NEW YORK — For three decades, “Saturday Night Live” has prided itself on skewering politicians of all stripes with equal zeal, from Chevy Chase’s clumsy Gerald Ford to Darrell Hammond’s sighing Al Gore.
Executive producer Lorne Michaels has long maintained that the show risks its comedy credentials if it appears partisan. So he is troubled by the recent chatter that the venerable late-night program has exhibited a pro-Hillary Rodham Clinton bent.
“That’s a major concern,” Michaels said. “I can assure you that there’s no agenda, that there’s only a reaction to what’s going on in the world.”
Seth Meyers, one of the show’s three head writers, said he was amused by suggestions that “Saturday Night Live” changed the momentum of the race.
“The show happens too quickly for any of us to have an agenda,” said Meyers, who donated $1,000 to Barack Obama in January. “And our egos as comedy writers are too big to ever let our own political loyalties get in the way of a joke. So we aim for whatever is the richest to be satirized on any given week.”
