"Saturday Night Live" has always thrived on current events, and its topical humor always reaches critical mass during the Presidential Elections. Sometimes the show hits the mark so completely that it causes America to look at the entire race with their eyes, and sometimes they drop the ball, making their contribution to the conversation almost obligatory. This can be the the result of several factors; The talent of the show, how colorful the candidates are, or even the mood of the country. So I'm going to reflect on the highs and lows, the starmarkers and the forgotten ones.
Election 1976: It's kind of funny to think how bare bones this approach was. Chevy Chase did not look anything like Gerald Ford. And Dan Aykroyd saw no point in shaving his mustache in order to greatly resemble Jimmy Carter. Making oneself up, working on impressions, would be the kind of thing that would go on to embody later incarnations of the show, but was almost anathema to the "break all the rules of television" mentality the show was possessed. It was very much a post-Watergate show. It capitalized on the younger generation's distrust of the nation, and of politics. While a lot of the humor is, in its own way, more silly than biting ("This just in, Francisco Franco is still dead"), and Chase's signature Ford impression just falling a lot, it was at the time, some of the most intelligent and cynical political stuff on TV. It also showed how SNL could often frame the popular consciousness's view of politicians--and the ability to get politicians to appear on the show to stay on their good side!
Election 1980: Now, this was hurt by two factors. One is that the very year was split between two completely eras of the show. Changeover in cast, writers, practically everybody. Secondly, neither of these two sets of shows were very good. Early 1980 was characterized by exhaustion. The show had a great deal of the Republican Primary challengers played by every writer in the cast (It's funny to look at James Downey's quiet, nonexistent impression of George Bush), but what's funny is that Regan, despite being a well-known personality even (especially!) in the world of media, really doesn't come through, even though he's probably one of the more iconic and impersonated presidents, even without contributions from SNL (of which there were relatively little). For the fall season, we also saw some strange "Dalls" style parody of Reagan, which is more known for allowing the word "fuck" to slip on the air, and shattering an already fragile existence. I think if I were to rank all them, I would put this at the bottom. It seemed a very strange bungling of probably one of the most important elections ever.
Election 1984: I kind of don't even see the point in counting this. Except for Jesse Jackson's hosting spot, the era of Dick Ebersol was notoriously apolitical, to the point Harry Shearer left over feeling constrained by a safe, voiceless mode of doing comedy. (Then again, it generally doesn't take a lot to perturb Harry Shearer from a creative standpoint.) I suppose the climate didn't really provide a lot of room for satire--Reagan was an extraordinarily popular president and the 80's a very safe zone for the Right. Without a particularly transgressive collection of talent, (And the latter half of the decade would get much more acerbic) SNL largely fell back on recurring characters.
1988: By this time, SNL had reverted back to Lorne Michael's command, and was written by old standby political junkies like Al Franken and James Downey, as well as newer writers would greatly shape the show, like A. Whitney Brown, Conan O'Brien, and Robert Smigel. The show was ready to take more shots at Reagan, (And Olliver North), and a lot of humor with a global bent. The cycle is well known for its two "primaries" sketches, (One which included Kevin Nealon as Al Gore. This would not be the last the world heard of Al Gore. And Nealon would be on SNL for a while longer, for that matter.) Carvey's Bush was always evolving, from someone a little more cocky to someone a little more frayed, but always hungry for public approval. Carvey's regular appearances as Bush would become part of show legend, but he was a very different figure in the campaign sketches. While the debate with John Lovitz's Michael Dukakis was very, very funny, and this was probably the smartest the show had ever been written, I think pitting two dull, almost cypher-like presidents at the time must have provided an immense challenge, and I think it's a testament the political humor at the time holds up so well.
1992: Like I said, Carvey's Bush was always evolving. From a larger perspective, it's actually very fascinating to see Carvey go from someone winning as essentially a third Regan term, high off goodwill for the GOP, dominating the Gulf War, to somebody losing his hold on public approval to the shady, almost Renard-like figure of Bill Clinton, played by Phil Hartman, who gave Clinton a sort of "I don't know what the big deal is" aura. 1992 was a very interesting time for the show. Probably the most popular, coming off the success of Wayne's World. It was a merging, sometimes unwieldly, of the sophisticated SNL of the late eighties, infused with fresher, younger, and sometimes more dangerous talent. Bush vs. Clinton built up on a dynamic that would perhaps define SNL's campaign sketches from here on in; We would see a sort of "Caddyshack" dynamic at play-slobs vs. snobs. An Oscar vs. a Felix. By now, Carvey's Bush would be completely cemented as a wet blanket. But that wasn't all. The 1992 election also had the colorful element of Ross Perot. (Also played by Carvey)
1996: It's kind of strange. Darrel Hammond's Bill Clinton was considered a perfect impression, and his adventures as a womanizing, lying, hedonistic trickster figure made for some great highlights in the late nineties. But his Bill Clinton was not utilized a great deal until the Lewinsky scandal, and not a lot during the election. Norm MacDonald was always Saturday Night Live's odd duck. Sloppy, ironic, and verging on ati-comedy, he might have been a better fit in the 70's. He always seemed to enjoy the camaraderie of the early 90's "bad boy" era he came at the tail end of. But by chance, he presided over Weekend Update during a major turnover, when the show went from primarily a gathering place for stand-up comics, to the more tightly knit "drama club" style. And by even stranger chance, MacDonald was cast as Bob Dole, heavily made up, cantankerous and socially maladjusted. Dole would eventually go on to be the Republican nominee, and the outsider MacDonald the centerpiece in 1996's political coverage. MacDonald himself didn't much care for being in sketches, and it's possible the heavy makeup and participating in bits he didn't orchestrate himself probably burned himself out on the show. Still, he carried it quite well. His debating with Bill Pullman's president from "Independence Day", being kicked off "The Real World", or confronting Steve Forbes about his thinly veiled novel, MacDonald's Dole was another in a long line of failed candidates who couldn't relate to people, but one who was a lot more stubborn and venomous about it.
