Long-running US sketch show Saturday Night Live (SNL) has provided Alec Baldwin with the role of a lifetime: impersonating Donald Trump.

In the latest instalment, SNL parodied Frank Capra’s classic Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) to confront Baldwin’s Trump with a world in which he was never born, featuring cameos from Ben Stiller, Matt Damon and Robert De Niro as Michael Cohen, Brett Kavanaugh and Robert Mueller respectively.

President Trump was again enraged by the portrayal, taking to Twitter to declare: “A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?”

He previously hit out at the show and Baldwin in October 2016, writing: “Watched Saturday Night Live hit job on me. Time to retire the boring and unfunny show. Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!”

First airing on NBC on 11 October 1975, the last two years have seen the show achieve a new degree of prominence thanks to the relentlessness of its assault on the Trump administration, frequently drawing favourable coverage in the mainstream press around the world.

The recent run has created plum roles for the likes of Melissa McCarthy (Sean Spicer), Beck Bennett (Mike Pence, Vladimir Putin) and the extraordinary Kate McKinnon (Kellyanne Conway, Hillary Clinton, Jeff Sessions), all of whom have outdone themselves.

But SNL has a long history of sending up the White House.

In its earliest days, Chevy Chase played Gerald Ford as a pratfalling buffoon, crashing a glass of water against his ear after picking up the wrong object from his desk when the phone rang.

Dan Aykroyd would follow him as Jimmy Carter, affably answering phone-in queries on everything from how to fix automatic letter sorters and treat acid overdoses but hardly inspiring confidence. Neither Chase nor Aykroyd seriously attempted a spot-on impersonation of their man, making it all the funnier.

In the Reagan era, the show had the unprecedented luxury of having Robin Williams, Phil Hartmann and Joe Piscopo to play the California Republican whose faded movie actor looks and warm delivery were a gift to any comedian.

Dana Carvey's portrayal of George HW Bush was next and stands as one of the show's most successful endeavours. Playing a man 31 years his senior, Carvey skewered the president as an insecure weed determined to prove himself a strongman on the international stage.

Carvey’s President Bush was a man 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 – coming across with all the style and ease of an Episcopalian pastor attempting to warn teenagers away from marijuana.

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 hubris and mixing his metaphors.

Hartmann played Donald Trump in 1990 and was the show’s first Bill Clinton, memorably grifting fries in McDonald’s, before cast member Darrell Hammond (now the show’s voiceover announcer) took over in 1995 and made it his own. Hammond nailed Clinton’s Arkansas drawl and reassuring thumbs-up and went on to perform the part in character at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner in 2001.

His appearance as Weekend Update’s resident film critic, reviewing Independence Day in 1996 while embittered by the Monica Lewinsky affair, is particularly fine.

Hammond would later play Al Gore in debate sketches against George W Bush, the latter providing equally rich material for Will Ferrell, furrowing his brow, fighting not to be outsmarted and repeatedly warning opponents not to “mess with Texas”.

Ferrell, who has done much wilder character work in Zoolander (2001), Anchorman (2004) and Eastbound and Down (2009-13), was rarely more disciplined than as a hick “Dubya” and never better than when championing Minions (2015) or making hilariously outmoded references in the hope of appealing to younger voters: “The ‘W’ stands for ‘Wassup!’”

There was real bite here too, particularly in the attack on Bush's disingenuous presentation of himself as a rancher, undermined in Ferrell's interpretation by an obvious fear of horses.

Writer Tina Fey won new admirers as Sarah Palin in 2008 but the subsequent Obama administration represented a problem for SNL.

