Al Franken on Political Humor at SNL: ‘Our Goal Was to Get Laughs From Everyone’

On Election Night 1988, I was returning in a small jet to New York from Boston, where I had just emceed Michael Dukakis’ “victory” party. Looking down at the lights of a New England town shimmering below, I mused wistfully about the majesty of our democracy. My candidate hadn’t prevailed, but our system was still the envy of the world. Or at least a sizable part of it.

“F-ck!” moaned an anguished Jon Lovitz, the plane’s only other passenger. I turned around to commiserate. But before I could, Jon shared the real reason for his bitter disappointment. “Now Dana gets to be the president!”

Jon had played Dukakis on SNL, so the two of us had flown up to entertain the Dukakis team. It was already clear at the start of the evening that things weren’t going the governor’s way, and my first joke was, “Well it feels like it’s either going to be a close one, or…we’ll win by a landslide!!!” By the time Jon appeared as Dukakis, Bush had been declared the winner. But the trooper got laughs from the dispirited crowd.

Still, Jon was glum on the trip back. Throughout SNL’s history, playing the president was a guarantee of lots of airtime. Think of Chevy Chase’s Gerald Ford, Dan Aykroyd’s Jimmy Carter, Phil Hartman’s Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, Will Ferrell’s George W. Bush.

Throughout virtually all its history, SNL has enjoyed the enviable position of being the only live sketch comedy show that could comment in real time on current events. Yes, late night shows do jokes about politics, but only SNL is comprised primarily of sketches with sets, costumes, and the occasional special effect. Being a live show creates the obligation that if Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders said on a Thursday that schoolchildren should be taught about masturbation, SNL had to have Ellen Cleghorne do Elders explaining herself on live TV two days later.

Over my 15 seasons working at SNL across three decades, I wrote hundreds of sketches, many of them with longtime writer and producer Jim Downey. And Jim came up with a maxim for the ones about politics. “Reward people for knowing stuff, but don’t punish them for not knowing stuff.” We knew that part of the audience had a sophisticated understanding of politics, and part of it did not. Our goal was to get laughs from everyone.

A few weeks before the election, Jim and I wrote a Bush-Dukakis debate sketch. Some of the jokes were big fat ones for everyone: Jon’s shorter Dukakis requiring a motorized lift to reach a suitable height behind the podium—going too high, grinding to a stop, then lowering him back down, and another harsh stop. Some of the jokes were subtler ones for the clued-in audience: Bush’s “thousand points of light” and his vague nod to creating “a kinder, gentler nation”—a nice sentiment, but with absolutely no policy behind it.

The biggest laugh came after a slow build which brought the low-information viewers along. Kevin Nealon as panelist Sam Donaldson asked Dana Carvey’s Bush for specifics on how he would address fundamental problems like hunger and homelessness. Carvey’s Bush offers vague platitudes before saying that unfortunately his time is up, to which Jan Hooks as moderator Diane Sawyer responds with a cheeky smile: “Mr. Vice President, you still have a minute twenty.” A volley ensues—Carvey’s Bush desperately insisting he’s out of time and Hooks’ Sawyer calmly assuring him he's got more. He finally lays out a meaningless summary: “On track. Stay the course. A thousand points of light. Stay the course.” Asked for a rebuttal, Lovitz’s Dukakis throws up his hands. “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy!” The audience exploded with laughter and applause.

The sketch didn’t take sides. That was never our goal. It was just to do well-observed (and dare I say smart) political commentary. For decades the show avoided veering into advocacy. That would wait until Trump became president.