The X-Presidents

The X-Presidents is an NBC/Saturday Night Live Saturday TV Funhouse cartoon created by Robert Smigel and animated by J. J. Sedelmaier Productions.

Plot[]

This cartoon features the four former American Presidents who were still alive in 1997 — Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush (all of whom were voiced by Jim Morris) — as a superhero team.^[1] This recurring sketch debuted on January 11, 1997,^[2] and a total of nine installments were produced between 1997 and 2004. The four former leaders were endowed with superpowers when struck by lightning at a celebrity golf tournament. The title is a play on words, both referencing that the members are ex-Presidents, and alluding to the Marvel Comics franchise, X-Men. Their wives are also members of a similar group, The X-First Ladies, with more flamboyant powers.^[3]

In the episode "Nixon," Richard Nixon and his dog Checkers are resurrected to aid the group.

The cartoons end with the X-Presidents singing a song that recounts the episode's message. The Ambiguously Gay Duo, another series of shorts created by Robert Smigel and J. J. Sedelmaier, made a special guest appearance in The X-Presidents episode "The Hunt for Osama". The sketch broadly parodies Hanna-Barbera/Filmation cartoons from the 1970s.

Comic adaptation[]

The cartoon short was adapted to a graphic novel by Random House Books.^[4]

References[]

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