Sarah Palin playing Tina Fey?!!
October 6, 2008 at 4:57 pm by Curt Holman in A&E
Oh, please let this be true: according to the Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is interested in appearing on “Saturday Night Live” in order to parody Tina Fey, whose Palin impersonations have been the must-see-TV of the presidential campaign. Zwecker says “I’m hearing some sort of Palin tweak of Fey’s American Express commercials is in the works,” which sounds potentially hilarious. (Those American Express ads with the likes of Fey, Jerry Seinfeld or Ellen Degeneres tend to be pretty funny, but they’re also overdue for parody.)
Zwecker alludes to an unnamed “top honcho with the McCain campaign,” which makes the whole thing sound more like wishful thinking than a done deal. “Saturday Night Live” is in reruns this week and returns Oct. 18, but will be producing at least two prime-time “Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday” specials on Oct. 9 and 16, so it might could happen. At any rate, the Sarah Palin/Tina Fey impressions have been a bonanza for “SNL,” giving the show its best ratings in years. If you haven’t seen them, Hulu has her season-opening sketch with Amy Poehler’s Hillary Clinton (NBC.com’s most-watched viral clip ever), the Fey/Poehler parody of the Palin/Couric interview and Saturday’s vice-presidential debate.
It makes me wonder if Entertainment Weekly will pick Fey as its “Entertainer of the Year” for 2008. It’s not a particularly momentous honor, but usually reflects the best and most attention-getting figure (or franchise) from a year’s pop culture. EW picked Jon Stewart for 2004 following “The Daily Show’s” political coverage, and Fey’s Palin impression is a definitive part of the election year zeitgeist. Plus, Fey’s “30 Rock” (returning Oct. 30) is not only one of television’s funniest shows, it won a ton of Emmys this year, including Best Actress and Best Writing Emmys for Fey personally, as well as Outstanding Comedy Series for the second year in a row.
I recently watched the “30 Rock” Season 2 DVD (to be released tomorrow, Oct. 7), and was particularly impressed with Fey’s acting the second time around. When the show debuted, she played straight man to Alec Baldwin and the zany supporting players, but she really holds her own now. On “Episode 210,” she gives a hilarious performance when her character tries to buy an apartment, gets snubbed by the building’s co-op board after a bad interview, and spends an evening drunk-dialing them, in an affectionate spoof of scorned women everywhere.
Plus, Fey starred in Baby Mama, which, well… how about that Palin impression?
(Photo courtesy 2008 Universal Studios)
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