The POTUS should expect parody! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at presidential impersonations through the years.
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00:00My microphone is broken.
00:04She broke it with Obama.
00:06She and Obama stole my microphone, they took it to Kenya."
00:09Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at presidential impersonations through the
00:14years.
00:15It is I, George W. Bush, and you're right, remember, the W stands for What's I?
00:24Part 1.
00:25You can't do that on radio.
00:27Since George Washington was first sworn in, few positions have commanded more authority
00:32and respect than President of the United States.
00:35Throughout the centuries, though, there have been instances, and even entire terms, when
00:39the president seemed more like a ringmaster in the circus of clowns we call Congress.
00:44Son, do you know what it means to be president of the United States?
00:47Everyone looks up to you, you're the most powerful leader of the most powerful nation
00:52in the whole world.
00:53It's gonna be cool, Dad, I'm pretty psyched.
00:56Presidents have been history's best presidents at questionable moments, making POTUS one
01:00of the easiest targets for satire.
01:02In some cases, we remember the impersonations more than the presidents themselves.
01:07Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
01:11That was very clear.
01:12Very dramatic and clear.
01:13Obama would say something like, we believe that barriers of any kind act as an obstruction
01:18to people's good relationships.
01:23What the f*** are you talking about?
01:25Although commonplace now, comedic impressions of the president were once considered edgy,
01:30even taboo.
01:31Comedy has evolved over the past several decades, ironically mirroring the devolution of our
01:36standards for commander in chief.
01:38Here's the deal.
01:39No, it's not.
01:40Excuse me.
01:41Please.
01:42No, whatever you're gonna say, no.
01:46Comedian Will Jordan, himself a famous impressionist, did a fair deal of research into the history
01:51of presidential impressions.
01:52Based on his findings, the first president to be impersonated on stage was Teddy Roosevelt,
01:58in a minstrel show.
01:59On a wider scale, Will Rogers was arguably the first performer to gain significant attention
02:04for mimicking a sitting president.
02:07During a 1928 radio broadcast, Rogers' impression of President Calvin Coolidge proved so convincing
02:13that listeners thought it was the real deal.
02:15Rogers, who supported Coolidge, issued an apology to the president and first lady days
02:20later, promising it would never happen again.
02:23Rogers didn't exactly keep his word, as he'd go on to poke fun at Franklin D. Roosevelt
02:28over the radio, followed by another apology.
02:31Part 2.
02:32JFK, LBJ, and Dick
02:35Although FDR had a great sense of humor about it, presidential parodies carried the risk
02:40of igniting controversy.
02:41That's not to say they were outlawed.
02:43They smile every hour out of every day light-saving day.
02:49They smile.
02:50Try it.
02:52It feels good.
02:53Gee, kid, that's the best Churchill I ever heard.
02:57Performers like Dean Murphy and Arthur Blake could be heard imitating FDR in clubs.
03:02Before lending his voice to characters like Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound, a young Dawes
03:06Butler impersonated Roosevelt, among others, in front of crowds.
03:10Actor Art Gilmore voiced Roosevelt in multiple films, most notably 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy.
03:17Today, we're all soldiers.
03:19We're all on the front.
03:21We need more songs to express America.
03:24I know you and your comrades will give them to us.
03:27Yet the idea of basing one's comedy career around impersonating a president didn't take
03:32off until the early 60s, when Vaughn Meader hit the scene.
03:36Meader didn't have to drastically change his Massachusetts accent to sound like President
03:40John F. Kennedy, amounting to 15 game-changing minutes of fame.
03:44Now just a minute, who do you think you are?
03:46Now let me say this about that.
03:48Number one, he's not an expert on politics, but I am.
03:51Meader's Kennedy impression was at the center of the 1962 comedy album The First Family.
03:57An unprecedented hit, it sold millions of copies and won the Grammy for Album of the
04:02Year.
04:03After two years of brushing with the Kresge toothpaste, our group had 21 percent fewer
04:10cavities with Kresge.
04:15Meader soon started making the rounds on radio and television programs like The Ed Sullivan
04:20Show.
04:21Barely a year into Meader's newfound superstardom, tragedy struck when President Kennedy was
04:25assassinated.
04:27President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.
04:32Lee Harvey Oswald inadvertently killed Meader's career in the process.
04:36Not only were his booked appearances canceled, but The First Family was removed from circulation.
04:42Being synonymous with Kennedy, Meader struggled to find work.
04:45Even when he moved away from Kennedy, his subsequent albums proved unsuccessful.
04:50Although Meader's time in the spotlight was brief, his Kennedy impersonation changed comedy
04:55for future generations.
04:56When will we send a man to the moon?
05:00Whenever Senator Goldwater wants to go.
