Larry David took his celebrated impression of Bernie Sanders to a new level on Saturday with a spoof episode of “Bern your Enthusiasm” on NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
Sanders, the socialist Democratic presidential candidate, turned up in person on the show, sending himself up during a sketch seemingly based on Titanic to announce characteristically: “I am so sick of the 1% getting this preferential treatment!”
Sanders then lightly mocked his own often-repeated insistence that he is a “democratic” socialist and his pronunciation – which he shares with fellow New Yorker Donald Trump – of huge as “yuge”.
And he later took one of his host’s catchphrases out for a spin, judging his campaigning for Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary to be going “pretty … pretty … pretty good”.
Sanders strayed into one area he has been somewhat less comfortable exploring – the place of his Jewish identity in American society – when he recalled that his family’s name had once been “Sandersowsky, but we’re going to change it when we get to America so it doesn’t sound so Jewish”.
“Yeah, that’ll trick ’em,” said David sardonically.
And in the “Bern your Enthusiasm” segment – which revolved around Sanders’s loss to Hillary Clinton by 0.2 percentage points in Iowa, revealed here to have been the result of his offending a mere five voters – it was notable that many of the voters he offended were black, probably a reference to Sanders’s difficulties winning support from African Americans.
But this was more a love-in than a roast, with the affectionate dig from Ben Stiller as male model Derek Zoolander being much more typical: “He’s a champion of the 99% – the 99% off at JC Penney.”
David’s impersonation of Sanders was hailed as the role he was born to play when the Seinfeld co-creator first essayed it following the Vermont senator’s arrival on the presidential scene last year.
Both born in Brooklyn in the 1940s, both Jewish, both with a shock of balding white hair, the two men look fairly alike and their staccato, pugnacious vocal styles are almost indistinguishable, as David proved in that first SNL sketch: “Ehh … Not a fan of the banks. They trample on the middle-class, they control Washington, and why do they chain all their pens to the desks? Who’s trying to steal a pen from a bank? Makes no sense!”
The leftwing firebrand has hardly run from the comparison. Indeed in a November Democratic debate, Sanders seemed almost to be channeling the Curb your Enthusiasm star; asked at one point what he missed the most that technology had made obsolete, he said: “I miss the fact that when I’m in a car or at home, there are not all kinds of buzzes and noises going off making me a nervous wreck. I miss peace and quiet … ”
The Sanders campaign has grown to love David’s depiction and shifted his weekend schedule to make sure he could be in New York on Saturday to appear on the live NBC show, after it finished changing his Twitter picture to one of David. At Bernie rallies, warm-up speakers have imitated David imitating Sanders, to the enjoyment of his supporters.
Sanders himself told a laughing crowd in October: “If you’re good, maybe I’ll imitate Larry David imitating me.” And when asked in February by Anderson Cooper if he could do an impression of David, Sanders said: “Anderson, I’m gonna – I know you’ve been in journalism a long time ... I am Larry David.” His voice rising with enjoyment, he roared: “And you didn’t get it!”
Bernie Sanders: "I am Larry David." #DemTownHall pic.twitter.com/NINZNg2p2L
— PolicyMic (@PolicyMic) February 4, 2016
