Dana Carvey remembers Ross Perot: He "loved" my SNL impression of him

Los Angeles Times

“He loved it and was very nice about it,” Carvey said in remembering the third-party presidential candidate, who died today at age 89. “In fact, he called me up once because he wanted me to be with him in Texas on election night!” Carvey recalled having to suddenly impersonate Perot when he became a media sensation. “He just suddenly was on the scene, it seemed,” he recalled. “On a Monday, people had never really heard of him; then on Tuesday, Lorne Michaels had a VHS tape of him and asked me to take a look and see if there was anything there.” He recalls finding comedy gold: “I thought, oh my God, this is amazing — a fully formed, comic character,” he said. “He just had a funny way of talking. It was not a lot of heavy lifting on my part!”

ALSO:

• Dana Carvey's Ross Perot was a fully formed three-dimensional comic character
• All That also parodied Perot
• Perot, like Donald Trump, realized the power of free media, essentially launching his campaign on Larry King Live.