President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media Show all 16 1 /16 President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "You are fake news!" Then President-elect Trump directed this insult to CNN's Jim Acosta while refusing him a question at a press conference on January 11 2017. The President-elect's anger was due to the publishing by Buzzfeed of unverified memos that implicated Michael Cohen in Russian collusion. CNN had reported on a briefing of Obama and Trump on the memos by US intelligence chiefs, but knowing the content to be unverified had not revealed it AFP/Getty President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth" President Trump said this of journalists during a visit to the CIA on the the day following his inauguration. His claim of having the largest crowd of any inauguration ceremony in history had been debunked and he clearly wasn't happy Reuters President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "Failing New York Times" President Trump commonly addresses the New York Times in this way, contrary to its increasing profit margins and expanding global readership. He is pictured here in the midtown Manhattan office of the paper Getty President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "Enemy of the American People" President Trump has since repeated the claim that such news outlets are the enemy of the people, often after they break negative stories about him President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "They have no sources" Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24 2017, President Trump suggested that a Washington Post article with 9 sources was "made up". The article in question exposed how then National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence over a phone call to a Russian ambassador. That the article was "made up", while highly doubtful at the time, seems even less likely since Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the same phone call Reuters President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media Access denied for major publications Protesters gathered outside of the New York Times office after Trump's White House barred a number of publications from attending a press briefing on February 24 2017. Just hours after the President had again denounced the media, then Press Secretary Sean Spicer denied access to news outlets such as CNN and the New York Times, while permitting Breitbart News, CBS, Fox and others AFP/Getty President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "#FNN" On July 2 2017, President Trump tweeted an edited clip from his Wrestlemania XXIII appearance in which the CNN logo had been imposed onto the face of his wrestling opponent Vince McMahon. CNN is a common target for President Trump and here he suggests that he is getting the better of the network through his repeated attacks President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "The most powerful TV show in America" On July 27 2017, President Trump quoted a New York Times article about Fox & Friends. The President is known to watch Fox & Friends every morning, often tweeting about matters discussed on the show, leading to speculation over its influence on his outlook and policies Getty President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "It's frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write" In a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on October 11 2017, President Trump suggested that the press ought not to be allowed their constitutionally secured freedom. He added "people should look into it", suggesting that he also doesn't respect the protection of sources. At the time, he was angry at an NBC report claiming that the President had expressed a desire to return the size of the US' nuclear arsenal to its 1960s height, a claim that he and others in his administration dismissed as fake news AFP/Getty President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "negative (Fake)" In a tweet on 9 May 2018, President Trump conflated negative reporting about him with fake news President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "I didn't criticise the Prime Minister" In a press conference with the Prime Minister on his visit to Britain, President Trump disputed claims published in the Sun that he had criticised Mrs May's Brexit strategy Reuters President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "Horrible, horrendous people" At a Republican rally in Pennsylvania on August 3 2018, President Trump deemed all journalists in attendance "horrible, horrendous people". He later denounced the "fake, fake, disgusting news" for falsely reporting that he was late to his meeting with the Queen when visiting Britain AFP/Getty President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media Trump's rhetoric "very close to inciting violence" In an interview with the Guardian on 13 August 2018, the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein suggested that President Trump's attacks on the press are "very close to inciting violence". Zeid singles out the President's repeated claim that the fake news (negative coverage) media is the "enemy of the people" as dangerous Reuters President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "anonymous source" = fiction President Trump claimed that any report citing anonymous sources is fiction. The protection of sources is a vital matter of press freedom, without it a potential source's fear of repercussions could lead them to withhold important information President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "You are a rude, terrible person" At a press conference in the wake of the midterms, President Trump clashed with CNN's Jim Acosta when he asked about the President's use of language during the campaign Reuters President Trump's most shocking attacks on the media "I would never kill Journalists" For any journalists frightened by President Trump's attacks on the press, perhaps you can take solace in his words from a campaign rally in Grand Rapids on December 21 2015. Responding to remarks over Vladimir Putin's handling of journalists, Trump stated: "I hate some of these people, but I'd never kill them... I'll be honest - I would never kill them. Uhhh lets see.. no, I never would" Getty

Controversy surrounded the casting of Fred Armisen in the role of Barack; the comic is of Venezuelan and German heritage, not African-American. Jay Pharoah later succeeded him but was not much better suited.

Jordan Peele was far more convincing on Comedy Central’s Key & Peele, executing the Chicago politician’s urbane mannerisms superbly, the conceit being President Obama had become so refined he now required a “translator”, Luther (Keegan-Michael Key), to enable him to speak to Michelle.

President Obama, always a good sport, had Luther speak for him at the 2015 Correspondent’s Dinner.

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As for President Trump, Baldwin on SNL is often admired more for the impersonation’s effect on its subject than its humour.