Saturday, February 23, 2008

Obama Impersonated on Saturday Night Live














Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!


After a couple of months of hiatus, the live skit show is back on the air. There has been lots of conversation about who would be Saturday Night Live's Obama impersonator. Well, the wait is over and the first skit on tonight's show was focused on a Democratic debate between Obama and Clinton. This was the first time Obama has been impersonated on the show, the only other time was when Obama himself opened the show. The skit exaggerated the love that America has for Obama by making almost all of the questions relative to Obama and few, if any, about Clinton. All the panelist were overly obsessed with Obama, one even labeled as an "Obama stalker". They also used the phrases "Obamaniac" and "Barack Attack" which was quite funny. Amber Lee Ettinger, Obama Girl, even showed up to Obama question.

But the true question is, who was impersonating Obama? It seems that it is not going to be a new face, but will be Fred Armison who is a regular cast member on SNL. It seems ironic that he has also played Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Many also say that SNL needs more black cast members and this would have been a great chance to add a new one. I assume that Armison beat out all the competitors. In his first appearance he seemed a bit stiff and didn't say much, but did sound very similar to Obama and definitely gesticulated a bit but not as much as Obama.

"They auditioned Mad TV's Jordan Peele, 30 Rock writer Donald Glover, and comedian Jordan Carlos, best known as "Stephen Colbert's Black Friend.""
Steve Martin showed up, as did Mike Huckabee and Tina Fey hosted the show.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

ummm...is it me, or is our sense of impersonation really that low? he jus t didn't live up to it. he didn't sound like him for starters, couldn't even get the right intonations, or his rythmic parlance. there's no articulation of speeches. he did gesticulate, but there was no class to it, no purpose to it and no elegance to it. if you ask me, it was really crappy and they had better find someone else. i know some will find some way to spin his performance as brilliant, but it's only because we're accustomed to crappy that we have no sense of expectation. snl has got to do a better job.

but other than the crappy performance of the fauxbama, the skit could have been brilliant. it was the only thing i kept thinking about throughout the whole show. as far as mike "what the huck" is concerned, he made a complete fool out of himself. now that was crappier than crappy. but i guess all things politics can't be any better. so i'll leave it at that.

Jedidiah said...

I completely agree to your (whoever you are) assessment of the impersonation. I think last night's show was pretty slack as a whole and the Huckabee piece was pretty lame as well. It is their first night back and Armisen's first night doing Obama, so I give SNL the benefit of the doubt in that case, but do agree they can do better. Considering all of this was just put together this past week and Armisen is usually pretty good at his impersonations, I would say that he may get better.

I read somewhere that someone stated that bringing Will Ferrell back to play Obama would be quite hilarious. While Ferrell would probably never do that, it could be interesting. I think there is someone out there for the job, they just haven't found him/her.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I agree. Obama's impersonator was a huge disappointment. They found a thin man and gave him big protruding ears, but that's about all. The voice, the gestures, and the enthusiasm were all lacking. On the other hand, the Hillary impersonation was brilliant as always. They gave her the exact same clothes as what she wore to the debate. She made the skit hilarious.

Anonymous said...

Frank Faucette as OBAMA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82ugFhhsyIs