Here’s Why Daytime Talk Pioneer Phil Donahue Was An ‘SNL’ Favorite

Legendary daytime talk show host Phil Donahue passed away last night at the age of 88 after a long illness. Donahue practically invented many conventions that are now talk-show staples, such as walking into the audience and interacting with its members. As his show took off in the 1970s, he also tackled issues that no other talk show dared touch. “If there had been no Phil Donahue Show, there would be no Oprah Winfrey show,” Winfrey said in 2002. “He was the first to acknowledge that women are interested in more than mascara tips and cake recipes — that we’re intelligent, we’re concerned about the world around us and we want the best possible lives for ourselves.”

Donahue’s signature cadence, dramatic mannerisms and audience interactions not only made for engaging TV but a go-to impression for three generations of Saturday Night Live cast members. 

Joe Piscopo’s version in 1982 was amusing but the least rousing of the bunch. Give Piscopo credit for originating the impression in this scene where he negotiates peace in the Middle East between Menachem Begin and Yasser Arafat. The sketch is most notable now for the questionable makeup worn by Gary Kroeger and Tim Kazurinsky. 

Donahue became a signature character for Phil Hartman — in fact, it was his first celebrity impression on SNL. He watched videos of Donahue to perfect his mannerisms, going so far as to draw sketches of his exaggerated postures and gestures. When Hartman’s parents traveled to New York to appear on SNL’s Mother’s Day show, he introduced them to Donahue — at Donahue’s insistence, according to You Might Remember Me: The Lives and Times of Phil Hartman. 

Hartman did Donahue five times during his tenure, one less than the six-peat pulled off by Darrell Hammond when he took over the character. While Hartman’s imitation focused on the physical, Hammond seemed to channel Donahue’s voice with his spot-on vocal impression. That impersonation was comic Neal Brennan’s introduction to Hammond, thanks to Jim Breuer bragging about the uncanny Donahue tour de force on Saturday Night Live. 

“Your Phil Donahue’s so good,” Brennan told Hammond earlier this year on the Blocks podcast. “I do it in my life today. It’s just in my head, your Donahue saying, ‘I mean, come on!’” 

It’s hard to think of another celebrity impersonated by so many different SNL cast members, outside of political figures like Donald Trump and George W. Bush. Unlike those celebrity send-ups, however, SNL’s Donahue impressions were uniformly good-natured, a humorous homage to the man who changed daytime TV forever.