Pro-Clinton? ‘SNL’ Says You’re Joking

Lorne Michaels has an answer to the political columns, cartoons and comments that have accused his show, “Saturday Night Live,” of favoring Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton during her primary showdown with Senator Barack Obama: Nope.

“I’m in show business and I never, ever forget that,” Mr. Michaels said in a telephone interview on Tuesday night. “We put on a comedy show.”

Or as Jim Downey, the “SNL” writer who has created all of the recent political sketches on the show — and most of its famous ones going back two decades — put it on Wednesday, “I’m just trying to make the sketches funny.”

Over the past three weeks “SNL” has put itself back into the national discussion — not a bad place for any television show to be, as Mr. Michaels acknowledged — first with a series of sketches that have centered on the premise that Mrs. Clinton has been the target of a vengeful press that sees Mr. Obama with stars in its eyes and also with the overt (albeit comic) endorsement of Mrs. Clinton by Tina Fey, the former “SNL” star who returned on Feb. 23 to be the host of the first show after the recent writers’ strike. “Bitches get stuff done,” Ms. Fey said, using herself as an example.

In the weeks that followed, some commentators have cited the comedy bits as aids that have helped revive Mrs. Clinton’s campaign with primary victories in Ohio and Texas. A study by the Pew research organization found that critical coverage of Mr. Obama had increased in the news media after the sketches.

Even Mr. Downey, who said he had never intended to boost Mrs. Clinton, picked up the message. “Hillary supporters started coming up to me and thanking me,” he said.

Mr. Michaels, who has been the executive producer of “SNL” off and on (mostly on) since its inception in 1975, said that he was happy the show had benefited from the attention — the Feb. 23 show attracted 7.5 million viewers, the biggest audience for the show in a year — but that he still worried about the perception.

“I’m sensitive to the suggestion that we’re in the service of Hillary Clinton this year,” he said. “That obviously is not the case.” He added, “We don’t lay down for anybody.”

This NBC show has been in similar situations in earlier elections, Mr. Michaels said. In 2000 a sketch about a debate between Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore was used by the Gore campaign to try to persuade its candidate to loosen up. Mr. Downey, who wrote the bit, remembered that he had been convinced that it was much rougher on Mr. Bush because of Will Ferrell’s memorable portrayal of him as a boob prone to inventing words like “strategery.”

In that case, Mr. Michaels and Mr. Downey had watched a Gore-Bush debate together and listened to the conventional wisdom that Mr. Gore had won hands down. “Jim and I disagreed,” Mr. Michaels said. “Our take was that Gore seemed so tightly wound. He reminded you of some kid you didn’t like in school.”

That take helped define Mr. Gore for that election cycle. This year, Mr. Downey said, is “definitely different from other years.” The chief difference is in the passion that he said that he believed people were bringing to this election. “They feel there is so much at stake,” he said.

But he defended his depiction of the press’s relationship to Mr. Obama, as did Mr. Michaels. Mr. Michaels said he knew there was truth in the first sketch on Feb. 23 because “it got laughs.”

Immediately after that show Mr. Downey said he started hearing from Obama supporters that he was trying to undermine their candidate. Those complaints have only increased in subsequent weeks after two more election sketches have appeared, with Mr. Obama being played by Fred Armisen. That choice has raised a few eyebrows because Mr. Armisen’s ancestry is Venezuelan, German and Japanese but not African-American. Mr. Michaels said he was sensitive to that criticism but said Mr. Armisen simply had the best comic take on the character of Mr. Obama.

Both men suggested that Mrs. Clinton benefited from being portrayed by Amy Poehler, whom Mr. Downey called “our charm machine.” But Ms. Poehler resisted one aspect of the portrayal in the first sketch on Feb. 23. Mr. Downey had written a moment when a tear was supposed to come to Mrs. Clinton’s eye, and the debate hosts were going to hammer her for “turning on the water works again.”

Mr. Downey acknowledged, “Amy wasn’t crazy about that. She said that was not fair.” The tear was cut from the live show.

Both men said that most members of the cast and writing staff favored Mr. Obama as a presidential candidate, and Mr. Downey said that he would definitely vote for him if he were nominated. (Mr. Downey said he was a registered Democrat.)

“I would imagine that most of the comedy world is for Obama,” he said. The show’s head writer, Seth Meyers, has contributed to Mr. Obama’s campaign.

Mr. Michaels gave money to Senator John McCain’s campaign earlier in the race. He said he had mainly supported Democrats and had also contributed this year to Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut on the Democratic side. Both Senators Dodd and McCain were presenters when Mr. Michaels was awarded the Mark Twain prize for humor in Washington in 2004.

Mr. Michaels noted that Mr. McCain had been a host on the show and acknowledged, “I have real affection for him.” But he predicted that the show would be tough on the Republican candidate and that he would not give more money to Mr. McCain’s campaign now that he is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party.

The passion surrounding this year’s race has made the focus on the show’s portrayals of the candidates much more intense, Mr. Downey said — even among the candidates themselves. Mr. Michaels was watching when Mrs. Clinton referred to the first “SNL” sketch during the Feb. 26 presidential debate in Ohio.

“She gave us a shout-out,” he said. He added that her comment had missed “the lightness of Jim Downey’s touch” in her comment in the debate, instead “hitting it with an anvil.”

Mrs. Clinton had already called both Ms. Fey and Ms. Poehler after the first week, Mr. Michaels said. Mrs. Clinton was scheduled to be a guest on the first “SNL” of the season back in September but canceled. Mr. Obama appeared in November.

But after the Feb. 23 sketch Mrs. Clinton volunteered to come on again. Mr. Downey wrote another debate sketch, one he said he had been sure was so rough on Mrs. Clinton that he did not want to be anywhere near her when she viewed it.

Others on the staff, including Mr. Michaels, hatched an “editorial response” for Mrs. Clinton to deliver. She turned up so late on the night of March 1 that she missed the dress rehearsal and had to go over the bit in her dressing room with Ms. Poehler.

By most accounts, she handled the self-mocking material well. Mr. Michaels agreed she had come off positively, saying, “I think we lit her well.”

The show did ask Mr. Obama to appear this week , and Mr. Downey wrote an editorial response for him to deliver, but the senator declined. “I hope it was scheduling and not because he hates us,” Mr. Downey said.

– By Bill Carter

Popularity: 2% [?]

I now prefer MadTV

i love obama, and think hilary is okay too - and i think it’s Hilarious how snl is handling it. it’s only showing that the only thing they can make fun of the man for (besides his mannerisms, speech, etc) is how everybody loves him. i think that that can be seen as a positive!

Good job SNL. i still luv ya.

Tina Fey, Lorne Michaels, SNL, “SHAME ON YOU….” (does that sound familiar, Clinton supporters, I thought so)
No more SNL for me and for a bunch of other former SNL fans out there.

anyone who would stop watchin the show over this is a complete idiot. Im so glad they finally made fun of the stupid idiots to the left! Its not hard to do, and there is SOO much material out there to hammer the left with. Hopefully they continue…