Friday night on "The Tonight Show," host Jay Leno welcomed comedian and "Saturday Night Live!" alumnus Dana Carvey. It could be said that Carvey's "Wouldn't be prudent!" catchphrase from his President George H. W. Bush impression became as inextricably associated with the one-term Republican as Tina Fey's "I can see Russia from my house!" quip became for former Alaska governor and Vice Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin.
On Friday night, Carvey presented his impressions of Republican presidential hopeful, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) and President Barack Obama, as well as President Clinton and both Presidents Bush.
Obama, he said, has a measure of confidence that Romney lacks as a speaker. He contended that Romney is jumpy, permanently uncomfortable, and the awkwardness causes him to blurt things out that he will later have to walk back.
"I like setting people on fire!" he said, before editing himself and saying, "I like being able to fire people...who provide me goods and services!"
"I hate poor people and want to kill them!" was re-edited into, "I hate that people are poor, and that it'll kill them."
Obama, said Carvey, has a strong oratorial style. He knows how to work pauses and rhythms to his advantage. To illustrate, the comic got into a kind of back-and-forth scat interplay with the drummer in the "Tonight's" house band.
Proving that he's a veritable one-man Hall of Presidents, Carvey then discussed the languid self-assurance of former President Clinton. "Clinton is like a giant penis," he drawled in a near-perfect impression of Clinton's Arkansas accent, "but not se-xual just so con-fident."
But the real tour de force came when Carvey acted out a phone conversation between President George H. W. Bush and his son, George W.
Watch the clip, embedded via NBC, below:
