Chevy Chase’s SNL presidential mockery turns 50, changed comedy forever

November 8, 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of Chevy Chase’s comedic portrayal of US President Gerald Ford as a bumbling idiot. Saturday Night Live. Nowadays, we expect SNL to do just that He mocks the president. (There’s even speculation going on in each administration about who will play president.) But when Chase did it for the first time, it was groundbreaking. Indeed, in the years before SNL, lampooning the president on what was still a relatively new medium of television often had to overcome resistance from network censorship and presidential pressure alike.

James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump during the Trump Cold Open train visit on Saturday, February 25, 2023. (Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images)

In the early 1960s, NBC executives would not allow a comedy sketch about President John F. Kennedy to appear on The Art Carney Show. As a network spokesperson explained, “We thought it would be inappropriate for artists to actually portray the president and his wife,” adding that “the decision was based on a matter of good taste.”

The networks were similarly reluctant to mock Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson. In 1964, NBC imported the British parody show That Was the Week That Was, which had been developed specifically in England to “poke the egos of public figures.” Although the show occasionally parodied Johnson, NBC’s censors constantly clashed with the show’s producers over LBJ jokes. NBC also took the step of suspending all of the show’s political humor around the 1964 presidential election.

Another show that attempted to mock the president was the Smothers Brothers’ Comedy Hour. The show, which premiered on CBS in 1967, faced opposition from Johnson himself. One skit that mocked Johnson prompted Johnson to tell CBS president William Paley in a late-night phone call, “Get those off my back.” Paley asked the offer to be easier for the president.

Aidy Bryant as Senator Joe Manchin, Cecily Strong as Senator Krysten Sinema, Pete Davidson as Andrew Cuomo, James Austin Johnson as President Joe Biden, Igo Nwodim as Representative Ilhan Omar, and Melissa Villasenor as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during the “Biden Unites Democrats” town hall on Saturday, October 2, 2021. (Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

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When Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, the brothers pledged to “stop making jokes” about the next president for a while. But this pledge did not stop them from getting the comedian David Fry impersonates Nixon On offer. However, the show was canceled in April 1969 A bunch of disagreementsincluding sexual, religious, as well as political jokes.

In the final episode, the brothers read a letter from former President Johnson, in which he claims he was OK with being ridiculed: “It is part of the price of leadership to be the target of clever satirists. You have given us the gift of laughter. May we never become so sad or self-important that we fail to appreciate humor.” Although the words were impressive, it was a bit difficult to take Johnson seriously given his previous involvement with Bali.

Jay Pharaoh as President Barack Obama and Bobby Moynihan as Kim Jong Un during the cold open of “Obama Mandela.” (Dana Edelson/NBCU Image Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)

As for Fry, with the show’s cancellation, he continued to impersonate Nixon in comedy albums. But even here, the networks continued to obstruct. In 1973, the three major networks refused to accept advertising on them New York For Frye’s Watergate album related to Watergate. According to a WABC-TV spokesperson, “It is a very serious matter, and we have decided not to accept any comedic material related to the Watergate scandal for advertising.”

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With this background in mind, SNL must have known it was taking a risk when it asked Chase to send the president live. Chase’s portrayal went beyond light jokes at the president’s expense. Chase paced around the Oval Office, holding a glass instead of a phone to his ear, and pouring water from a pitcher onto the papers on his desk. However, the show not only survived, but thrived.

That first presidential skit on SNL was a watershed moment that helped radically change the relationship between the American people and the president. The 1960s and 1970s brought down the American presidency in the eyes of the American people. Kennedy’s assassination shocked Americans who did not realize that the president was so vulnerable. The Johnson years have poked a hole in the bubble of presidential honesty on foreign affairs. Nixon’s Watergate scandal created a similar bubble in domestic affairs. Then the unelected Ford came to power and immediately pardoned Nixon in connection with the Watergate scandal. The decision was praised in retrospect, but was controversial at the time.

Dana Carvey as George Bush on Saturday Night Live. (Alan Singer/NBCU Image Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)

Chase opening the show as Ford that day in 1975 brought satirical heads out of the narrow world of Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl comedy routines and into the media on a more regular basis. This first SNL sketch ushered in a period in which presidents became both closer to and further away from the American people. Sarcasm can make physically isolated politicians less distant from ordinary citizens. As a result, presidents are now almost ubiquitous in the world of television and social media, with more or less constant ridicule. In this world, even a short-term disappearance of a president for a day or two could lead to unfounded rumors of the president’s death.

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At the same time, presidents are farther away from the American people, as the security bubble around them becomes tighter. The White House is like an armed camp. Presidential motorcades are unapproachable, and presidents face intense pressure to maintain regular contact with friends. George W. Bush Give up email. Obama resisted pressure to give up his BlackBerry phone.

In our current Chevy Chase-supported world, presidential cynicism has become a constant. while Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel I learned that bosses and network suits can still target a sitcom or one-man show, and these are unfortunate exceptions rather than the rule, and even Kimmel’s exile only lasted about a week. The president’s taunts continue on Kimmel, as well South ParkJon Stewart, social media, and a host of other places are showing that the mass-market, largely uncensored, boss-mocking that Chevy Chase unleashed on SNL a half-century ago isn’t going back into the bottle, and for that we should be grateful.

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