05:03With the country mourning Kennedy, comedians weren't quick to lampoon his successor, Lyndon
05:08B. Johnson.
05:09As the next election approached, though, Johnson became ripe for parody.
05:13Disney animator Ward Kimball made an independent 1968 short entitled Escalation, in which Johnson's
05:20nose grows like Pinocchio's, or maybe something more suggestive.
05:24Where the grapes of wrath are stored, yet loose the fateful lightning of his terrible
05:31swift sword, his... his marching horn.
05:39Johnson was portrayed by Paul Freese, who voiced characters like Ludwig von Drake and
05:44Boris Badenov.
05:45Comedian David Fry also gained prominence with his Johnson impression.
05:49Of course, Fry became even more associated with Johnson's political opponent, and ultimately
05:54the next president, Richard Nixon.
05:56My favorite people.
05:58And you are my favorite people.
06:01Make no mistake about that.
06:02If anyone could rival Fry as the quintessential Nixon impersonator, it would be the man of
06:07a thousand voices.
06:09No, not Mel Blanc, the other man of a thousand voices, Rich Little.
06:13Little also impersonated Kennedy, which got one of his comedy albums pulled.
06:18Unlike Meader, though, Little had more than one presidential impersonation up his sleeve.
06:24I am... I'm delighted to be here tonight and part of this Jerry Lewis super show.
06:34You know, I've known Jerry for years.
06:38As a matter of fact, Jerry Lewis was the very first choice for the movie that I made, Bedtime
06:45for Bonzo.
06:47From Kennedy onward, this Canadian-born comedian has mimicked every U.S. president.
06:53But Nixon made his career.
06:54I just got back from Hollywood, where I was working on a new motion picture.
06:59It's called Planet of the Tapes.
07:02Between Billy West on Futurama...
07:04A good Republican body.
07:05God, I loved it.
07:07And Dan Hedaya in 1999's Dick, Nixon remains one of the most popular presidents to parody.
07:13I remember when Julie and, uh, what's her name, Tricia, were that age.
07:22If it wasn't about makeup or Frankie Avalon, they didn't give a hoot.
07:28However, nobody can compete with Little's tenure, still playing Nixon well into his
07:3380s.
07:34Let me ask Nixon himself.
07:36What happens if you didn't resign, what do you think would happen?
07:41I think that I would still be president, because if I had resigned, I would have taken the
07:47country with me.
07:48Nixon only gave comedians more to work with thanks to the Watergate scandal, paving the
07:53way for Vice President Gerald Ford to take his place.
07:56A little over a year into Ford's only term, a sketch comedy series premiered, becoming
08:01the primary source of presidential impressions ever since.
08:05NBC, Saturday night.
08:07Part 3.
08:09Live from New York.
08:10In June 1975, Ford tripped down the last few stairs while exiting Air Force One.
08:16This minor incident might have gone overlooked in a pre-SNL world.
08:21Thanks to Chevy Chase's accident-prone take, it became the defining moment of Ford's presidency.
08:26Yes, well, on that point, Mr. Cake, Kate, Caden, Krause, Mr. Krause.
08:33Although Ford initially didn't appreciate Chase's clumsy caricature, he eventually found
08:38the humor in it, appearing on SNL in 1976.
08:43Live from New York, it's Saturday night.
08:46Sometime after losing the presidency, Ford said,
08:49"'Chevy' definitely cost some votes, but I had to admit, he was damn funny."
08:54I can name that tune in four notes.
08:59Just as Ford exited the White House after one term, Chase didn't stay at Studio 8H long.
09:05Presidential parodies remained an SNL staple, with Dan Aykroyd as the definitive Jimmy Carter…
09:10I did some bad things.
09:13… and a revolving door of Ronald Reagan's.
09:16Most notably, Phil Hartman.
09:17Well, I hope I've answered your questions as best I could, given the very little that
09:22I know.
09:23Goodbye, and God bless you.
09:27Presidential parodies don't get much more iconic than Dana Carvey as George H.W. Bush,
09:32who'd invite the SNL cast member to the White House's holiday party.
09:36We are on the track.
09:38We're getting the job done.
09:39We can do more, but let's stay the course.
09:42A thousand points of light.
09:44Carvey juggled candidates during the 1992 election, playing Bush and Ross Perot, while
09:50Hartman impersonated Bill Clinton.
09:52We cannot pay for everything.
09:54For example, cooties are covered, but not the heebie-jeebies.
10:01With Clinton's ascension to office, Hartman won over audiences with his down-to-earth
10:05impression, portraying him as the kind of president you'd like to grab a Big Mac with.
10:10Don't tell Mrs. Clinton.
10:12Jim, let me tell you something.
10:14There's going to be a whole bunch of things we don't tell Mrs. Clinton.
