The best Barack Obama parody videos
Comics spoof everything from Obama's lousy debate performance to his struggles to actually deliver hope and change
Mitt Romney isn't the only one being lampooned on TV and in videos posted online. After President Obama's widely panned performance at last week's debate, he got skewered in a spoof on Saturday Night Live. Comic Jay Pharoah "had a field day poking fun" at Obama, portraying the president as he "stumbled through his opening remarks," says Ken Paulson at the Staten Island Advance. Then, after wishing Michelle Obama a happy anniversary, Pharoah's Obama frets about having forgotten to buy her a gift. Then, as he daydreams about sneaking into the hotel gift shop to buy her a Denver Broncos sweatshirt or a "World's Greatest Mom" coffee mug, he's caught off guard when the moderator says that Romney just claimed that he was the one who killed Osama bin Laden, and asks him to respond. "No, you two go ahead," Pharaoh's distracted president says. Watch the SNL parody — and five other Obama spoofs — below:
1. Obama's terrible debate
SNL's Romney character, played by Jason Sudeikis, goes on at length about his tax plan, and Pharaoh's Obama fades out, assuming he's succumbing to the high altitude of the host city, Denver. "Air ... so ... thin ... can't breathe ... losing consciousness." Finally, he passes out. (via Staten Island Live)
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2. Obama's jobs failure
In another SNL spoof, Pharoah's Obama holds a town-hall rally. Nobody in the audience has a job, except a Burger King manager who, four years ago, was a vice president for Bank of America. "I understand your frustration," Pharoah tells a woman who has been seeking work since 2009. "I said from Day One that real change takes more than one term, or even one president. I don't know if it will even happen in eight years. Might take 12. Frankly, I might be long dead. Maybe you'll be dead too." (via Business Insider)
3. "Obama that I used to know"
Millennials Justin Monticello and Ryan Newbrough created a Gotye parody — "Obama that I used to know." The disappointed progressive Monticello sings that he got addicted to Obama's message of change, "But college ended, had to pay my rent; at least you're the first gay president; but the change I got was that I moved in with my mother." Then, "Just send in a Predator drone; 'cause now you're not Obama I used to know." (via The Huffington Post)
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4. "President Barack Obama's First Ad of 2012"
The National Republican Senatorial Committee's parody of Obama's 2012 campaign launch video piled up more views immediately after its debut in April than the real thing issued by the Obama campaign. "YouTube's metrics tend to lag a bit," said Ben Smith at Politico, "but the numbers suggest that — energy-wise — we're in 2010, not 2008." (via Politico)
5. Women love Obama...
In his stand-up act, Pharoah imagines how effortlessly it must have been for the ultra-smooth Obama to meet women in college. (via YouTube)
6. And journalists love him, too
This SNL spoof during the 2008 Democratic primaries mocked reporters even more than Obama. An interviewer winds up to a big question and finally asks Obama, "Are you mad at me" for making my "shilling" too obvious? No, Obama reassures him, as I've seen the same thing from journalists across the country, from "the local TV anchor in Columbus, Ohio, who brazenly wears an Obama-for-president button as he reads the news," to the Nevada political reporter "who drives around every evening vandalizing Hillary's yard signs. (via NBC)
See the best Mitt Romney parody videos.
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