Election 2000: In a lot of ways, this was the stars aligning. "The Presidential Couple" quite literally capitalized on the Oscar/Felix dynamic. Bush was the simplistic party boy, Gore the ubernerd quite proud of how proud he was. Darrel Hammond and Will Ferrel were strangely perfect, even though Hammond is noteably shorter, and Ferrel didn't sound much like Bush (and kind of left out a lot of Bush's 'born again" persona). It didn't matter. They were acute parodies of what politics had come to. It was even to the point Bush and Gore looked at the debates, to correct what they had done wrong. They appeared on the show to appeal to voters, to show they got it, that voters weren't quite sold yet. But what really took it to the stratosphere was the recount debacle. It was the sort of situation one couldn't make up, creating a weird soap opera, which of course, was one of the sketches. SNL's handling of this election season is what put it right back on the map, culturally. People like Tina Fey and Will Ferrell had their profiles considerably upped, and it never went out of style since, although there was always the requisite complaints of decline in quality.
Election 2004: Over the ensuing four years, a somewhat united stance on the ridiculousness of the candidates and common sentiment over 9/11 gave way to a very, very bitter divide between left and right. This was not the election of 2000, where the quite, prosperous 90's left room for irreverence. People were angry. Angry about war. Angry about gay marriage. Perhaps this would have been the perfect opening for fantastic satire and reflection, but by this time, SNL seemed to play things generally safe. This generally didn't mesh well with a political climate that was either full of fury or malaise. It didn't help that challenger John Kerry was not a particularly dynamic figure. Now, that doesn't always hurt--as we've seen before, having an absolute square can be great if they're a foil to a more boisterous figure. However, while Will Forte is one of the funniest cast members, (His Zell Miller was a highlight during this period) he made the choice to play Bush as someone who was quite aware of his waning popularity, but maybe couldn't understand why. Now, the cocky-to-flailing Bush arc actually worked as Dana Carvey did it, but with a generally more unpromising, and less colorful race, this tended to suck the humor right out of the room. For his part, Seth Meyer tended to use his time in the spotlight as a polemic, and it got to a level of discomfort when he opened the show, as Osama Bin Laden, trying to play it up as the "voice of reason", then made a wife-beating joke re: Theresa Heinz. All in all, the kind of stuff a master of dark humor could play up, but generally awkward with SNL's happier, "theater geek" style that has dominated since the late 90's.
2008: One of the most historic races ever, but all due considering, not something the show always capitalized on. I think we can largely lay this on the casting. At the end of the day, the two candidates were John McCain, played by Darrell Hammond, and Barack Obama, played by Fred Armisan. Hammond, by this point, had been on the show for over a decade, and by now it tended to show. His McCain was accurate, but he was not having as much fun with it as much as he did as slick Willy, or the fascinated-wth-his-own-nerdiness Gore. McCain by this point had appeared on SNL himself, and always seemed more game to do it. For that matter, Obama himself appeared in a cold open, the first president to appear on the show before elected. Obama himself, it has been remarked, has been extraordinarily difficult to satire. This is probably because, when you're the first black president, you try to avoid displaying palpable quirks. At the same time, he wasn't aloof it robotic, dorky way that Gore, Dukakis, etc have displayed. Obama bits were further restrained that Armisan was always treading dangerously close to blackface. There was some mileage early on, with Amy Poehler as a constantly frustrated Hilary Clinton, but by Obama's nomination, there was little to go from there. However, there was one Godsend, and that was Sarah Palin. She was every bit, the self-assured, down-homey lover of the camera Bush was. And what's this? She looks remarkably like Tina Fey? At this point, the campaign sketches were writing themselves. (And in some cases, they were!) However, I think it says a lot about this period that the most iconic performer in this cycle wasn't even technically a current cast member. It always had this air of being somewhat removed from the rest of the show, and once the election was over, the White House was always a bit peripheral.
2012: People always say "their' era of SNL was the best, as generations older dismiss the show as having gone to pot. But I do think there was always been a fondness for the "core four" of Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Jason Sudekis and Kirsten Wiig. Appearing almost at the same time, one could sense a bond between the four of them, especially visible in the fellowship breaking in the 2012 season finale sketch dedicated to Wiig. So it would seem sad they never really got to make their mark this season, since it was believed 2012 would suffer the same malaise 2004 did at the polls. But then something kind of amazing happened. The Republican primaries became, well, let's just say it was incredibly illustrious. Romney, the eventual nominee, would play straight man, but not to Obama, but to his fellow GOPers, all vying for the spot. Bachman, Gingrinch, Cain, all had their time in the spotlight, all becoming favorite for a weak, as voters looked for someone, anybody, more exciting than Mitt Romney. It was even put into such terms as Jason Sudekis's Romney describing himself as the best friend at the end of a romantic comedy. Perhaps the biggest downside to this "flavor of the month" race was that we would often see a cast member playing a candidate just because they were a warm body, but then find they were the star of a sketch, and then disappear into the background once the passion was over, before they really had time to develop. This was probably most evident in Samberg's Rick Santorum. There were many other angles to play, too. Bobby Moynahan's Chris Christie, as the broski who gave Romney lip service but was never really behind him, or Kate McKinnon as Ann Romney, lamenting her lack of cool kid status, but standing up for her man nontheless. A large and able ensemble worked around the two main players who in real life, were trying their damndest not to make mistakes. Jay Pharoah's superior Obama didn't hurt, either.
