The kings of presidential comedy were reunited last weekend — with a little nudge from the Congressional Oversight Panel.
Five former presidential impersonators from “Saturday Night Live” joined Jim Carrey and the show’s current mock president, Fred Armisen, in a White House bedroom set for a sketch that immediately achieved viral video fame.
The first-of-its-kind reunion happened not on the show, but on Funny or Die, a popular comedy website. It was meant to promote financial reforms, and was partly the product of a conversation between the director Ron Howard and Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the oversight panel. She had said to Howard that the government must do more to curb troublesome banking and lending practices.
“I said I would try to get together with a few people who might be able to get the word out,” Howard said in a telephone interview on Friday.
In the video, Armisen gets ready for bed, with Maya Rudolph playing Michelle Obama. In a dream sequence he is joined by Will Ferrell as George W. Bush, Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton, Dana Carvey as George H.W. Bush and Dan Aykroyd as Jimmy Carter. Eventually two deceased presidents, Carrey as Ronald Reagan and Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford, walk in.
As of Friday afternoon, the video had surpassed 2 million views, making it one of Funny or Die’s most popular ever.
