Obama's Checklist (SNL)

I don't watch Saturday Night Live, but I'd heard they opened Saturday with a scathing anti-Obama skit. THAT was scathing? Goes to show you how liberal the show really is where a relatively mild (and wholly inaccurate) skit earns such shocked oooohs. I mean, there's a decent point there that on quite a few issues the movement has slowed down. Perhaps President Obama takes too long, or just cannot "Get 'er done." On the other hand, whether you were happy with the actions taken or not, was anyone else around the first four months? The Federal government spent like six-hundred trillion dollars. They committed to more debt than in the history of debt - not the history of American debt - the history of all debt put together. I'm not saying that was good or bad - that depends on your view of what was done, and how much it might accomplish in the long run. (And of course it also depends on what actually gets accomplished - something no one can be sure of at this point.)

Anyway, whatever you think of all that, you can't say it was nothing. Still, the skit was decent. One final note: the actor playing President Obama does his best, and once you get used to his style you can tell where he is trying to match Obama's cadence in certain situations. However, as much as the guy tries, he just doesn't sound like Obama. If you didn't know you were listening to an Obama parody, it would take awhile to figure out.

There are two types of ways to play a real person. One is dead-one mimicry, and the other is to exaggerate a well-known physical or behavioral trait of the person. With mimicry the humor comes from the context of the words, where as exaggeration gives you leg up going in. The problem with copying Obama is that he has a modulated medium-sounding voice. He does have a somewhat distinct cadence, but his voice is relatively devoid of emotion. That's kind of who he is, kind of just cool under fire.

I don't know what the solution is, but any show who wants to do parodies of Obama - their best bet is not to have the resident black cast member give it a shot - but find the best person to get the voice and physical tics - white, black, or miscellaneous, and work on "coloring" from there. Just a thought. Here's the skit.

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