The 2000 U.S. presidential election was a multitude. There have been hanging chads, a controversial Supreme Court docket resolution and JibJab rap battles that one way or the other handed for leisure again then.
In the long run, future battle prison/Ellen BFF George W. Bush took the White Home, whereas his opponent, Al Gore, was compelled to concede. However dropping the election had one silver lining: It meant that Gore was completely free to host Saturday Night time Reside in December of 2002.
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On the time, the query of whether or not or not Gore could be searching for the presidency once more in 2004 was very a lot up within the air. And SNL performed with the suspense of their promo for the episode.
Gore had an interview with 60 Minutes booked for the Sunday after his internet hosting debut, and reporter Lesley Stahl simply assumed that the SNL look was affirmation of his intention to run, as a result of SNL was “one of many ritual stops now on the marketing campaign. You do the late-night comics and SNL — it’s one of many Stations of the Cross.”
However as soon as Gore took the stage at Studio 8H, it grew to become fairly obvious that he wasn’t utilizing SNL to additional his political profession. If something, it was the opposite manner round; he was utilizing politics as a strategy to get on SNL. After parodying his headline-making DNC kiss with then spouse Tipper Gore within the chilly open, Gore’s monologue chronicled his course of for selecting previous operating mate Joe Lieberman: a Bachelor-style actuality present that ends with Al and Joe sipping champagne in a scorching tub collectively.
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Gore’s willingness to lampoon himself was much more obvious in a filmed section by which he excursions the set of The West Wing, however then refuses to go away the Oval Workplace. “He did win the favored vote,” actor Bradley Whitford admits.
Gore introduced that he wouldn’t be operating for president through the 60 Minutes section that aired the next day, however The New York Occasions confessed that they’d already been clued in by the SNL efficiency as a result of “the Al Gore on Saturday Night time Reside was a liberated man.” The Occasions additionally instructed that Gore was extra emotionally revealing on SNL than he was on 60 Minutes, particularly within the Stuart Smiley sketch — the Al Franken character helps Gore transfer previous the ache of dropping the 2000 election.
Gore has said that he hadn’t made a remaining resolution about his political future within the week main as much as the present, and claimed that he would have gone via with the very same present regardless. “Completely I might have finished the sketches I did if I had determined to run for president,” Gore confused. “I didn’t see something fallacious with them.”
And who is aware of, if he’d turn out to be president after internet hosting SNL possibly Gore would have discovered a cupboard place for Tracy Morgan.
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