The Josh Innes Show - Dana Carvey Feels Bad About His Biden Impression

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Dana Carvey does a pretty strong Joe Biden impression. But, he now feels kinda bad about it because Joe Biden was mentally compromised. I can't recall hearing too many SNL people apologizing for impressions they've done. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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of playing mentally compromised Biden on SNL. Ah, yes, now we have to look back on the fact that we were making fun of Joe Biden, who whether he was mentally compromised or not, A, we were told that he wasn't and B, he was the president. So you have no problems with SNL. I don't, if I recall, I don't recall anybody who did any other impressions on SNL over the last billions of years. I don't recall anybody on there ever, you know, kind of kowtowing around the idea of making fun of somebody because they were compromised or

whatever it may be. I don't recall Will Ferrell ever apologizing and if I'm wrong, let me know. But I don't recall him ever being apologetic towards W. Bush. I don't recall Dana Carvey apologizing to H. W. Bush. I don't recall the multiple people who did Clinton ever apologizing to Clinton. I like the only time I can remember anybody and I might be making this up. You can let me know if I'm making this up, but I don't like I think maybe when they were doing the Linda Tripp stuff and like John Goodman was Linda Tripp. Maybe

maybe that was something that they apologize for at least for like, hey, after the fact, I feel kind of bad about it. So why is it that we have to sit here and pussyfoot around Joe Biden? Let's read this story after we hear these words. The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card.

And then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BEMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash VI Porter to learn more. So let's see here Dana Carvey talks delicate process of playing mentally compromised Biden on SNL. Let's see here. Dana Carvey is looking back on the delicate process of spoofing former

President Joe Biden. The comedian, 70, which is wild on its own, that Dana Carvey is 70. That dude is 70. Crazy to think. He chatted with Julie Bowen in an episode of his Fly on the Wall podcast released June 26th about impersonating Biden during the 50th season of Saturday Night Live. The Modern Family star who I like very much she's I think she's in the new Happy Gilmore. I have refused to watch the trailer for the new Happy

Gilmore only because I don't want all of the gags to be spoiled. We have this conversation all the time. If I see a movie within like 10 seconds and kind of understand the premise of the movie, the stars of the movie, and I can get an idea of, of who they are, what the movie is, I don't want to watch the trailer because the trailer is going to give away so much of the movie. And we I know we talk about this all the time. But you go to the movies and you get a three minute trailer of

something and everything is ruined in the movie. You know, I talked about the movie, the airdrop movie that I didn't end up seeing because I feel like I saw the whole movie. In the airdrop movie, there's like a shot in the trailer where someone is falling out of this window that is clearly the window from the restaurant that they are in. So obviously something is going to happen that is going to blow somebody out of that window. So I will be sitting there watching the movie knowing that at some point that's going to blow out. So like why would I like I don't want to do it if I if I think the concept or premise of a movie is good within the first 10 seconds or I know the stars and I know

I'll want to watch it then I try to tune out the trailer because the trailer will ruin everything and that's why I refuse to watch out the trailer because the trailer will ruin everything. And that's why I refuse to watch the Happy Gilmore trailer. I refuse to watch the extended Naked Gun reboot trailer because they'll spoil the movie. So I have no idea what any of the gags are. I have no idea and that is the way I like it. So I think Julie Bowen is in the new Happy Gilmore. By the way, I'm not the biggest fan of the actual Happy Gilmore. I think it's fine, but if you said, Josh, you can have one of these movies, you can have Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore, I think I'd ride with Billy Madison. It's just more

offbeat and weird. While it ends on a positive note, it's not like Happy Gilmore, which was kind of like the birth of the likable Adam Sandler. Like there was nothing likable about Adam Sandler and Billy Madison, right? It was like the typical mid 90s. Oh, Billy, Billy Madison, Adam Sandler character that like he's not likable. He's a man child, right? Then somewhere along the way, he got very smart with the way he started doing business. And while the characters might be annoying in some ways, it was still a charming character like the Wedding Singer. But I guess it really kind of started with with with Happy Gilmore, where like, yeah, he was kind of a doofus, but he was a likable guy. And he was kind of charming. And then Wedding

Singer really turned him into like rom com guy, and Big Daddy, which is the weirdest plot of a movie ever like a dude just decides to keep some kid to impress his girlfriend. I guess there are weirder plots, but it's still a very lot of plot holes there. He basically kidnapped a child to impressed Christy Swanson. But like those moves then of course there'd be ones where he was just fucking awful like big like like those moves then of course there'd be ones where he was just fucking awful like big like I want someone where where is the devil little Nicky like that when you're kind of like okay he's kind of annoying Adam Sandler but then you'd get the ones like click and like these kind of rom-commy ones then he made a bunch of bad shit kind of post-click where you got like Jack and Jill and that's my boy that are just kind of gross movies and just not funny but there was that stretch where Adam Sandler was at his apex in the comedy world where he was just a really likable charming guy and he wasn't kind of over the top obnoxious and he was likable and I think that kind of started with Happy Gilmore but Happy Gilmore

has just never really been something I like it and I'll watch the sequel. I love Shooter McGavin. I've interviewed Shooter McGavin. I've interviewed Adam Sandler. So like it's cool, but I just never really got into it in the way like I like Billy Madison, maybe because Norm McDonald's in Billy Madison and Chris Farley is in Billy Madison and it just feels kind of like just a weird movie and maybe that's why I like it more but I like happy go more what's also interesting about Julie Bowen who was the guest on this podcast is that Julie Bowen got exponentially hotter as she got older because Billy Madison came out in 1995 if you would have told me like if I looked at Julie Bowen in 1995 and look at her in 2009, when Modern Family debuted, she's hotter and younger looking on Modern Family than she is looking kind of like

pant suit and like 90s Katie Couric haired in 1995, much hotter in Modern Family. But anyway, I digress. So this is the podcast Dana Carvey and he does the podcast with Oh, what's his name? How am I drawing a blank on this? David Spade. See, I knew that he was compromised mentally, Carvey said. I mean, it was obvious, but it was a delicate thing in the comedy world. A lot of people did not want to do anything that would ding him in an awkward way. I don't believe that. Like, yeah, he was clearly compromised, but everybody denied it.

