Presidential Impersonations

SNL has a long history of impersonating political figures on its show. Usually the skits involve recent political events or situations where political figures have done something funny. A common skit, however, is an address from the current president. No on has done this better than Dana Carvey. His impersonation of George Bush Sr. is spot on and creates laughs every time he does it. He is no longer on SNL, but a sample skit of his can be found by following the link below.

Dana Carvey as Bush Sr.

Carvey exaggerates the accent and hand gestures of Bush Sr. to bring attention to the humorous aspects of his persona. This is best seen in the bit where Carvey doesn't say anything for a while but only communicates through various hand gestures which Bush Sr. presumably does.

Will Ferrell also does an impersonation, in this case George W. Bush, and when he did it on SNL it was one of the funniest skits they did. An example of this impersonation can be seen in the first minute of the link below.
Will Ferrell as George W. Bush

 Most recently, Fred Armisen does an Obama impersonation which is in my opinion not as good as those of Ferrell and Carvey, but is still a crucial part of SNL (doing an impersonation of the president), so it is featured in many episodes in a similar way to how the Bush impersonations were frequented on the show. Armisen's impersonation can be seen in the link below.

Fred Armisen as Obama

 Why do we like these impersonations so much though? I think it is because of the way that by impersonating the president, the most important figure in American culture, SNL brings down the president to the level of the ordinary American. He is someone, maybe not just like us but similar, who has flaws and humorous characteristics. Also, by laughing at the president, if you don't agree with some of his decisions it is a good way to vent those emotions. For those reasons SNL will most likely keep doing presidential impersonations for the duration of the show.