Today in TV History: Tina Fey Debuted Her Sarah Palin Impression On ‘Saturday Night Live’

Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone. 

IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: September 13, 2008

PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Saturday Night Live, “Michael Phelps” (Season 34, Episode 1)

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT:��Oh man, this one’s easy. It’s not every episode of television that can say it helped set a tone for a Presidential election, but it’s hard to say that Saturday Night Live didn’t do just that when it seized upon the divine providence that dropped Sarah Palin into their (and America’s) laps while they still had Tina Fey on retainer. The resemblance between Palin and Fey was probably a little overstated at the time, and certainly glasses-based, but as Lorne Michaels has stated many times since, the public had basically already decided that Tina should return to SNL (by this point, she was off doing 30 Rock), and who were they to refuse?

The great thing about the sketch that Fey and Amy Poehler delivered in the season premiere wasn’t just that it lived up to the hype (and think about that for a second: this sketch was so inevitable that there was hype for it) but that they did so much more than they could’ve gotten away with. Honestly, if they’d just trotted out to the stage, walked Tina through some easy punchlines about moose and Wasila (“Alaska’s crystal meth capital” is still how I think of that city, for better or worse, probably worse), the sketch would have killed. But pairing Palin with Poehler’s Hillary Clinton — something that wasn’t exactly intuitive, as Clinton had largely exited the political conversation by this point — was an act of pure genius.

Suddenly, the sketch wasn’t just about putting all of Palin’s absurdities on display. It was also about sexism and ageism and double standards and the media’s fascination with sideshows over substance. In a very real way, it set a tone for Hillary just as effectively as it set a tone for Palin. In Poehler’s hands, Clinton was driven, overly intense, and unable to accept defeat, but she was also righteous. By the time she got to the part about offering to lend the media her balls, the audience was whooping their approval.

Currently, Hillary’s in great hands at SNL with Kate McKinnon, but I can’t help but wish for a Fey/Poehler Palin/Clinton reunion at some point before the 2016 election. Feels like we need some closure.

[You can watch the Palin/Clinton SNL sketch on Yahoo Screen]

Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.

Like what you see? Follow Decider on Facebook and Twitter to join the conversation, and sign up for our email newsletters to be the first to know about streaming movies and TV news!