“The X-Presidents! Struck by a hurricane-powered dose of radiation whereas showing at a star golf event, our 4 former presidents are charged with powers and strengths, rendering all of them the extra extraordinary! Gerald Ford! Ronald Reagan! Jimmy Carter! George Bush! Pitting their arsenal of phenomenal powers in opposition to Earth and interplanetary foes alike, the fabulous foursome for proper in opposition to may. X-Presidents!”
This was America’s introduction to Robert Smigel’s recurring Saturday Night time Reside cartoon X-Presidents, which was a part of the animated TV Funhouse segments that ran on the present from 1996 till 2008. After the primary Ambiguously Homosexual Duo cartoon and some segments of Enjoyable with Actual Audio, TV Funhouse’s eighth cartoon was X-Presidents, a superhero parody starring America’s then roster of residing ex-presidents who had been imbued with non-specific superpowers.
The X-Presidents ran for a complete of 9 segments, with their remaining journey happening throughout the 2004 presidential election, only a few months after Reagan’s dying — although he nonetheless was featured because the remaining X-Presidents resurrected him.
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Right here’s how all of that fake presidential historical past was constituted of the very man who put them in workplace (and on SNL) within the first place: Robert Smigel.
The X-Presidents’ Superhero Origin Story
The X-Presidents got here out of me simply laughing at how rudimentary folks’s consciousness of our legislators was on the time. Individuals are extra conscious now as a result of they’re flooded with info — each good and dangerous — however within the mid-Nineties, sure issues that presidents stated are all that sure segments of the inhabitants actually knew about them. JFK had “Ask not what your nation…,” and Ronald Reagan had a pair like, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
We had been additionally coming off this era of motion motion pictures the place Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone had a catchphrase they might utter simply after or earlier than beating the shit out of somebody. I assumed it’d be actually humorous if the ex-presidents had been like Clint Eastwood-esque badasses who received to say their well-known catchphrases as they combat crime. However we twisted them. Jimmy Carter famously stated in a Playboy interview “I’ve lusted in my coronary heart for different girls”; so within the montage he says, “I’ve lusted in my coronary heart to kick your ass.” Or Reagan: “Simply say no — to pissing me off!” Bush had “Learn my lips,” and Ford began off with a catchphrase, however as we went on, he simply received dumber and dumber. By the later ones, he simply says “Hey!” earlier than he hits somebody.
On the finish, they might play a track, identical to The Archies would on the finish of their cartoon. That grew to become such a cliché within the period I used to be rising up on cartoons, within the Seventies and Eighties. It didn’t matter if there was nothing within the present that had something to do with music, they might nonetheless all of the sudden have a band on the finish of the present.
Presidential Portraits
We just about made the presidents appear to be they did whereas they had been in workplace versus what they appeared like within the Nineties, perhaps just a little in-between in Ford’s and Carter’s case. I didn’t make them cartoon-y in any respect; I handled them like superheroes. I made the artwork appear to be a superhero comedian e book versus a “humorous” comedian e book.
I had Jim Morris, a really well-known political impersonator, do all of the voices. In a sketch, you wish to see a caricature — like Dana Carvey as George Bush — greater than you wish to see an correct impression. However for this, I went for essentially the most correct impressions doable for a similar motive I went with the deadpan type of superhero drawings, as a result of the extra critically it took itself, the funnier it could be.
Reagan was the alpha of the group. He had all of the put-downs. We undoubtedly didn’t go for benign, doddering Reagan; it was undoubtedly jingoistic, hardass, “Tear Down This Wall” Reagan.
Bush was the fawning sidekick to Reagan. Then I added the gag with him and Barb having intercourse on a regular basis — I needed to compete with Mr. Peepers in some way. That was the period of SNL the place the brand new solid was so totally different from my period. My period was far more writer-idea dominated. I’m not saying one is healthier than the opposite, however they had been doing actually broad stuff, far more bodily comedy with folks like Cheri Oteri and Chris Kattan, so I used to be fearful that this bit would get too dry. It wanted some massive laughs, so I assumed it’d be humorous if Bush and Barb had been having extra intercourse than every other couple among the many 4 X-Presidents.
X-Presidential Historical past Books
Round 2000, Adam McKay and I wrote a complete film script for the X-Presidents. I had been approached to write down an Ace and Gary film, however I assumed they had been too one-dimensional. I assumed the X-Presidents had been at the least two-dimensional.
We modeled it after the 1966 Batman film, so we did a rogues’ gallery of their villains like Imelda Marcos, Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi, whoever the dangerous guys had been again then — the “Axis of Evil” in America’s thoughts on the time.
We thought we had bought it to a small studio, but it surely fell aside, so we determined to make a graphic novel out of it, which we did by Random Home. It’s soiled and tremendous foolish. We truly stole just a little little bit of it for our later X-Presidents cartoon about Bin Laden.
Answering the Name to Motion
The fourth one, in regards to the Structure, might be my favourite. The primary three had been simply foolish; this was the primary one to make any type of level. I used to be so annoyed on the time of the Clinton impeachment, the place everybody was deciphering the Structure conveniently for his or her point-of-view, so it cracked me as much as flip the Structure into the villain of this cartoon.
I began to get extra political with the sequence as time handed. After Will Ferrell left, SNL wasn’t doing loads of stuff in regards to the Bush administration as a result of they weren’t as excited to do Bush humor — I assumed Will Forte was nice, but it surely wasn’t the identical to folks there in some way. I needed to do Bush humor as a result of I used to be very annoyed by that administration, so I did many extra cartoons that had been instantly political, not simply with X-Presidents.
Increasingly, The X-Presidents began to be about one thing, beginning with the Structure one and persevering with with the one in regards to the Iraq Conflict, the place they’re making a propaganda film for the struggle starring SpongeBob with the precise voice of SpongeBob, Tom Kenny. Out of the entire X-Presidents, SpongeBob was the one one who had any objection, saying, “I dunno guys, this appears flawed.”
That was the second-to-last one. The final one was throughout the 2004 election, when George W. Bush was tricking them into serving to him rig the election. Ron Reagan Jr. was on the workforce now after his father had died, and the workforce is type of misplaced with out Reagan. They had been all a bunch of simps with out Reagan to bully them round.
X-President 2024?
A couple of years in the past, after Trump misplaced, I wrote to somebody at Saturday Night time Reside as a result of I had an concept to carry The X-Presidents again, however I didn’t get anybody wanting it at the moment.
Who wouldn’t it be as we speak? Trump, Bush, Clinton, Obama and Carter. Trump would tackle the Reagan position, I suppose — or attempt to. Obama was at all times arduous to parody as a result of he had that cool demeanor. Obama has additionally been idealized, which makes it tougher. And Trump is nearly past parody. The unique workforce was three Republicans and one failed Democrat, in order that, in some way, felt simpler. It was additionally 4 outdated white guys.
I don’t know if we might do it now. It will be attention-grabbing, although.
