That bit of Southern comfort was a relief to Hammond, though he doesn’t really need it. In a campaign in which the two candidates’ positions don’t seem all that different and with the role of the traditional news outlets declining, the talk shows and comedy shows have acquired unprecedented clout. On one day alone last week, Bush paid his second visit to David Letterman while Gore went on both “Rosie” and “Regis.” No wonder when ABC’s Cokie Roberts was asked to pick a winner of the third presidential debate last week, she wouldn’t even answer. “We have to see what the late-night comedians are saying, because sometimes they have a lot more effect than any of us political analysts,” Roberts said. And no one has provided more dead-on, devastating satire than “SNL.” After all, this is the show that Gore’s team forced their man to watch as a study guide after the first debate. “That was kind of flattering,” says Hammond.
If there’s a key to what’s made the “SNL” sketches funnier than everything else, it’s how they manage–in ways both broad and subtle–to zero in on the artifice beneath the candidates’ shifting debate strategies. The first sketch not only lampooned Gore’s incessant lockbox trope, it highlighted his sharklike attempt to devour all the air time. “Jim, can I make two closing statements?” Hammond’s Gore says. The second sketch nimbly picked up on the candidates’ revised tactics, from Gore’s new-found deference (“You go ahead. I insist. I was rude”) to Bush’s using foreign names apparently to prove he can pronounce them–in the skit, Will Ferrell’s Bush lists the entire Nigerian cabinet. James Downey, who wrote all the debate sketches, says the jokes don’t so much flash on like a light bulb as emerge from his own mutterings during the real debates. He takes only a few notes (in pencil) and often writes the skit at the last minute. His biggest concerns are being evenhanded and being funny in a way that mocks the candidates’ performances, not their politics. “I don’t enjoy fake comedy, which just basically restates the audience’s own political prejudices,” says Downey, an “SNL” veteran who co-wrote the debate sketches in 1976, 1988 and 1992. If this year’s skits seem especially successful, that may be because they’ve aired only days after the debates themselves. And because they’re a riot. “Jim’s pieces are gentle, not vicious,” says “SNL” executive producer Lorne Michaels. “They are the silly take, which in my opinion is also the smart take.”
Whatever they call it, it works. In fact, NBC is broadcasting a two-hour “SNL” special on Nov. 5 called “Presidential Bash 2000.” The program will showcase its political humor from the past 25 years: Chevy Chase’s clumsy Gerald Ford, Dana Carvey’s staccato George Bush senior, Phil Hartman’s leering Bill Clinton and more. This year’s candidates have taped segments as well. To the show’s surprise, both men were eager to participate. “It was kind of like, ‘Is he going to take a swing at me?’ " says Ferrell, who met Bush for the first time during the taping. Ferrell, by the way, is a Democrat. “I’ll be bummed if I’m still playing Bush after Jan. 20,” he says. Look on the bright side, Will. You’d have four more years of material.
