Bad Impressionists

Impressions have been a staple of comedy for quite a long time (see Eddie Izzard) Ergo, when one of your characters is an (often bad by his own right) comedian, impressions tend to crop up. If your character is a bad comedian, though, his impression is likely to suck balls. Want to point this out to the audience? Couldn't be easier. Simply have him do one or more of the following:

• