With the autumn return of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" with all new installments, the traditionally reliable pro-Obama skits may be on the back burner as the voter opposition to the president is at an all time high, according to Gallup.
The actor portraying President Obama was the same as last season, Jay Pharoah, but this past Saturday night, the writers seemed to have been paying attention a bit more to the real president's actual job performance. In a takeoff of the recent "60 Minutes" interview with Obama, SNL had a little bit of fun at the president's expense in the cold open, mocking his growing list of problems.
Saturday Night Live
By Cheri Jacobus | October 6, 2014 | 2:16 PM EDT
By Geoffrey Dickens | September 30, 2014 | 9:54 AM EDT
Saturday Night Live returned from its summer hiatus this weekend but if Democrats had succeeded in their September 11 vote to amend the Constitution there wouldn’t be any more political skits on the 40 year-old comedy institution.
According to Senator Ted Cruz the Constitutional amendment, that would’ve been an end-around the First Amendment, would’ve given Congress the power to restrict political speech - even of the humorous kind found on SNL.
By Tim Graham | September 10, 2014 | 8:20 AM EDT
Politico reports that Sen. Ted Cruz argues that parodies on “Saturday Night Live” could be illegal under a new campaign-finance constitutional amendment proposed by Democrats trying to cracking down on political speech by corporations.
“Well, NBC which airs Saturday Night Live, is a corporation,” Cruz said, reminding other Senators of all the satirized politicians, from Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush and Al Gore.
'SNL' Producer Lorne Michaels on Political Mockery: Democrats Can't Take a Joke, 'Republicans Think It's Funny'
By Tim Graham | February 3, 2014 | 7:57 AM EST New York magazine interviewed Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels about his show and political humor. Michaels seemed to suggest that Republicans can take a joke, and Democrats can't. Or perhaps Republicans are used to being mocked by Manhattan liberals, and Democrats expect to be pampered.
The magazine’s Lane Brown asked: "Are there any basic rules for what works and what doesn’t politically?"
By Kyle Drennen | November 18, 2013 | 4:27 PM EST
After playing a clip of Saturday Night Live mocking President Obama's "embattled second term" on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie sympathetically observed: "I guess if you're at the White House you laugh so you don't cry." She then turned to Obama's former press secretary Robert Gibbs and wondered: "What do you think the President's state of mind is right now? I mean, have you ever seen him like this, saying – acknowledging, 'I have a credibility problem'?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Gibbs responded by trying to insulate the President from any responsibility for the disastrous ObamaCare rollout: "I think he is obviously tremendously frustrated that no one told him the extent of this problem. I think that you, as the commander-in-chief and as the President of the United States, have to trust all of those around you to implement and I think there's no doubt a deficit of trust that's lead to that deficit of credibility."
By Kyle Drennen | October 7, 2013 | 3:53 PM EDT
On Monday, the hosts of NBC's Today eagerly played clips of Saturday Night Live bashing Republicans over the government shutdown. In the morning show's 7 a.m. ET half hour, fill-in co-host Tamron Hall played a clip of SNL host Miley Cyrus doing a parody music video blaming the GOP for the shutdown and gushed: "I think she [Cyrus] might become a member of the five-timers club. You know, the group of hosts who've hosted five times." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
At the top of the 9 a.m. ET hour, co-host Willie Geist touted: "7th day now of the shutdown. Let's look at the bright side, the SNL side, how they handled it....Weekend Update...had an interesting take on the shutdown's winners and losers." A clip played of SNL cast member Seth Myers ranting: "Loser, John Boehner. I feel sorry for you buddy. It's exhausting watching you trying to maintain your dignity while wrangling those Tea Party maniacs. You're like Seinfeld if they're were 30 Kramers."
By Noel Sheppard | September 29, 2013 | 10:12 AM EDT
With ObamaCare about to start signing up its first patients and Congress in the middle of a debate concerning its funding, the folks at NBC’s Saturday Night Live decided to begin their new season this weekend mocking the president and his signature piece of legislation.
The cold open started on C-SPAN with Barack Obama played by Jay Pharoah speaking about the Affordable Care Act at Prince George’s Community College (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | March 8, 2013 | 10:39 AM EST
As NewsBusters previously reported, Saturday Night Live last month aired a mock movie trailer depicting Jesus Christ returning to Rome to exact revenge in the gory fashion of Quentin Tarantino and Sam Peckinpah.
On Wednesday, the American Family Association announced that it had gotten Sears and JCPenney to stop advertising on the online SNL episodes featuring that trailer:
By Noel Sheppard | February 17, 2013 | 9:40 AM EST
The season of Lent began Wednesday, and the folks at Saturday Night Live thought it was appropriate to usher it in with a movie trailer depicting Christ returning to Rome to exact revenge.
In the gory fashion of Quentin Tarantino and Sam Peckinpah, SNL presented to viewers on the fourth day of Lent "Djesus Uncrossed" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | February 10, 2013 | 6:58 PM EST
The media’s love affair with Hillary Clinton has gotten completely unhinged.
During a pre-taped Valentine’s Day sketch aired on NBC’s Saturday Night Live this weekend, popstar Justin Bieber took a picture of his penis and emailed it to the former Secretary of State (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | December 16, 2012 | 10:13 AM EST
On a night when NBC's Saturday Night Live began with a reverential tribute to Friday's massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, the writers also had a perverse fascination with female body parts.
After guest host Martin Short mentioned kissing a vagina during his opening monologue, he later played a representative from Buckingham Palace instructing an Ob/Gyn, played by Bill Hader, how to treat and refer to Kate Middleton's vagina during her pregnancy (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | December 16, 2012 | 2:38 AM EST
Samuel L. Jackson dropped an F-bomb on NBC's Saturday Night Live last evening.
As the recurring sketch "What's Up With That" came to a conclusion, Jackson also said "bulls--t" (video follows with commentary, vulgarity warning):