Goofin' On The Presidents

I find it pretty interesting that the best stuff SNL has done in years has been the political material of the last year, specifically Amy Poehler and Tina Fey's respective portrayals of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. Actually, it's not really political material, in the sense of what Jon Stewart or Bill Maher do. It's character material. And that's why it works so much better than most of the lousy sketches SNL churns out: these are fully formed characters, as brought to life by Poehler and Fey, as were Will Ferrell's George W. Bush, Dana Carvey's George H.W. Bush, and Chevy Chase's Gerald Ford. And being able to crack those characters, as these actors have done, is the key to making them funny. Carvey's Bush didn't really bear much resemblance to the real thing, but it was a complete, funny character. I find it interesting that Carvey, who I don't even think is particularly funny, was able to crack that character, while in eight years, nobody really succeeded in doing much with either Reagan or Clinton, both much funnier presidents than Bush 41. Which leads me to an interesting topic for discussion: who was a funnier president, Nixon or W? Nixon just plain looked and sounded funny, but Bush seems more like a complete comedy character--you almost couldn't write a more perfect character to put into a comedy situation. What do you think?