Maybe I’m just a young whippersnapper(sp?) who doesn’t “get” classic comedy. I grew up watching SNL in the Carvey/Hartman era. Those guys knew how to mock a president. Hartman did a great Reagan and Clinton, and Carvey’s George Bush (Senior) was a comic masterwork. The guys they have now are no slouches either; Darrell Hammond as Gore and Will Ferrell as W, both funny.
But whenever I watch Chase on a “classic” SNL episode doing his “Gerald Ford” all I see is him talking and acting more or less as he normally does, and then falling down. I mean, wtf???
I know Ford fell down and bonked his head a few times, but did Chase really think that by itself was enough to base his “character” on? Or am I missing something subtle?
The same thing goes with Ackroyd’s Jimmy Carter–he didn’t look anything like the man (he still had his mustache for starters), but he adopted one vocal trait (the accent) and one personality trait (guy too smart for his own good). I only saw him do it once but it was still funny (as was Chase’s Ford IMHO).
in skits Chase played Ford as an absolute doof. I mean he played him dumber then any one else has ever been played. I think in one Kissenger comes in to introduce some Russian ambassador and he offers his hand to Kissenger saying welcome Mr. whatever. It was really funny. And he was always getting surprised about the most inane things and was so easily distracted. Something tells me he was just having fun and the portrayal had no bearing on Ford himself, except for the clumsiness. I think all you probably saw were the opening skits where he was just falling down, I’m not sure he was always playing Ford though, sometimes he was just a guy falling down, and he wasn’t there that long.
Ackroyd did a GREAT skit about Nixon’s last days in office, talking and then argueing with a picture of Kennedy on the wall, hilarious. Sadly they don’t play the old SNLs anymore, and all they ever played were chopped down 1/2 hour episodes which ran in the late 80s.
But Hartman and Carvey were just geniouses when it came to making fun of the POTUS. Of course anything was better then Piscapo’s Reagan (sorry Piscapo fans, you know it’s true, and with Sinatra too) When Hartman did that skit where Reagan knows everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, every little detail of the scandal. He picks up the phone and personally speaks, in Arabic to the Iranis. I rolled on the floor that was so funny.
So long story short, you are seeing, or have seen only a smidgen of what actually went on during the show in 74-75
A comedian has to grab onto the most recognizable, potentially funny characteristic a person has. I don’t think Ford offered much in the way of caricature material, but it was unthinkable not to do him somehow.
That said, (and I know this will be an unpopular opinion) I’ve come to the conclusion that certain human beings are born with a tragic disability–they lack the funny gene. No matter what they do, it won’t be funny, just lame. All the banana peels and cream pies in the world won’t remedy this tragic, inborn deficiency. And as far as I’m concerned, Chevy Chase is one of these unfortunate people.
So that may be the problem, too.
I’ve heard other impressionists say that Gerald Ford was very hard to do. His voice and mannerisms were just too ordinary, so it was difficult to distinguish him from the average guy.
If all you know of Chevy Chase is (are?) his Vacation movies and his awful talk show then I can certainly see where you’re coming from. But in that first year of SNL Chase did some of the funniest, most original stuff I have ever seen. He did at least one TV special after that that had some great stuff, also, but somewhere along the way he lost his touch. By now it appears to me that he is unsure of his own abilities and has lost all of that irreverant confidence that he once had.
I’ve seen this happen to other creative people also. One day the muse just up and leaves them.
I dunno. I happened to catch him on a celebrity version of Who wants to Be a Millionaire a few nights ago, and the guy was a scream. He did a hilarious deadpan satire of contestants who go through their reasoning out loud. You had to be there, but trust me; it was hilarious.
The other thing you need to keep in mind was that when SNL first aired, it was pretty revolutionary. You really didn’t have too many shows featuring such hard biting satire before. So even if Chevy Chase didn’t look like Ford, or Akroyd didn’t look like Carter, making fun of the President in such a personal way was still something rarely seen on TV before.
