The Election of '76-Starring Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd

Saturday Night Live relied heavily on political satire, just as Second City had before them. Sarah Akers comments “in the beginning, SNL was a lot more creation than commentary...They made an everyday character [like Gerald For or Jimmy Carter] into a joke” (Akers). The first election that SNL covered was between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976. Second City Alum, Dan Aykroyd played Jimmy Carter and Chevy Chase portrayed the ‘bumbling’ Gerald Ford. “Considering the amount of political humor Saturday Night put on the air, the staff of the show was surprisingly apolitical” (Hill and Weingrad 183) which was a complete difference from their Second City counterparts in the 1960’s. Nonetheless, during that election “Lorne is proudest of the time Saturday Night replayed, three days before the...election the speech in which Ford announced his pardon of Richard Nixon” (Hill and Weingrad 183), by playing the real clip and not a satire, Saturday Night took a chance on their true ability to reach a political audience.

Louis B. Raffel writes in the Chicago Tribune that

“Despite the expressed opinion that Gerald Ford was defeated in the 1976 election because of the pardon of Richard Nixon, I believe the loss can be attributed primarily to ‘Saturday Night Live’ for months prior to the election, the late night comedy show -- hugely popular in its early days-- started each week with a Chevy Chase satire of Ford doing a stupid, clumsy pratfall making Ford appear not very bright and far less than presidential. “SNL” ushered in the era of TV comedians being a major force in shaping political opinion about presidents and public policy” (Raffel 1).

Many people believe that the Chevy Chase portrayal of Gerald Ford on Saturday Night cost him the election, especially skits such as “Operation Stumblebum” (“An Oval Office”) which did not portray the president in a good light. The fact that Gerald Ford, unlike presidents of the 21st century, did not appreciate SNL demonstrates how satire has changed since the beginning of SNL. When Gerald Ford’s press secretary was a host in 1976, Gerald Ford spoofed Chevy Chase’s catch phrase “I’m Chevy Chase, and You’re Not,” but was still ridiculed by the cast, even though he tried to play their game (“Weekend Update”). But the election was not the end of the satire. When Jimmy Carter was elected, Dan Aykroyd began to portray him in skits with an intelligent, yet not suitable for the White House, persona. This is exemplified in a skit where the President shares knowledge of topics from mail distributors to narcotic drugs (“Ask President Carter”).

Chevy Chase was not originally hired as a player on Saturday Night Live, which comes as a shock due to his almost instantaneous fame. Chase was quoted as saying “Fame is a very unnatural human condition. When you stop to realize that Abraham Lincoln was probably never seen by more than 400 people in a single evening, and that I can enter 400 million homes in a single evening due to the power of television, you have to admit the situation is not normal” (Hill and Weingrad 213). “SNL isn’t a credible source of anything,” Sarah Akers believes, “But it is the way the public feels and the way a candidate is perceived, but not hard facts” (Akers). SNL cast members were only beginning to realize the political impact that the show had the potential to utilize.