Tina Fey As Sarah Palin Boosts Saturday Night Live’s VP Debate Ratings
October 6th, 2008 | Posted in Politics | Print This Article
The extremely talented Tina Fey once again portrayed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live” and sent the show’s ratings through the roof.
The comedienne mimicked Thursday night’s debate between Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Democratic veep candidate Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, who was played by SNL regular Jason Sudeikis. Guest star Queen Latifah joined the sketch as debate moderator Gwen Ifill, who repeatedly pushed her upcoming book on race and politics.
With an unprecedented early start to its ‘08-09 season, “Saturday Night Live” is capitalizing on intense interest in the presidential election. The show’s October 4th episode, hosted by Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway, averaged a 7.4 rating and an 18 percent share of the available TV viewing audience in Nielsen’s 55 metered markets, which is up 42 percent versus last season’s fourth episode.
In SNL’s VP debate spoof, Tina Fey’s portrayal of Governor Palin took center stage and delivered some devastatingly funny one-liners. “We’re gonna ask ourselves what would a maverick do in this situation, and then ya’ know, we’ll do that,” Fey-as-Palin responded when pressed on how to deal with the financial crisis.
The SNL skit also made fun of Senator Biden for his supposed friendship with Republican candidate John McCain. Sudeikis-as-Biden said, “Look, I love John McCain. He is one of my dearest friends. But at the same time, he’s also dangerously unbalanced - He’s bad at his job, and mentally unstable. As my mother would say, God love him, but he’s a raging maniac - and a dear, dear friend.”
October 11th, 2008 at 3:15 am
i guess we don’t have to wonder any more why the GOP was trying so hard to keep Palin as far away from live TV coverage as possible…