Saturday Night Live’s “Lincoln Ads” sketch features Jim Carrey displaying his perfect Matthew McConaughey impression. SNL has a long, proud history of producing classic comedy sketches. One of their most popular in recent years was “Haunted Elevator (ft. David S. Pumpkins),” which featured a couple taking a cheesy haunted elevator ride loaded with the usual ghosts and ghouls. They are also “menaced” by Tom Hanks’ title character, a weird looking dude in a pumpkins outfit. The odd premise and Hanks’ performance made this skit a viral favorite.
Saturday Night Live also made the careers of The Lonely Island, consisting of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone (MacGruber). They produced a line-up of great Digital Shorts like “D*** In A Box,” “I’m On A Boat,” “Jack Sparrow” and many more. While a lot of the show’s sketches can miss the mark, gems from recent years include Ryan Gosling’s beloved “Papyrus” and Jason Momoa committing to his role as a depressed elf in “Elf On The Shelf.”
In 2014 Jim Carrey received great reviews for guest hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live, with his “Lincoln Ads” being singled out as a highlight. These skits were based on the Lincoln commercials fronted by Matthew McConaughey, who at the time was riding the wave of a comeback dubbed “The McConaissance.” This was due to appearing in back to back acclaimed movies and shows like True Detective, Magic Mike and Interstellar. During this period he also appeared in a series of commercials promoting Lincoln cars.
These ads helped drive sales of Lincolns, but their pretentious tone and Matthew McConaughey’s zen performance also made them easy to mock. This is where Saturday Night Live’s “Lincoln Ads” parody comes in, which finds Jim Carrey playing McConaughey as he drives a Lincoln around and has spiritual inner – and occasionally outer – monologues. Carrey perfectly captures McConaughey’s laconic drawl and his odd habit of rolling his fingers around his thumb – which is revealed by Carrey to be a “booger” he’s contemplating eating.
In the past, Carrey has shown himself to be a great mimic and is able to do eerily accurate impressions of the likes of Clint Eastwood or William Shatner. That’s what makes Saturday Night Live’s “Lincoln Ads” such as a treat, as he nails the spacey delivery of Matthew McConaughey as the gags get more and more outlandish. He also points out it really would have made more sense for McConaughey to have appeared in these ads around the time he starred in The Lincoln Lawyer, and not after he’d won an Oscar for The Dallas Buyers Club.
