On “Saturday Night Live,” Fred Armisen was bestowed with the honor for four years, and during the last election, he played Obama as cool but green, a first-time, self-confident presidential candidate leaning heavily on the expertise and experience of an exasperated and resentful Hillary Clinton (pitch-perfectly portrayed by Amy Poehler). With so little time before the next election, it seems a curious decision by “SNL’s” executive producer Lorne Michaels, to swap the veteran for newly promoted to full-time cast-member Jay Pharoah this late in the game. (It’s one thing to recast Bobby Draper on “Mad Men” every year, but, c’mon, did you think we viewers wouldn’t notice when “SNL” uses Obama in nearly every cold open?)
Pharoah is an incredible mimic — he can practically channel Denzel Washington or Will Smith — and his voice more closely resembles the president’s than does Armisen’s. (For the record, I think Pharoah, who was brought on “SNL” to do impressions, is actually far better as a sketch comic: “The Finer Things” skit he did with Kenan Thompson, a talk show celebrating the opulence in hip-hop, in last week’s episode had me on the floor. More of this, please.) But mimicking and exaggerating a voice and gestures and tics are only part of what composes a good impersonation. It’s shtick, a doodle that hasn’t quite taken on the heft of a caricature — there’s no dimensionality, no punch line.
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