Inside the McDonald’s Sketch That Defined Bill Clinton’s Presidency on ‘Saturday Night Live’
Given that Bill Clinton spent two terms as president in the 1990s, it was almost impossible for him not to be an SNL staple throughout the decade. In fact, Clinton provided so much material for the show over those years that he was played by two different cast members: Darrell Hammond and, of course, the late Phil Hartman. That said, of all the SNL sketches lampooning Clinton over that nearly 10-year period, one is continually cited above all the rest — his impromptu stop at a local McDonald’s as president-elect.
Once inside, he glad-hands with patrons while eating off their plates and explaining detailed policy measures. While most of the dialogue relates to issues very much from 1992, it’s still remarkably funny, mostly because of the spectacle of Clinton (portrayed here by Hartman) obnoxiously eating as he says all these wonky things.
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The sketch was the brainchild of SNL stalwart Al Franken as well as a total newbie to the show at the time: writer David Mandel, who would go on to great acclaim as a major creative force behind Veep, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld. As McDonald’s once again dominates the election cycle, I recently caught up with Mandel to discuss how he first decided politics and trans fats should mix.
The Making of a President
“That’s what Bill Clinton was doing at the time,” explains Mandel. “He won the election in November of 1992, and he and Hillary were in D.C. a full month or so before the inauguration. At that time, he was regularly jogging and hopping into places — there was just this joyous sense of how happy he was to become President of the United States. I’ll give credit to Al Franken for saying, ‘We should do a sketch about this,’ but that’s what Clinton was actually doing. So it was there for the taking.”
French Fry Diplomacy
“One thing that still pleases me about the sketch is that there’s a policy-wonkiness to it that Bill Clinton really has — Obama called him ‘The Great Explainer,’” Mandel continues. “In the sketch, he explains the situation in Somalia with McDonald’s food and the explanation actually makes sense. You can laugh at it because it’s a guy eating food off people’s trays, but also you can laugh at it because it’s a wonky policy nerd doing his best to explain the Somalia situation.”
Clinton Is Not Just Cheating on His Diet
“Right at the beginning of the sketch, we have the line where Kevin Nealon as the Secret Service agent says, ‘Mrs. Clinton asked us not to let you into any more fast-food places,’ and Clinton responds by saying, ‘There’s gonna be a whole bunch of things we don’t tell Mrs. Clinton. Fast food is the least of our worries,’” Mandel says. “This was years before Monica Lewinsky, so that moment was more about Phil Hartman’s interpretation of Bill as a bit of a player, but it really plants a flag for the future of the Bill Clinton presidency and the impression of him on Saturday Night Live.”
Rob Schneider Helping a Democratic President???
“There’s a very funny moment in there where Phil started to choke. He’s supposed to be eating and talking at the same time, but he’s got so much food in his mouth that he has trouble swallowing. So, in an unscripted moment, Rob Schneider hands him a drink to wash it down, which allows Phil to keep it going. I don’t know if the audience registered it, but it’s the thing that sets Saturday Night Live apart, because it’s live.”
Something for Everyone
“There’s a lot of cast in that sketch,” Mandel notes. “Not everyone has a giant role, but Chris Farley breaks out his hardware store Midwest guy and Nealon and Tim Meadows are great as the Secret Service guys who are hyper-aware. Everybody got a little something.”
The Greatness of Phil Hartman
“There was a professionalism to Phil Hartman,” recalls Mandel. “Maybe he looks at cards here and there, but he knew his lines and he knew what to do. For a guy who had been on the show a while at that point and had done a lot of characters, it was interesting to see him go from Phil to Bill Clinton. It really was a character change; it wasn’t just a voice. People think of him as a master of 1,000 voices, but he was such an incredible actor, too. People forget that.”
Achieving Political Influence
“I’d had other sketches on, but this was the first time I wrote something, and it was suddenly on the Sunday morning shows the next day,” Mandel says. “That was the first time, as a writer, that I got to experience the full power of Saturday Night Live where, by writing a political sketch, you were driving some of the discourse in a really fun way.”