, more than other comedy shows, on getting the impersonation right—making sure you’ve got the right cadence and appearance and really mimicking gestures and things like that,” said Amy Becker, a professor in the Department of Communication and Media at Loyola University Maryland who studies the impact of political comedy.
This season’s political skewering builds on a body of comic classics that are remembered perhaps longer than the real candidates.
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s take a look:
On Nov. 8, 1975, original cast member Chevy Chase debuted his impersonation of Ford, the Republican president at that time. Chase portrayed Ford as clumsy and incompetent, tripping and falling over podiums and crashing into desks. A month later, Ford fell down the stairs exiting an airplane, reinforcing Chase’s parody.
With Americans soon deciding between Ford and then-Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter for president, Ford’s campaign chose to lean into the show’s jokes. In April 1976, Ford became the first presidential candidate to appear on “SNL” – although only briefly in a pre-recorded cameo – to deliver the iconic line: “Live from New York! it’s Saturday night!”
Carter ultimately bested Ford in the 1976 presidential election.
“It was a very close election, and if you look at places where there were big audiences for ‘SNL’ and Carter did better than Ford, you can argue that there’s an impact there,” Horner said.
Though “SNL” has never publicly endorsed a candidate, Chase told a CNN reporter in 2008 that his hope in the ‘70s was that his buffoon version of Ford would help Carter win the election.
Will Ferrell as George W. Bush and Darrell Hammond’s Al Gore
The viral spoofing of the narrow 2000 presidential campaign between then-Democratic Vice President Al Gore and soon-to-be Republican President George W. Bush largely shaped that year’s season.
Will Ferrell’s Bush was often arrogant, yet somehow confused, allowing the comedian to coin the term strategery in a sketch mocking the former president’s tendency to mispronounce words. Darrell Hammond’s Gore was slow in his delivery and hung up on a vague Social Security proposal called the lock box.
“That was a time where I really felt that (“SNL”) was pretty fair about taking shots at both candidates,” Jeremy Rasmussen, a 38-year-old Nebraska native and long-time fan of the show, said. “I felt like they were playing the middle very well.”
Despite the equally exaggerated portrayals and both candidates appearing on the show in November 2000, Ben Voth, author of “Saturday Night Live and Presidential Elections,” found that viewers identified more with Ferrell’s Bush, which created “an alienation between Gore and the public.”
Bush ultimately won the election when less than 600 votes gave him Florida’s electoral votes.
In an April 2015 “SNL” documentary, Ferrell said that he believes his impersonation “humanized” Bush for the country and helped him win the election, while Hammond’s “rigid, robot-like” Gore may have contributed to the former vice president’s loss.
Many speculate that Tina Fey’s impersonation of 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin had a long-term impact on the public’s perception of the former Alaska governor.
Palin was the running mate to then-Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential election against then-Democratic Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
The physical similarities between Palin and Fey were striking, and allowed Fey’s impersonation to confuse the public, who often mistook Fey’s jokes as real statements made by Palin, including the famous line “I can see Russia from my house.”
Like many politicians before her, Palin attempted to play into the joke by appearing alongside Fey in October 2008, which broke the show’s public viewership record at the time.
“(Palin) has never really been a viable politician since then, and I think a lot of that is because of ‘SNL,’ even though she did try to engage with it,” Horner said. “It just didn’t work for her.”
Trump hosted “SNL” in 2004, when his reality show, “The Apprentice,” was among the most popular in the country, and in 2015 during his first run for the White House.
After his 2016 victory, Trump habitually criticized “SNL” and actor Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of him as a flailing president. In 2019, Trump took to X, formerly Twitter, to urge the Federal Election Commission or Federal Communication Commission to look into the show, alleging collusion with the Democratic Party and Russia.
Becker found that despite the former president’s aversion for being satirized, Baldwin’s impersonation positively humanized Trump for the public.
“Alec Baldwin portrayed him as this bumbling guy who was a stranger to politics, kind of like the weird uncle in a sense,” Becker said. “People became more comfortable with the Baldwin version of Trump than the real version of Trump, and they actually liked Trump a little bit more.”
Rasmussen, a self-described moderate who has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 2000 and an active member of the Reddit group r/LiveFromNewYork, said Trump’s rise within the Republican Party magnified a shift away from “SNL’s” typical even-handed ridicule of both parties.
“I think for the right, (“SNL”) has in some ways emboldened them to lean more towards people like Trump,” said Rasmussen, a former political talk show host who now works in risk management. “I think they feel like their views and the things that they value are points of ridicule for the writers and performers of ‘Saturday Night Live.’”
For its 50th anniversary, “SNL” has brought back former cast members to play prominent figures in the 2024 election, including Maya Rudolph as Harris, Dana Carvey as Biden and Andy Samberg as First Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Rudolph’s plays of Harris as overly giggly, quick-witted and slightly obsessed with seeming cool – a stark contrast to current cast member James Austin Johnson’s portrayal of Trump as abrasive and crude.
Harris complimented Rudolph’s impersonation of her during an appearance on “The View” earlier this month.
“She’s so good,” Harris said. “She had the whole thing — the suit, the jewelry, everything.”
Becker believes that Rudolph’s “non-controversial” impersonation will warm the public towards Harris, familiarizing them with a version of the candidate, who only became the Democrats’ presidential nominee in July after Biden dropped out.
Horner and Voth argue that this season could potentially be more damaging to the Harris campaign than her opponent’s due to Trump’s longer history of being a comedic target.
While experts and fans agree “SNL” doesn’t have the impact today it did in its heyday, this season’s shows have drawn millions of viewers and massive reactions on social media.
“Whether you’re a weekly viewer or not, you’ve probably had some exposure to (“SNL”) or you’ve seen a sketch from it,” Rasmussen said. “It’s just been such a huge part of the American culture since it debuted.”
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