How Chevy Chase, SNL, and One Pratfall Changed a Presidential Election

On this episode of Our American Stories, when the brand-new Saturday Night Live first took the airwaves by storm, it was Chevy Chase’s clumsy impression of Gerald R. Ford—an All-American athlete turned commander-in-chief—that changed how Americans saw their president. The sketch also shaped the future of political satire, presidential impersonations, and even the 1976 election itself. Peter Funt, author of Playing POTUS: The Power of America's 'Acting Presidents', tells the story behind one of comedy’s most consequential impressions.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from where the West begins in
Fort Worth, Texas. You to tell the story of the
most famous presidential impersonations is Peter Funt, author of Playing Potus,
The Power of America's Acting Presidents.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
So although there were some presidential impersonations in the nineteen
thirties and nineteen forties, the genre really began in nineteen
sixty two when JFK was president and an album came out,
a record album that was called The First Family. The

(00:58):
voice was provided by an unknown at that time comedian
by the name of Vaughan Meeterer.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
The question was you much has done to be president?

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Definitely not.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
I think he should finish school first. And he managed
to capture pretty much the charm, the charisma that Kennedy
captivated much of America with. You know, they called the
period Camelot for a good reason, because the nation was

(01:30):
in love with this young, charming president. Kennedy's assassination kind
of shut down the whole enterprise for a while. The
nation was in shock, and frankly, comedians didn't really know
what to do next. Lyndon Johnson became president. This was

(01:54):
a guy who was far more mockable in terms of
his comedic traits than Kennedy was, but for a year
or more, impressionist didn't want to touch it.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
It was just.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Too insensitive considering what had happened with Kennedy. But eventually
the comedians started. There was a guy named David Frye.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
How fellow Americans, Jack, come here tonight with a heavy heart.
We would do something and the problem in his great
land of ours, I have to shot it to take
the following stick, and he.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Did a pretty pointed LBJ. And in fact, along with
the Smothers brothers, who were comedians and entertainers, they were
also very politically focused against the president they didn't care for,
which was LBJ. Don't forget.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
This was a.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Period where the Vietnam War was just ripping our country apart,
and the Civil rights movement was also a big deal.
It was a very tough time for Lynnon Johnson to
be president and a very easy time to make comedy
about Johnson. Why from New York It's Saturday night, I'd

(03:27):
say good comedians never shy away from controversy and They're
always looking to push the envelope, and as the presidents
came and went, it just seemed like a logical avenue
for comedy. But really the big turning point came in

(03:47):
nineteen seventy five, right at that time Saturday Night Live
had its television debut, and right on the very first
episode of Saturday Night Live, although they did not do
a presidential impersonation on that first show, chevy Chase anchored

(04:09):
Weekend Update and set the stage immediately for criticizing the president.
He said one line that was so damning to Gerald Ford.
Ford's new campaign slogan.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Ford was on the campaign trail announcing in Detroit that
he has written his own campaign slogan, the slogan, if
He's so dumb, how come He's President.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Three weeks later, they decided on SNL to do a
sketch that would involve Gerald Ford, and they decided that
chevy Chase would play the part. Now, chevy Chase really
isn't an impressionist. He is a comedian. He's not an impressionist.

(04:57):
And the beauty part of his Gerald Ford was he
made no effort to sound like the guy, no effort
to look like the guy. In fact, nothing he did
about gerald Ford actually rang true, except that it was
so funny. Chevy Chase, an up and coming comic, had

(05:18):
made his mark falling down. He loved to do pratfalls.
While gerald Ford had had some unfortunate mishaps, the most
infamous of which was slipping and falling on the steps
of Air Force One.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
For President Ford, the year seemed full of snacks. In June,
he fell down the plane steps on arriving in Austria.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
And he quickly got an impression among the public as
kind of a clutz. Now, parenthetically, he was not a klutz,
and he did not fall down a lot, even though
he did on one or two occasions. Chevy Chase and
the writers at SNL ran with this. Chase would play

(06:05):
Ford and he'd bumble, drop things and really act like
a clown, and the payoff was invariably that he'd fall down.
And that's what chevy Chase was so good at. And
it just became funnier and funnier each week, so much
so that the public began to think that maybe this

(06:28):
guy who's president is a klutz. And then if you
project that further, well, if he's so clumsy, maybe ain't
very smart either, and it began to work against Gerald
Ford arguably actually contributed to Ford's defeat. So there we
have the first example of presidential impersonations affecting the presidential election,

(06:59):
and it sort of gone on a rollercoaster ever since.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
And by the way, what chevy Chase didn't include, and
what America didn't know, was that Joeld Ford may have
been the greatest athlete to ever become and be president.
He was on the championship football team at the University
of Michigan when he was an undergrad, and it was
also a tremendous golfer. But the facts never get in
the way of good comedy. The story of playing botus

(07:27):
here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Hbib, host
of Our American Stories. Every day on this show we
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(07:53):
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