25 best cold-opens in SNL history
By David Rouben
20. Bob Dole and Bill Clinton star in “Point/Counterpoint”
When 60 Minutes featured a segment called “Point/Counterpoint” during the ’70s, it became one of SNL’s most famous recurring sketches. During “Weekend Update,” Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin would debate a topic before it devolved into a name-calling match, with Aykroyd famously shouting “Jane, you ignorant slut.”
After a long hiatus, 60 Minutes decided to bring back “Point/Counterpoint” in 2003, with Bill Clinton and Bob Dole serving as central figures. It would’ve worked better in the late ’90s, when they were political rivals. But to do so seven years later diminished the product, and they couldn’t even make it through their 10-episode commitment.
However, when it first started, SNL decided to take a run at it, if only to return Aykroyd to a familiar setting. The topic of debate was the Iraq War, which Clinton used to stroke his own ego for two minutes rather than argue anything. So, when Dole opens his counterpoint with “Bill, you ignorant slut”, it was extremely satisfying, and not just because it was a memorable callback. It only got worse from there, though, as he brought his wife into it then called him a “hedonistic sexual predator.”
If the real debates between Dole and Clinton were this heated, 60 Minutes would’ve kept this segment going. Instead, this is just one of many instances where the parody was better than the original.