Alaskan small towner and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin paid a visit to the Big Apple and the studios of Saturday Night Live yesterday evening. And because her appearance all but caps the final political guest spot to be had on NBC’s resurgent skit machine, we thought it’d only be appropriate to take one big sweeping look back at the opening scenes and subsequent spoofs that have made up the humor track of the current election campaign soon to finish.
Let’s start in the present. As you’ve now learned, the real Sarah Palin made her way back to New York after a few days of mingling with heads of state from the world over, and decided to stop by SNL to have some time before the camera herself. The two clips below are what came out of the trip. (Bear with the adverts.)
NBC’s own capture of the view count of Palin’s opening monologue is tracking some 580,000+ views thus far. It’s only sensible to expect that number to grow as the hours progress. By the time Monday hits, it’ll be well into seven figures. Palin’s “Rap” runs more than 300,000.
Stepping back 12 months into the past, some of you may remember that we first saw Barack Obama’s guest spot on SNL’s October 2007 Halloween episode. Reviews at the time were generally upbeat. Nothing like Tina Fey’s rocking climb of weeks past, but not too shabby then and there. How’s it look to you now?
Months after Obama had presented himself, then Democratic primary contender Hillary Clinton made a true showing of her own. The blog world and the mainstream media lapped it up in kind. Viewer response could perhaps best be summarized as calling Clinton a “good sport.”
Forward several months more, and Hillary Clinton look-a-like Amy Poehler stands alongside Tina Fey’s rendition of Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. And so the snowball effect begins…. I’m one to think this remains the highlight of the year.
Fey and Poehler, this time moonlighting as Gov. Sarah Palin and CBS news anchor Katie Couric, later take a seat beside one another for an intimate expose of Palin’s visit to New York and all the international diplomacy and get-to-know-yous that happened as the United Nations General Assembly gathered. It didn’t have the sparkle that the preceding viral video displayed, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.
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There was of course the SNL segment that involved a parody of the single vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. As reviews came in each week, Fey definitely seemed to carry her torch consistently throughout all such scenes.
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