Friday, July 12, 2002 | 9:08 a.m.
As an impressionist, "Saturday Night Live's" Darrell Hammond is good. Perhaps too good.
"There was an article in the New York Times a couple years ago that Al Gore was now doing me doing him," Hammond said in a recent interview from his home in Orlando, Fla. "That somehow I had streamlined all of Al Gore's extraneous body movements and vocal qualities into a few that people could follow. And that (Gore) had somehow decided that this was the public image that he ought to have."
Gore isn't the only politician to take notice of Hammond's wicked, eerily accurate impersonations.
Vice President Dick Cheney invited the "SNL" star to perform at the White House for himself and some Republican friends. And Hammond spent time alone with President Clinton in the White House working on a sketch featuring the comic and the president.
Even George W. Bush, whom Hammond has yet to impersonate in public, was impressed with the comedian's talents. After meeting Hammond at a White House performance, the president sent him a handwritten invitation to a game of catch.
"When you start meeting them and (are) courted by them, you really want to back off," Hammond said. "There's the sense that, 'Gee, I just can't go for the jugular,' because this person becomes very real for me."
On summer hiatus until "SNL" returns in September, Hammond is performing his stand-up act. The comedian appears Saturday at Green Valley Ranch Station's Whiskey Sky Amphitheater.
While his stand-up material will include the normal slice-of-life jokes about marriage and fatherhood, the 41-year-old Hammond acknowledged that his gift for impersonations is what sets him apart. And that will be a major part of his act.
"I'm aware that there are some people who don't want to do the things they're known for," he said.
"To me, people don't pay money for things they don't want, they pay money for things they want. And that's what they want to see."
After graduating from the University of Florida with a degree in advertising, Hammond worked odd jobs while he developed his stand-up act. Even then, though, the comedian realized his major talent was mimicry.
Hammond developed his impressions, learning how to speak with different dialects and cultural backgrounds -- even using speech impediments.
Nine years later, while performing at a comedy club in New York, the comic was asked to audition for "SNL" when a recruiter saw his very brief impression of Clinton.
"I know that if they had auditioned me for 'Saturday Night Live' even five years earlier, I would not have been good enough," Hammond said. "They caught me at just the right time."
After initially joining the "SNL" cast however, the comic still struggled.
When the Clinton sex scandal broke, most comedians were euphoric. Not Hammond.
"I actually thought, 'This is not great for me. He may be impeached and this is one of my few hit characters,' " he said.
But Hammond became known for more than just Clinton and Gore.
Last season the comic was kept busy with impressions of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Homeland Security Adviser Tom Ridge.
His impersonations of broadcast celebrities Ted Koppell, Geraldo Rivera and Phil Donahue drew almost as much attention as the men he was impersonating.
And the comic's loutish take on Sean Connery as a contestant on "Jeopardy" proved so popular it became a mainstay in subsequent game-show skits. Hammond's Connery belittles host Alex Trebek and mocks the categories -- referring to "Therapists" as "The Rapists."
"When I did Sean Connery on 'Jeopardy,' we long ago stopped trying to sound exactly like him," Hammond said. "We blew him up and exaggerated all his characteristics and he was sort of a cartoon. And that's how we made him funny."
But it was Hammond's humorous take on Gore that won him an award.
Teamed with fellow "SNL" cast member Will Ferrell, Hammond's robotic Gore was the perfect comedic foil to Ferrell's red-neck, party-boy George W. The pair received an international radio and television award because it was believed the comedic pair had directly affected the outcome of the 2000 presidential election.
"It is very, very weird and surreal to think that you've affected politics and history at all," he said.
With Ferrell's departure at the end of last season, though, the biggest question surrounding "SNL" at the moment is who will take over the Bush character.
Hammond said he is working on a Bush impression, if only for his stand-up routine. He said his comedic take on the president is about 75 percent complete.
"I think that's something we're all waiting to find out," Hammond said about who will play Bush on "SNL" next season. "I've seen Loren (Michaels, the show's creator and executive producer) in a jam before and he always seems to come out of it smelling like a rose, so I'm sure he's probably making plans now.
"I have so many political characters that I play on the show, I don't know what I'm going to do in the fall."
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