The media denied it. The White House denied it. Everybody denied that he was compromised. I think that you are conveniently going back in time now and trying to make it seem like you weren't a jerk for making fun of a dude that was, quote, compromised and you're trying to cover all your own bases. It was awkward because people in the SNL world didn't want you mocking the liberal that was going against Trump because all of these people were all on board with the guy until like the train finally got derailed. So this is pretty much bullshit. I like it. Dana Carvey. I think you're full of shit. Bowen objected to that notion shooting back but it's comedy. The waynes world star agreed and defended the impression by explaining his approach quote, if I can make

Biden funny to everybody, then I am where I want to be and to make it funny, I had to be recognizable, he said, there are certain things I did not include in the impersonation. Well, what were those things? Hopefully the follow up was what did you not include in this impersonation? He went on to add that it was a real challenge to make the Biden impression acceptable. How? It's not like the dude is like slow or it's not like the dude had like a palsy of some sort. It's not like the guy had multiple sclerosis. The guy was the president of the United States and they trotted him out there. He was a potato.

He was a vegetable and they trotted him out there and told us that he was not mentally compromised. He should have been prime target. And I guarantee you if they would have trotted out a right look. And again, I don't give a shit right wing, left wing, whatever it is you believe or whatever you vote for, I don't care. But some things are so fucking obvious. They need to be called out and if you listen to this and say there goes Josh being right wing wacko again, then fine. Josh is being right wing wacko in this case, but like if that were a like you guys made it a special concerted effort for years to

make all right wing politicians look stupid. You wanted H.W. Bush to look stupid. You wanted Reagan to look stupid. You wanted W. Bush to look stupid. You wanted any Republican candidate to look stupid. And you went out to extra lengths to make them look dumber than they actually are. So then you get an actual potato of a human on television and it's, well, we had to be really delicate. You had to be really delicate because you're scared of the backlash you're going to get from these fucking lunatics.

That's all. Carvey's podcast co-host David Spade also argued that it was, quote, easier to make fun of Biden while he was in office as opposed to if he were a private citizen. Once he's president, that's more fair game, Spade said. Exactly. He's president, he's denying that he's a vegetable, his wife says he's sharp as a tack, the media is covering for him, and we now know that the media was covering for him. They admit that they were covering for him.

They're selling books about how they covered for him. And we're going, well, you know, now we know. Let's see. Carvey debuted as Biden on SNL opposite Maya Rudolph as Kamala. In September, two months after Biden exited the 2024 presidential race due to concerns about his mental fitness, he continued to play Biden on SNL during the lead up to the election. Carvey, who previously starred on SNL from 86 to 93, told Bowen he quote fell in love with his Biden impression, which took two years to perfect. The initial versions depicted him as sweet, but the impression lacked pop or energy.

He explained, then Carvey added, I heard him whisper and yell and I thought, oh, here we go. That is true. Like if you look at the way people do impressions, you find a couple of things that make sense for the impression and then they just become huge. Carvey also revealed that Biden staff told him they love the impression and even invited him to the White House for lunch, but the meeting never happened. Carvey previously broke down his role as Biden on his Superfly podcast in September, saying

he felt there was a lack of Biden impressions out there in comparison to Trump. Biden is trickier, he said. Biden's not trickier. It's trickier because people don't like, here's the obvious reason why people didn't want to do Biden impressions. This isn't difficult. He's the liberal candidate. Everybody in the media for the most part are all the people in media and movies and shit and entertainment. They're left-wing people. If you start to fuck with the left wing people now in 2025, the Twitter world and everybody goes after you and wants to cancel you. That's why it's easy to go after Trump. That's why Trump impressions. Well, by the way, the guy on SNL who does the Trump is fucking

phenomenal. And you know, there are guys that do like some really good impressions of Trump. And there's nothing wrong with doing Trump impressions. And some are really fucking brilliant, right? But it's easy to take the low hanging fruit and shit on the right wing guy because no one's gonna get mad about that you shit on the brain dead vegetable president that's a liberal and all of a sudden it's like, Whoa, guys, that's gone too far. We can't do this. That's like when Howard Stern, a

guy who used to wear blackface for bits has who was it that he had on the show? Was it Maya Rudolph? I forgot who it was exactly. I think it was Maya Rudolph. No, sorry, it was Kamala. I take it back. And they were talking about how SNL was doing Kamala impressions and how they shouldn't do that because this election is too important. And they should not be doing anything that hurts Kamala Harris. Therefore, they shouldn't do any unfavorable

impressions of her. And I'm like, this is where we are? This is what we do? This is what we, like, this is absurd. This is the same outlet that has no qualms with shitting on anybody they dislike or disagrees with them politically, but now we got to wear kid gloves around a guy who kept telling you he wasn't a tomato. His wife told you he wasn't a tomato. The media told us he wasn't a tomato. Yet we're supposed to hold him with kid gloves and handle him with kid gloves? No, treat him like you treat anybody else, he's the fucking president. The fact that he was brain

dead and was still in the office is what's preposterous about it. But you didn't have the balls to do that because we got to handle it delicately because he's, you know, he's compromised mentally. Well, if he was compromised mentally his ass shouldn't have been in the White House. Thank you.