On the surface, the March 7 episode of Saturday Night Live was fairly uneventful. The highlight for many was most likely any time hunky host Chris Hemsworth made an appearance on-screen, but this episode also marked the first official appearance of Kate McKinnon as probable 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
What was strange about this appearance — and made it somewhat newsworthy — is that since 2010, Vanessa Bayer was the cast member regularly appearing as Clinton. Also, there was no hint that this change was taking place, or that the show was even considering replacing Bayer with McKinnon as we head into the 2016 presidential race.
Going into the season, it seemed that Bayer would be impersonating Hillary Clinton, and Bayer herself when asked about Clinton running for president in an interview last June with Vulture said,
“Oh, yeah! I definitely hope that she runs for president. For a lot of reasons — not just because I impersonate her. It’s just a role, let’s be real.”
The last time SNL made a change with a top political figure was in 2012, when Jay Pharoah replaced Fred Armisen as President Barack Obama. The difference with this change was that Pharoah was hired as a cast member in 2010 based on his many impressions, including Obama, and the story of the casting change broke before the 38th season began.
The first sketch with Pharoah as Obama in September 2012 even had the president being introduced by a speaker played by Armisen who quipped, “I wouldn’t want his job,” before Pharoah walked on stage. During the March 7 episode, Bayer didn’t even appear until the final sketch of the evening.
There was no passing of the torch because, frankly, there was no torch to pass from Bayer to McKinnon. Over the course of four sketches, Bayer never really made an impression on audiences with her impersonation of Clinton.
Hillary Clinton first appeared on SNL during a Nightline sketch in 1992, and was portrayed by the late, great Jan Hooks. Hooks portrayed Clinton as an angry woman trying to get some of her husband’s spotlight to shine on her. During that first sketch, she gets into an argument with a woman (Julia Sweeney) over whether or not Clinton said butter was an ingredient in her cookie recipe.
What is kind of shocking about Hooks as Clinton is that she only appeared as the first lady seven times, but it is considered by many the best impression of Hillary Clinton. Hooks’ portrayal essentially laid the groundwork for the next 23 years of Hillary Clinton on SNL. Hillary would always have to deal with Bill (Phil Hartman or Darrell Hammond), appear to be somewhat bitter or cold, and also desperately failing to get out from behind the shadows of men.
When Amy Poehler began impersonating Clinton in 2003, the cold persona thawed a bit, and when Hillary appeared with Bill, there wasn’t an attempt to step into his spotlight. This may have more to do with Bill no longer being president and Hillary being a senator from New York, but Poehler made Hillary Clinton likable on SNL.
Poehler’s impression still had that edge that made her unmistakably Hillary, but she also laughed and joked around. McKinnon’s Clinton appears to be blending the likability of Poehler’s version with McKinnon’s trademark goofy, but somewhat accurate impressions.
Unfortunately, real life interfered when Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, keeping Hillary in the shadows even as she became his Secretary of State. With the 2016 presidential election just over a year away, it’s time for Clinton to try once again to make history and it appears that SNL made a move with this in mind.
To say that Kate McKinnon’s star is rising is a huge understatement. She is clearly the best cast member on SNL, receiving an Emmy nomination last year for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on the show, and she was recently cast as one of the Ghostbusters for director Paul Feig’s rebooting of the classic paranormal comedy.
While 2016 is shaping up to be a very big year for McKinnon, it also begs the question, how long will she be a cast member at SNL? She could wait for the outcome of the elections and leave once they are finished, but the election is a year and a half away. If Ghostbusters is a monster hit with McKinnon getting rave reviews, no one would blame her for leaving like so many cast members have done before her after a hit movie.
On the flipside of all of this is Vanessa Bayer, and what appears to be the end of the road for her at SNL. While her screen time rose during each of the past three seasons, it has been steadily on the decline this season. Currently Bayer is appearing about as much as newcomers Leslie Jones and Pete Davidson, and as the longest tenured female cast member she has been surpassed by McKinnon, Cecily Strong, and Aidy Bryant as the show’s go-to female performer.
Saturday Night Live made the decision to attach possibly the most important person of 2016 to its most important cast member, and no one can really blame them for making the switch. While both McKinnon and Bayer are quality comedic performers, McKinnon is consistently the funniest person every single week. Hopefully this means that appearances by McKinnon’s Clinton will reach the same levels of hilarity that Hooks and Poehler gave us over the past quarter century.
