‘Saturday Night Live’ Exec Explains Why the Show Prefers to Lampoon Republicans
“Saturday Night Live” head honcho
Lorne Michaels revealed in a recent interview that the comedy sketch
show prefers to lampoon Republicans because Democrats tend to take
things “personally.”
Tina
Fey’s infamous impersonation of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became
instantly recognizable during the 2008 presidential campaign. (Image
source: YouTube)
“Republicans are easier for us than Democrats,” Michaels told entertainment site Vulture. “Democrats tend to take it personally; Republicans think it’s funny.”
He explained how the show’s writers approach political humor.
“(W)e’re not sitting here every week
going, ‘We’ve really got to do the first family.’ This week, our cold
open is about three big stories. We have Piers Morgan interviewing
A-Rod, Chris Christie, and Justin Bieber,” Michaels said. “We’re doing
more of that kind of thing than stuff about Benghazi or the new budget
agreement.”
“The country has lost interest in it. I
can’t tell you why. It’s no less important, but in some way you can’t
do health care more than twice, at which point there’s just nothing
left. But Jay Pharoah does a really good Obama,” he added.
He added that it’s difficult to gauge beforehand whether an episode will be any good.
“You don’t. If it goes well at the
Monday meeting, where the writers and cast are meeting the host and
telling their ideas, then it may dip when we actually read the pieces.
Sometimes we have a very bad read-through, but that just means people
are made more alert that new stuff has to be generated,” he said.
“Just before Christmas, we didn’t have a
cold open when Kristen Wiig made the mistake of coming by to say hello
on Friday night. I went downstairs, got a haircut, and by the time I
came back 15 minutes later they had the ‘Sound of Music’ sketch. And
that was the opening of that week’s show,” he said.
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