Does Saturday Night Live ever lampoon GW Bush?

I don't watch SNL live very much, but every time I've caught it, they seem to be lampooning, Kerry, Dean, Edwards. I've also seen them do bits on John Ashcroft. I have yet to see them spoof GW Bush. I remember they used to do skits clowning on Bush the Elder and President Clinton when they were in office. Do they have a hands off policy when it comes to GW Bush, Rice, etc. it seems like they would be fodder for a lot of skewering. It seems like they are giving GW a pass. Can anyone that follows SNL tell me if my perceptions are wrong?

Not recently though.

The sketches they do these days lampooning Bush don't really work because the Bush impression doesn't work. Back in "the day," Chevy Chase could get away with playing Ford when he looked nothing like Ford. Now viewers expect the performer to bear a reasonable resemblance to the character.

SNL does it's share of doing a number on Dubya. One has to remember, no president or candidate is safe on that show. Fair and Balanced !!!

yeah, i couldnt believe Will was leaving after doing such a grea impression of Shrub!
talk about funny!
i miss having a good GW on SNL!
the Gore/Bush skits back in 2000 were freakin' great! haha!

One of the best impressions ever.

Totally surprising from Norm McDonald, too. His background was totally in stand-up. Sort of Emo Phillip-ish stand-up at that. Shocked me when he came out with such a great Dole impression.

I agree that there seems to be a lot more emphasis these days on having the performer physically resemble the target -- it's now possible to take a person who doesn't look anything like the character, for example the guy who plays Bush on Leno's show, and transform him.
http://www.ppi.cc/ppi_players/kevin_haney2.htm

For a long time the SNL brass resisted this kind of thing -- I hear they'd even cut sketches if they felt the performer was relying too much on makeup/costuming. It's possible that Bush isn't an easy person to "get" -- the gestures, the alternately plunging/hesitant speech, the self-satisfied smirking, the accent that comes and goes... Agreed, Will Ferrell did a pretty good job of the whole nasty package -- I was surprised that Ferrell's colleague Darrell Hammond just couldn't get it together, since he's fairly talented too. The best shots at Bush on SNL are on the "Weekend Update" segment, I think.

I guess I'm weird in that I'm more used to radio impressionists -- it's influenced me enough that if an impersonator gets a character's vocal mannerisms and mindset down, I'm pretty forgiving about the "look". If the acting's persuasive enough to get my imagination working, that's better than a whole bunch of latex appliances.

I might be just partisan here, but it seems to me that the better Bush impersonators are the one who are detached (or even hostile) towards him and actually go for that mean edge, which is a character trait of his. Steve Bridges, and Hammond too to some extent, seem to admire Bush and try to make him look good. Ferrell admitted voting for Gore. Will Sasso and Roger Abbott (both Canadians) are gleeful about his shortcomings ... neither of them look much like Bush but there is something about their impressions of him that strikes me as perceptive and essentially true.

I particularly liked the West Wing parody, where Bush went over his stem cell speech. "People is made of sperm and eggs"

I think it was the episode with the WWE wrestler guest-starring. Dubya is raring to parachute out of a plane commando-style (yeah, right) and the other guys tell him "we aren't there yet, we're over Canada" and Sasso doesn't miss a beat -- he screams out of the window "You guys are next!"


p.s. on this particular topic -- I'm sorry that the people who did the British show "Spitting Image" are no longer on the air. They would have had a field day. Because they used puppets they could be incredibly vicious (and funny -- once they had a piece of broccoli jump off a plate and attack Bush Sr.).

I know Tina Fey does so in her news segment. I must be catching all the episodes comprised of skits that lampoon the democrats.

It hasn't been funny in ages. Fey & Fallon are just too cool for me, or anyone else I know.

It'd help if that show had writers, too...something they haven't had in a decade.

C'mon, Loren...time to pull the plug.

I watch Dave Chappelle and the Daily Show.
Now they even have Mad TV on Comedy Central.

I must admit I do miss seeing Darryl Hammond play Clinton.

cuckoo administration has handed to them on a silver platter. When they do it's really lukewarm and not funny. The only comedy show that has effectively gored the sacred ox is Jon Stewart in The Daily Show.

from the Reagan-baby generation. (With apologies to all those in that age-group who know quite a lot.) I believe Jimmy Fallon once said that all the news he knows he gets from reading his script for SNL's "news" segment.

At least that's the impression I get.. Ferrel was so good, and the ones who tried , after he left, were SO bad, ...so they must have just "forgotten" that Bush even exists..

Their comedy used to be cutting edge..and funny.. It's been pretty lame for a long time now.. They need to pull the plug..

...has lost its edge. Very dull anymore. Agree it's time to pull the plug. A British friend made me envious when she mentioned their hilarious and hard-hitting "Spitting Image" that was big during the Reagan-Thatcher years. I told her that that's exactly what we need here today!