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By Robert Isenberg
Special to MSN Entertainment
For millions of Americans, the closest they'll ever get to politics is watching impersonators on "Saturday Night Live." Maybe they'll vote for future presidents or senators, maybe they won't, but they'll gladly watch Chris Farley put on a pale suit and pretend to be Newt Gingrich.
That's because political impressions on "SNL" are a bona fide American tradition: Whether we've registered red, blue or indie, tuning in to "SNL" during election season is practically a civic duty -- if only to see how a bunch of Manhattan wisecrackers riff on the world's most serious concerns.
Impersonating politicians has become a serious hallmark of a comedian's career, and only a few are truly immortalized. Here's a smattering of favorites, from the dawn of "SNL" to the show's most current roasts:
Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford
The executive impersonations
began with a bang ... on the floor. Chevy Chase never bothered to dress or sound like
Gerald Ford -- he just constantly fell over, knocked things off tables,
tripped, stumbled and showed constant anxiousness about succumbing to gravity.
President Ford's reputation was forever marred by Chase's "Klutz in Chief"
characterization, and political aping became the birthright of "SNL." Ford
apparently took the ribbing well; and let's face it, anyone who's been struck in
the head by a chairlift needs to have a sense of humor. Ford even wrote a book
about it, "Humor and the Presidency," which, like most things Fordian, was
well-intentioned but didn't really sell.
Dan Aykroyd as Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter
Like many
of his vintage-"SNL" compatriots, Dan Aykroyd has had a light schedule lately. But
we can all remember, before "Ghostbusters" even, is when Aykroyd could impersonate not
one president, but two. And what presidents could be more opposite than gruff,
soulless Richard Nixon and soft-spoken, grandfatherly Jimmy Carter? Aykroyd's
impersonation of Carter was probably the gentlest of all: When a teenager calls
the White House (during the "Ask President Carter" sketch), describing how he's
just taken some "Orange Sunshine" LSD and "the ceiling is dripping," Carter
tactfully guides him through his hallucination. Like much of Aykroyd's humor,
his impressions of Carter and Nixon were harmless fun -- and vocally
dead-on.
Dana Carvey as George Bush and Ross Perot
The late '80s
and early '90s were a golden age for impressionists: Jim Carrey, Robin Williams and Tracey Ullman all became superstars around this period,
largely for their impressions. But Dana Carvey was the reigning champion, if only for
his George Herbert Walker Bush impersonation. Speaking in a slow croak and
gesturing wildly with his hands, Carvey made Bush look both jocular and clueless
(in one address, he put on a pair of night-vision goggles, claiming that these
would lead a "full-scale orgy of death" on Iraq).
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