George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st president of the United States, only served one term in office but oversaw an eventful tenure.

Defeating Democrat Michael Dukakis in the 1988 election, the decorated former Navy aviator, CIA director and US Ambassador to the United Nations had a front row seat at the fall of the Berlin Wall and for the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

He led the US into the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein, signed the North American Free Trade Agreement and saw a major tax increase passed by Congress before losing out to Bill Clinton in 1992 when the economic tide turned against him.

All of which made him ripe for satire on Saturday Night Live (SNL).

Mr Bush was skewered by Dana Carvey, a character comedian probably best known to British audiences as skittish heavy metal fan Garth Algar in Wayne’s World (1992) and its sequel. He was also a highly skilled mimic and SNL institution.

The show incorporated political sketches since its inception in 1975 and a send-up of the incumbent president quickly became a fixture of its set list.

However, some statesmen were easier to lampoon than others. Barack Obama, for one, seemed to create problems for SNL, with controversy surrounding the casting of Fred Armisen in the role, the comic being of Venezuelan and German heritage rather than African-American. Jay Pharoah later succeeded him.

With other presidents, the show would be spoilt for choice.

SNL had the luxury of both Robin Williams and Phil Hartman playing Ronald Reagan at different times while the possibilities for Mr Bush’s son, George “Dubya” Bush, seemed endless until Will Ferrell made the part his own.

Alec Baldwin has likewise cornered the market in Donald Trump impersonations for SNL – despite an underrated showing from Johnny Depp, wearing heavy prosthetics, in Funny or Die’s competing short film The Art of the Deal, a spoof adaptation of The Donald’s ghost-written 1987 business manual/memoir.

The Trump years have meanwhile created unforgettable roles on SNL for the likes of Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton, Kellyanne Conway AND Jeff Sessions, Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer and John Goodman as Rex Tillerson.

Dana Carvey rematerialised on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show last month to play John Bolton, President Trump’s new National Security Advisor, presenting him as a mad-eyed hawk with an ever-growing white moustache.

What makes him such a superb impersonator is his acute eye for the telling detail, that peculiar tick that reveals the real person behind the public bluster.

Mr Carvey, 31 years younger than his target, presented President Bush as an insecure geek determined to prove himself a strongman on the international stage.

Unable to hide his nasal Connecticut accent or discomfort in addressing the average working man – the president having spent his civilian career among the wealthy Texas oil set – Mr Carvey’s George HW Bush came across with all the style and ease of an Episcopalian pastor attempting to warn teenagers away from the “dangers” of marijuana.

A bright man, a war hero and a scion of America’s political elite who had rarely been brushed by personal scandal, on the surface Mr Bush appeared as untarnished as the young Tony Blair.

Dana Carvey picked away at that superficial sheen to expose the frailties below.

Little devices like an over-reliance on emphatic hand gestures and a habit of emitting nervous chuckles (”Little joke for ya there”) revealed a nervous man prone to mixing his metaphors and hubris regarding his approval rating.

Barbara Bush: life in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Barbara Bush: life in pictures Barbara Bush: life in pictures An infant George W. Bush with his mother Barbara Bush and his father George Bush posing for a portrait in New Haven, CT, April 1947. Barbara Bush: life in pictures George W. Bush (C) poses with father George Bush and his mother Barbara Bush in Rye, New York, summer 1955. Getty Images Barbara Bush: life in pictures George Bush, candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, gets returns by phone at his headquarters in Houston as his wife Barbara, beams her pleasure at the news, in June, 1964. AP Barbara Bush: life in pictures George Herbert Walker Bush poses with his wife Barbara during his campaign for Congress in the 1960's. AFP/Getty Images Barbara Bush: life in pictures George Herbert Walker Bush poses with his wife Barbara in Beijing in 1974. AFP/Getty Images Barbara Bush: life in pictures First Lady Barbara Bush talking to her dog Millie as she and granddaughter Barbara Bush, age nine, wait for US President George Bush to return to the White House. September 1991, in Washington,DC. AFP/Getty Images Barbara Bush: life in pictures US First Lady Barbara Bush (L) as she prepares to throw a rugby ball. February 1992,in Washington,DC. AFP/Getty Images Barbara Bush: life in pictures First Lady Barbara Bush and her son George Bush Jr attend the 1992 Republican National Convention on August 17, 1992 in Houston. AFP/Getty Images Barbara Bush: life in pictures U.S. President George Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush work their way through a crowd gathered to welcome them in August 1992, in the Astroarena. AFP/Getty Images Barbara Bush: life in pictures First Lady Barbara Bush greets the delegates attending the Republican Convention before beginning her speech. August 1992, in Houston, Texas. AFP/Getty

The Simpsons also did wonderful work spoofing President Bush in the 1996 episode “Two Bad Neighbours”, focusing on his outmoded conservative social values and characterising him as a local busybody in retaliation for his remarks about the poor example the show was setting for American families at the 1992 Republican National Convention.

Neither portrayal was cruel and both arguably helped humanise a somewhat stiff and apparently mirthless politician.

The Simpsons iteration did not reach audiences until well into the succeeding Clinton administration, however.