LORNE MICHAELS announced SNL changes for the opening Saturday night this week. It includes African American Jay Pharoah taking over the job of portraying President Barack Obama, which was formerly played by Fred Armisen. There had been continual puzzlement on why a black man wasn’t playing the President and now we’ll get a new look at what SNL can offer on Obama.
The show’s creator and guiding hand (as executive producer) for most of its history, Mr. Michaels said in an interview in his office at Rockefeller Center that he has looked forward to campaign years going back to 1976, when Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter were running for the White House.
“We had that line that year: ‘I was told there’d be no math,’ which defined something,” Mr. Michaels recalled. “It was our first time through it; we came on after Watergate. Politics was something we felt we needed to pay attention to.”
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There had been continual puzzlement on why a black man wasn’t playing the President and now we’ll get a new look at what SNL can offer on Obama.
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Sometimes, you work with what you have, and cast against type. I have no idea if that worked here, since I haven’t watched SNL in what seems like forever. Still, I find the idea that someone portrays Obama as being like all the other guys who occupied the White House before him as being kinda, oh I don’t know, funny in a subversive kind of way.
Well, I’m a fan of SNL (fave: Jimmy Fallon or Justin Timberlake guest spots). So much comedy to mine, especially with Mitt Romney.
I’m also hoping for a Darrell Hammond encore of Bill Clinton, who’s got such a big role this year.