When some creative people made a live action Futurama fan film, they cast Rich Little to play President Nixon-In-A-Jar.
Yeah. While Frye might not have had the repertoire that Little did, the ones he did do were far better, and he could contort his face accordingly.
I’ve got a David Frye album lying around somewhere (The Great Debate, I think it was called).
To be fair, everyone does a good Howard Cosell.
It is tough to go wrong with Howard Cosell or Shatner.
I still have “Richard Nixon: A Fantasy” kicking around somewhere. I bought that album when I was 10, and spent so much time randomly repeating lines from it that one of my friends from back then will still occasionally blurt out “when I returned, Mary Jo and the car were gone” in a Ted Kennedy voice, just based on it sticking in his head from my repeating it. What a great album.
Gabe Kaplan was also a writer on that album and had a minor voice role!
I didn’t make the edit window on time, but
oh, and on Rich Little - while most of his impersonations were mediocre, they were enough to get by, & he was very good at capturing the physical motions of people, which is part of what resonated. He also wrote decent bits about current events, which is why he could have roomfuls of people laughing with him. I think part of the criticism feels like a current lens, because man was that guy insanely popular at the time.
“As the man in charge, I of course accept full responsibility… but not the blame. Let me explain the difference - people who are to blame lose their jobs, people who are responsible do not.”
Nice! Does that ever bring back memories…
Since we’ve thrashed Rich Little pretty thoroughly, what are the opinions on John Byner?
I recently listened to Gilbert Gottfried’s podcast with Byner as guest, and despite his age (b. 1938) he was entertaining, although most of the podcast was his recollections of others rather than impressions.
I still have his album “Richard Nixon Superstar”, which I bought with paper route money when I was 14. I am astonished to find that it is currently available, on vinyl, on Amazon.
I know this post is almost old enough to drink, but I remember seeing Rich Little tell that story on Carson. Maybe that’s what your friend was remembering. Or, maybe not.
mmm
As a person whose’ daydream is to become a professional impersonator, I feel like I’m being attacked. 
Seriously I always liked Rich Little, although the two TV movies he did were a bit too much.
I don’t know… I think Rich Little was a good impressionist with a wide repertoire, but with terrible material. For the time, however, he came across much better. Remember, this was the era of ‘celebrity comedians’ who weren’t all that funny but well known and therefore comfortable to the audience. Rich Little, Foster Brooks, Nipsey Russell, Red Skelton, Red Buttons, Red Foxx… Apparently lots of Reds.
To be fair, some of them were apparently hilarious on stage where they were free to work blue (Red Foxx was VERY blue), but on television their acts were neutered and they just weren’t all that funny.
In that crowd, Little stood out as one of the better acts. And at the time, I’d say he was the best popular impersonator around. There were comedians that had one or two celebrities in their act (Kevin Pollack and Shatner, for example), but who were the generalist impressionists at the time who could do dozens or hundreds of voices? Not all of Little’s impersonations were good, but some were excellent. His Johnny Carson was spot on. (Johnny didn’t like Little, apparently).
But his problem today is that his best impersonations are of people no one knows any more. Jack Benny and Carol Channing? Ed Sullivan? His later impressions people might know are not as good as his earlier stuff.
Also, many impressionists are better today. But they had Rich Little as a starting point.
But his material sucked. Just generally not funny. An example: Richard Nixon saying that he was starring in a new movie - “Planet of the Tapes”. Ugh.
A few of Little’s contemporaries, from the '60s and '70s, have already been mentioned upthread: Frank Gorshin, John Byner, David Frye. Another who was on TV a lot was Fred Travalena; there was also a woman I remember often seeing on TV back then, who did a number of celebrity impressions, but Google is failing me, and I keep finding hits on female impersonators. 
What really defines Rich Little for me is the fact that he was the choice to host the White House Correspondents’ Dinner a year after Stephen Colbert lit the place up with his scorching performance. They weren’t going to take any chances. They were going to get someone as safe as milk. And Rich Little, with groaners like how the president was between “Iraq and a hard place” when it came to foreign policy, if memory serves, was as inoffensive as they hoped he would be.
Fred Travalena was the Poor Man’s Rich Little. I thought Little was better overall. The others were actors or comedians who did impressions as part of the act, but they weren’t ‘impressionists’. Frank Gorshin was an impressionist, and pretty famous as one in the early 60’s, but he was probably known more for his acting. For example, he was the Riddler in the Batman TV series.
Gorshin probably comes closest to besting Little, in my opinion. He was pretty good.
If you want a refreshing singing impressionist, try Little Voice.
The performance is even more astonishing if you only know her as Bubble from AbFab…
Yes! That’s who I was thinking of!
Ryan Stiles still breaks out his Carol Channing impersonation on “Whose Line?” which must go over the heads of most of his audience (Stiles’ did a terrific Charles Nelson Reilly when Reilly guested on Drew Carey, though)