Dana Carvey is no stranger to meeting the men he has lampooned on “SNL” and in his stand-up act, but so far, he’s just missed running into Joe Biden. It turns out the 46th president is a frequent visitor to Carvey’s hometown in the Santa Ynez Valley.
“Hunter Biden lives around the corner, so he’s up here all the time,” Carvey says. “There’s this little market up here, and they said you just missed Joe Biden. He opened the freezer door and he went, ‘Where’s the pay phone?’ which was shocking to me. I’m joking, I’m joking.”
Carvey has made a living zeroing in on the tics and quirks of famous men like Biden and George H.W. Bush, a staid Washington insider who he turned into a WASP-y bebop artist (“not gonna do it, wouldn’t be prudent”) during his time on “SNL.” The late president took it in stride.
“We became friends for a long time and he would call me at home out of the blue,” Carvey says, before slipping into his familiar impression. “George Bush here. What’s going on? I’m on with Bar.'”
When he was playing Biden, Carvey’s voice was reedier than Bush, but the verbal detours were just as jarring and non-sequitur fueled (“I’m being serious. Folks, you know. By the way. The fact of the matter is”).