I think part of the joke was that Chevy Chase wasn’t trying to impersonate Ford beyond his clumsiness. You see, some people interpret the fact that Chase didn’t try to imitate Ford the way Farrell imitates W as pure comic genius. He’s funny by not being funny, if you get my drift.
I agree with Rasty. The essence of Chase and Ackroyd was that their humor was not an impersonation. It was humor that they merely assigned to Ford or Carter. They felt, I believe, that the humor would be diminished as humor if the they were trying to be “dead on”.
If you will remember, Jim Carry quit doing virtually perfect impersonations because of that very concept. He wanted his comedic abilities to stand on their own merits rather than depend on his ability to look or sound exactly like someone else.
You have to understand that Chevy Chase was riding the slapstick wave for all it was worth. He was the “pratfall” guy, he was known for it, and he was pretty good at it. So whenever Ford took another dive, Chevy didn’t need to change a thing to be instantly associated with Ford. He just needed to fall down on cue, and it was funny.
As a more current analogy, imagine if George W. took a spill down the stairs of Air Force One on a Thursday morning. Saturday night rolls around, and SNL opens with Michael “Kramer” Richards in a suit standing on a presidential set. You the viewer know who he is, what his schtick is, and exactly what is going to happen. It’s the association, and the anticipation, that makes it humorous.
(By the way, Ackroyd doing Jimmy Carter interrupting an interview in order to talk a guy down from a bad acid trip is some of the best drug humor ever to hit the airwaves.)
You also have to understand that as of 1975 impressionists (those attempting dead-on impersonations) were considered the epitome of the un-hip. Rich Little was the leading impressionist of the day, and no one on Saturday Night Live was looking to be pegged as “the next Rich Little.” In that context, you can consider Ackroyd and Chase’s acts to be sort of “anti-impressions.”
The “anti-impressions” must have started with Lenny Bruce. Listen to an old recording of him doing Eisenhower & Nixon. He makes no attempt to mimic their speech patterns. He just uses his New York Jewish Lenny Bruce voice. The humor was in the irreverent satire that no one had ever thought of using before.
They called him “sick” 'cause he didn’t play by the rules.
He showed the wise men of his day to be nothing more than fools.
—Bob Dylan, “Lenny Bruce”
I don’t recall who he was supposed to be, or even if he was just playing some random characater, but the debate skit where, after a very detailed explanation by his opponent, Chevy simply says “Uh, I had been told there would be no math…” kills me every time. Heck, I’m chuckling now!
Don’t forget the one physical trait: the big, toothy smile.
thinksnow: That was Chase doing Ford in a Presidential Debate sketch.
Weird_AL_Einstein, humor is an individual and cultural thing, and tastes in humor have changed significantly since the original SNL. With that in mind, I have to tell you that I watched the original and my feelings are exactly opposite from yours. I think the original show was excellent, and I think Carvey and Hartman are not funny at all.
The original show was more subtle. A lot of their humor (like Chase’s Ford) was of the type that arises from one or two small but significant things just slightly off-kilter amid seeming normalcy. Think Monty Python (which influenced them). You have to understand the normalcy to see the humor, which is in contrast to the deviations. At that time, all humor was more subtle and cerebral than it is today. Listen to Tom Lehrer and the routines of Mike Nichols and Elaine May and you’ll hear the difference.
It seemed to me that Carvey and Hartmann (and those who followed them) needed a lot of make-up and many excessively exaggerated characteristics just so you could recognize their impressions. It was like they were screaming “Look at me! Look at how outrageously silly I look, act and speak! I’m impersonating the President! THIS IS FUNNY!” Little or no subtlety, just beating you over the head. What they were doing was like a pie in the face, but not as funny. IMO, they were really circus clowns dressed in everyday clothes. And a lot of people think clowns are creepy.
Yes, and it worked great. That’s partially because Chevy Chase did “The Fall” regularly before Ford became president. It became a part of SNL’s opening, and we used to watch the opening just waiting for “The Fall”.
And I could be wrong, but I think you are missing the point.
As to Aykroyd’s Nixon, that was definitely an exception. It worked because the writing was good and everybody hated Nixon anyway.