10:19Leaving SNL, Carvey kicked off his short-lived sketch comedy show with a controversial Clinton
10:24impression, complete with breastfeeding and a hen's rear end.
10:28Look, I've had myself surgically fitted with a hen's ass, so with these warm downy feathers,
10:38I can give presidential warmth to these hatching eggs right here.
10:44At the time, this was seen as shocking.
10:46Following the Monica Lewinsky scandal two years later, though, Clinton became more susceptible
10:51to savage parodies, with Daryl Hammond leaving his mark.
10:55What?
10:56Yeah, I just bit my lip and did the thumb thing.
11:03SNL wasn't much kinder to George W. Bush, with Will Ferrell depicting him as a clueless
11:09oaf who got the job because of who his daddy is.
11:12Insert your own punchline here.
11:14I believe that some of his figures may be inaccurate.
11:18Beyond SNL, this era gave way to Bush impersonators like Steve Bridges and Timothy Bottoms, yet
11:27none quite had Ferrell's cultural impact, introducing the word strategery into the zeitgeist.
11:34Strategery.
11:37On the heels of two divisive presidents, SNL had a harder time satirizing Barack Obama,
11:42especially compared to his competitors.
11:45The real challenge was finding somebody to play Obama with Fred Armisen feeling out of
11:49place for a few obvious reasons.
11:52Who drives around every evening after work vandalizing Hillary's yard signs.
11:58Meanwhile, Reggie Brown broke out as a professional Obama impersonator.
12:02I know.
12:04That's why you're staying here.
12:06Comedians like Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key also turned in memorable Obama parodies.
12:12These key words are being used, amongst other things, to prevent terrorists from using weapons
12:17of mass destruction.
12:18SNL finally found a spot on Obama with Jay Pharoah, who'd curiously leave after the president's
12:24term ended.
12:26Questions like, is this the first step towards war?
12:30What can the United States do?
12:32And hold up, what's Crimea?
12:34Where Obama was one of the trickier presidents to parody, Donald Trump practically gift-wrapped
12:40material to comedians.
12:42Before Trump got involved in politics, actor John DiDomenico made a living mimicking the
12:47Home Alone 2 star.
12:48Hello everybody, it's me, your favorite Bibble president.
12:54I'm the greatest Bibble president in the history of presidents.
12:58Darrell Hammond had played Trump on SNL, but throughout his presidential campaign and term,
13:04Alec Baldwin took the nation by storm with his Emmy-winning portrayal, much to the real
13:09Trump's annoyance.
13:10This man is clearly unfit to be commander in chief.
13:15Jim Carrey, who previously impersonated presidents like Reagan, faced off against Baldwin's Trump
13:20as Joe Biden.
13:21I'm holding my bladder, let's get at her.
13:24Just when we thought James Austin Johnson and Alex Moffat would be gearing up for a
13:28Trump-Biden rematch, a game change left the world asking, is Maya Rudolph's schedule
13:34open?
13:35This has been a difficult year for all of us, but I really do feel that we are about
13:39to see some light.
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13:56Epilogue
13:57Presidents and parody
13:58What's the difference?
14:00Between Will Rogers' innocent radio broadcast and the modern late-night landscape, presidential
14:05impersonations have come a long way, even if Washington, D.C. has taken several steps
14:10backwards.
14:11What I meant to say was, I'd appreciate it very much if you could just allow me to finish
14:16my responses as opposed to sabotaging every waking moment with a toxic geyser of verbal
14:22diarrhea you cracked-out, turd-hurling sack of rancid dog snot.
14:28Now more than ever, it's hard to find the line between parody and reality, with so many
14:33presidents feeling like caricatures of themselves.
14:36You made Barack Obama angry.
14:40And when you make Barack Obama angry, he turns into The Rock Obama.
14:49And yet people still put them on a pedestal, ignoring the elephant and donkey in the room.
14:54With every president having loyal followers, we need satire to remind us that nobody is
14:59perfect, especially politicians.
15:01I'd love to just take care of the greenhouse effect in one fell swoop up here.
15:06Not gonna sacrifice jobs down here.
15:10Nah, gah, dah.
15:12Who knows what impressions await us in 2028 and beyond?
15:16We may fear for the future, but as long as the First Amendment remains intact, the Rich
15:21Littles, Dana Carbys, and Will Ferrells of the world will keep us laughing.
15:25There are people in the world who wish to do us harm.
15:30You mean evildoers?
15:32What's your favorite presidential impersonation?
15:34Let us know in the comments.
15:36Can't even think about it.
15:39First of all, against the law.
15:41Babs wouldn't like it.
15:42Well, it's probably just four years.
15:45Hey, wait for me, son.
15:46I'm right behind ya.
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