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Amy Poehler Said SNL's Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton Sketch Felt Like a "Hit Song"
According to Poehler, Late Night EP Mike Shoemaker wrote Fey's iconic "I can see Russia from my house!" line.
In the weeks leading up to February 16's three-hour 50th anniversary celebration on NBC, the team behind Saturday Night Live has selected one sketch from every single season — 50 seasons in 50 days — to reflect the show's rich legacy across five decades. Presenting the sketch chosen to represent Season 34: "Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton Address the Nation" starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
From Mean Girls to 30 Rock, Tina Fey has made an indelible mark on pop culture with the TV and movies she's created, written and/or starred in — and it all started on Saturday Night Live. And the former SNL cast member and six-time Host will be forever associated with her spot-on impression of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.
On October 18, 2008, Fey returned to the SNL to perform as Sarah Palin for the first time in the Season 34 cold open, "Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton Address the Nation." At her side as Hillary Clinton was her longtime friend and collaborator Amy Poehler. The instantly-viral sketch kicked off an eight-appearance run by Fey as Palin, earning her a 2009 Emmy for Guest Appearance by an Actress in a Comedy Series.
According to Poehler, Fey's iconic Palin line — "I can see Russia from my house!" — was thought up by Mike Shoemaker, then an SNL producer and currently the Executive Producer of Late Night with Seth Meyers. But the sketch was originally conceived by Seth Meyers, with Fey and Poehler co-writing and starring to make it the iconic cold open it remains today.
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"The sketch easily could have been a dumb catfight between two female candidates,” Fey wrote in her 2011 book, Bossypants. “What Seth and Amy wrote, however, was two women speaking out together against sexism in the campaign. In real life, these women experienced different sides of the same sexism coin.”
As for Fey's performance, "[she] totally took on what was expected of her and it was awesome to stand next to her as she killed," Poehler recounted in her own book, 2014's Yes Please.
Watch "Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton Address the Nation" from Season 34's season premiere hosted by Michael Phelps above, and learn all about the making of the sketch below.
How Tina Fey came to play Sarah Palin on SNL
Per Fey's Bossypants, despite many people in her life telling her she needed to return to SNL to play Palin because of their resemblance, she wasn't fully convinced. In fact, both Fey and SNL creator Lorne Michaels thought Season 34 cast member Kristen Wiig could handle it just fine.
But as she wrote in her book, "Lorne called to say that Seth Meyers had written a piece and I should come over late Friday evening and rehearse it with Amy and if it didn’t feel right, someone else would do it." So Fey agreed to give it a go.
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The "Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton" sketch was written with Seth Meyers
Writing the sketch with Meyers and Poehler was a "pleasant and collaborative and easy" experience, anchored by Meyers' talent for political humor.
"Because Seth and I had written for real impressionists like Darrell Hammond over the years, we knew there were certain tricks we could employ,” Fey wrote. “Whatever sounds are helpful to the impression, you use as many of them as possible in the writing. For Palin it was a lot of ‘hard R’s.’ Words like ‘reporters and commentators.’ Words you can’t say, you avoid. For example, I’ve never been able to figure out how she says ‘Todd.’"
Amy Poehler was pregnant when she played Hillary Clinton
"Doing sketch comedy on live television while pregnant is like wearing a sombrero," Poehler wrote in her Yes Please book (quotes via an excerpt in Vulture). "You can pretend to be a serious person, but the giant hat gives you away."
Of performing as Clinton in this first Sarah Palin sketch, Poehler wrote that she was pregnant with her first son with ex-husband Will Arnett, Archie, at the time.
"I remember standing onstage and it being one of the few times that something felt perfectly whole. Archie did flips in my stomach each time the audience clapped," Poehler wrote in Yes Please. "It was the closest to what I imagine it feels to write a hit song."
As for Poehler's take on the sketch, she wrote that "It dealt with fierce competitiveness in politics. It dealt with power and entitlement. It dealt with the way society forces women to define themselves and compete against each other [...] But most importantly, it was really funny."
When was Tina Fey on SNL?
Fey was a Saturday Night Live cast member from 2000-2006, after starting as a writer in 1997. In addition to her many cameos in the years since — including her Sarah Palin sketches — Fey is a member of SNL's Five-Timers Club with six episodes under her belt.
