Courtesy of NBC & Comedy Central.
Sketch comedy shows like Saturday Night Live & Key & Peele have set the bar for what it means to parody political figures & provide comic relief during tumultuous election seasons. From Will Ferrell portraying former president George W. Bush on SNL, to Keegan-Michael Key portraying former president Barack Obama as well as his angry translator Luther on Key & Peele, to most recently Dana Carvey returning to SNL to play president Joe Biden during the show's 50th season.
And now, after many years of seeing comedians like these & dozens more playing political figures on their respective shows, a new documentary is in the works that'll take a look back at history's presidential parodies.
Everything to know about "Playing POTUS," the presidential parodies documentary.
The upcoming documentary, titled Playing POTUS, is currently in production and is directed by comedic filmmaker Josh Greenbaum, who most recently directed the new Netflix documentary Will & Harper, starring Will Ferrell & Harper Steele. Playing POTUS is based on the book of the same name by Peter Funt (son of Candid Camera creator Allen Funt). The film is being produced by EverWonder Studio in partnership with Delirio Films & Green Bomb Productions.
According to Deadline, the new documentary will “tackle the uniquely American tradition of presidential parody, a bold art form that has transformed our perceptions of real-world presidents and politicians for the past 60 years. These iconic impressions have an outsized and lasting impact on American politics that has gone completely unexamined…until now.”
There are tons of interviews that are set to be featured including Carvey, Key, Ferrell, as well as Maya Rudolph (currently playing Kamala Harris on SNL), Alec Baldwin (Trump on SNL), Jay Pharoah (also Obama on SNL), Darrell Hammond (Clinton, Gore & Cheney on SNL), Chevy Chase (Gerald Ford on SNL) & more to be announced at a later date.
Greenbaum shares in a statement about the film: “I think what we find in the doc, which is in the middle of editing right now, is that it’s a pretty critical part of a healthy, functioning democracy — this interesting check on power. And it’s certainly a funny doc. That’s what I love to do, but it’s an interesting examination of this art form that really just started in earnest around JFK.”
In addition to directing Will & Harper, Greenbaum previously directed the 2022 dog comedy Strays starring Will Ferrell & Jamie Foxx & the Hulu documentary Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of the Dana Carvey Show.
A release date & first look is underway, but we look forward to hearing more!
