Dana Carvey, who in recent seasons of “Saturday Night Live” has guested to spoof President Joe Biden, said he could see the president undergoing some sort of mental decline towards the end of his re-election campaign — but poking fun at the politician for being “compromised mentally” was a “delicate” comedy act.
“I knew that he was compromised mentally, I mean, it was obvious. But it was a delicate thing in the comedy world,” Carvey shared on a recent episode of his “Fly on the Wall” podcast with David Spade and guest Julie Bowen. “There were a lot of people who did not want to do anything that would kind of ding him in an awkward way.”
Biden’s age and folksy phrasing have been late night fodder for years, but such jokes took on a more urgent, and potentially “awkward,” meaning last year following the president’s first debate performance against Donald Trump, who himself had already nicknamed the then-81 year old “sleepy Joe.”
Most recently, CNN’s Jake Tapper and journalist Alex Thompson co-wrote the book “Original Sin,” which investigates an alleged White House cover-up scheme orchestrated to hide the realities of Biden’s health while he was in office.
While Carvey acknowledged that the opportunity to play the president was “surreal, “bizarre,” and oftentimes “a lot of fun,” he also noted that he wanted to make sure his Biden jokes were funny without being mean, sharing that he pulled some punches that might have been too hefty a hit.
“That’s the key, if I can do Biden, if I can make Biden funny to everybody, then I am where I want to be,” Carvey said. “And to make it funny, it had to be recognizable. And so there were certain things I did not include in my package.”
Chiming in, co-host Spade suggested poking fun at people like Biden comes with the territory of being a public figure.
“I think it’s easier to make fun of him if he’s the president than if it’s just a 90-whatever-year-old man and just go, ‘Look at this a–hole.’ So once he’s president, he’s more fair game. But no one made fun of him forever.”
Watch the full “Fly on the Wall” podcast episode below:
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