Saturday Night Live is an institution in entertainment when it comes to celebrity impressions, especially when it comes to impersonating politicians. Over the years, both right-wing and left-wing fans have been amused by lampoons and parodies of their favorite or least favorite politicians.
Some politicians love their parody selves and get in on the joke, while others throw temper tantrums and take offense to being parodied. In the course of its 40+ year run on television, they have seen plenty of leaders come and go, and no one has ever been spared, much to the delight of the audience.
7 Dana Carvey As George H.W. Bush
Dana Carvey is unquestionably one of the best impressionists that SNL ever had on the cast. Name a star, and Carvey can probably nail their voice, in his repertoire of voices he can do his friend Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Pacino, and so many more. But his real claim to fame, especially during his tenure on the show, was his dead-on impression of president George H. W. Bush. When Carvey came back to the show to host, he dusted off his old character for his opening monologue, with the help of the real President Bush. Unlike some of Bush's fellow Republicans, he took the joke in good spirits.
6 Chevy Chase As Gerald Ford
The show debuted in the mid-1970s when Gerald Ford was still president, and Chevy Chase was the man who stood in for the famously clumsy president. Ford was notorious for stumbling, to the point that some were concerned something might be off about the president either physically or mentally. That said, the nation always got a laugh at Ford's real-life pratfalls, but they laughed even harder at Chase's pratfalls until Ford stopped being president in 1976.
5 Will Ferrell As George W Bush
Will Ferrell was probably the most popular impersonator of the 43rd president because, near the end of the man's term, Ferrell did a one-man show as his Bush character. The impression was dead on when it came to nailing Bush's looks, voice, and even his mannerisms, and even though Ferrell could take it to the extreme, he could also keep it very subtle. Bush was famous for misspeaking or mispronouncing words and it was so notorious that his harshest critics wondered if the man could read. Ferrell played to this criticism and his version of Bush is incredibly, to put it nicely, simple-minded.
4 Will Ferrell As Janet Reno
Ferrell was not known as the best impressionist on SNL, save for his dead-on George W. Bush, but he did have one other political parody in his pocket before Bush was elected. In the 1990s, Janet Reno served as President Bill Clinton's Attorney General and was the first woman to hold the office.
She was also, for lack of a better term, criticized for being somewhat "mannish" (whatever that means) because her voice was deep, she was rather tall, and she took on the job of being the nation's top law enforcement officer. Ferrell played to this characterization of Reno in a series of skits called "Janet Reno's Dance Party." In one segment, Ferrell as Reno fought a real politician, now-disgraced former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani. In one episode, Reno bursts into the sketch-like Kool-Aid man. Although calling her "mannish" was incredibly sexist and offensive, especially by today's standards, Reno did not seem to hold anything against Ferrell for the impression.
3 Larry David As Bernie Sanders
Sanders is great at taking a joke, and he was flattered when Larry David, who has an uncanny resemblance to the democratic socialist senator, got the role as his impersonator during the 2016 and 2020 elections. Coincidentally, that close resemblance makes perfect sense because a DNA test revealed that Larry David and Bernie Sanders are actually distant cousins.
2 Tina Fey As Sarah Palin
Fey had left SNL years before the 2008 election to run her show 30 Rock, but when GOP candidate John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate, many voters were taken by surprise by how closely the Governor of Alaska resembled Fey. Fey stepped back onto the SNL set to play Palin in a series of sketches, and perfectly lampooned Palin's obnoxious catchphrase, "You betcha!" Palin was not a fan of the impression. Funny enough, Tina Fey's 30 Rock co-star also parodied a GOP politician a few years later, and like Palin, that politician was not happy about their parody.
1 Alec Baldwin As Donald Trump
During the Trump presidency, SNL began doing more political satire than ever before. In the past, the show was fairly moderate and lampooned all politicians of all parties, but they took direct aim at Donald Trump to avoid siding with the man who is arguably the most polarizing U.S. president since Richard Nixon. Trump, very famously, hated Baldwin's impression of him, and before losing his Twitter account, Trump would rage about every sketch SNL did to mock him. It seems none of his advisors ever told the man that he didn't need to watch the show. He might be bitter that his 2015 appearance on the show is widely considered one of the worst episodes ever.
