Darrell Hammond Has No Imitators

Accurate down to the last hair: Darrell Hammond channels Donald Trump in a "Saturday Night Live" sketch with fellow cast member Amy Poehler. Hammond is the first "SNL" regular to get a "Best of" show while still a regular member of the cast. (Nbc)

It's finally happened -- or will have happened by this time tomorrow: a "Saturday Night Live" show without a single weak sketch or proverbial dull moment.

Technically, of course, it's "Saturday Night" but not "Live" -- the latest in an occasional series of taped "Best of" shows spotlighting a single performer. In this case, though, it's a single performer with a hundred others up his sleeve.

That would be Darrell Hammond, the greatest impressionist the show has produced and obviously the focus, locus, star and substance of the "Best of Darrell Hammond" compilation airing tonight. Such shows are why the Lord made VCRs, DVRs, TiVos and, yes, perhaps even TV critics, whose mandate it is to go forth spreading the word -- that word being "Watch!"

Hammond's elegant "Best of" is pricelessly and peerlessly funny. And it marks the first time, according to the show, that "a cast member has received a 'Best of' special while still in the repertory cast." Apparently, you usually have to leave the show or die or something.

Hammond has set a record in professional longevity, too -- having been in the repertory cast longer than anyone else consecutively, with his 12th season just underway. As the clips show, he's changed drastically in size over the years (having been a plump little pixie during his earliest days), but if he has shrunk in size, his talent has only grown. His impressions aren't just uncanny for how he captures the sounds and sights of his quarry but also for the keen, clear cleverness of the portraits.

Conceptually and contextually, these are gems of near-perfection, with Hammond repeatedly opting for a subtler sort of savagery than those run-of-the-mill impressionists whose mills often run dry. Hammond's work is on a level all its own, and the "SNL" writers often use it for a higher purpose even than getting laughs, although laughs are obviously gotten.

The program opens as a faithful viewer would expect, with Hammond's beautifully brutal Chris Matthews hosting MSNBC's "Hardball." The sketch (which unfortunately includes references to the two snipers that terrorized the Washington area) includes an appearance by John McCain as John Ashcroft, uttering a very Ashcroftian sentiment: "As Americans, we can never truly be free until each and every one of us is afraid of being thrown into jail." (Tracy Morgan, now on the "SNL"-inspired sitcom "30 Rock," has notably funny deadpan moments as a very uncompromising Harry Belafonte, such as when saying: "Osama bin Laden is an Uncle Tom").

Hammond next materializes as Donald Trump dressed as a giant pizza slice and taping a commercial for Domino's, then bounces back as a flawlessly executed Regis Philbin in a spoof of his daytime talk show.

Amy Poehler is hilarious as a squirming, teasing Kelly Ripa, needling Regis every time he makes a reference she considers dated. ("I don't know who that is, Reege.") Poehler seems as determined to harass Hammond as Ripa is to rattle Regis, so the sketches work on two levels. Dana Carvey did a funny Regis during Carvey's happy "SNL" tenure, but it basically relied on one shouted refrain -- the phrase "out of control." Hammond's impression is brilliantly thorough, down to the poignantly pained exasperation in his eyes, a look that pleads, "God deliver me from having to do this for a living."

Hammond has imitated Bill Clinton so well so often that the producers, instead of trying to pick one representative sketch, put together a Clinton montage. (Briefly glimpsed: John Goodman as Moses, Will Ferrell as Saddam Hussein and Chris Parnell's bull's-eye Tom Brokaw.)

Part of the pleasure of watching the special is in being reminded of Hammond impersonations you might have forgotten -- like his riotous caricature of a witlessly mischievous Sean Connery in the great farcical "Jeopardy!" sketches.

In the interest of preserving the pleasure of surprise, we won't list all the sketches and impressions included tonight, except to mention that Hammond likes to do people whom one would think too colorless to be parodied -- such as Bill Kurtis or Jack Perkins -- and, on the other extreme, dares to do an impression of a balletically animated Jesse Jackson.

Sadly, some of the editorial choices made were frustratingly shortsighted -- such as limiting Hammond's splendid impression of Dan Rather to one tiny snippet or ending the parade with a wildly out of context moment from a sketch in which Hammond plays Donald Rumsfeld. But despite some foolish blundering, the central point is inarguably and magnificently made: Hammond can be just about anybody he wants. And eventually will be.

All the other cast members are doing comedy; Hammond is doing something else again. Maybe art, not to take the fun out of it. It's fun, all right, and few things seem more dependably depressing in television than a "Saturday Night Live" in which Hammond has a low profile.

What Hammond does is beyond lampoonery or caricature; it's on the elevated plane of a truly gifted political cartoonist. It's two parts genius and one part -- well, one part more genius.

Saturday Night Live: The Best of Darrell Hammond (90 minutes) airs tonight at 11:30 on WRC (Channel 4).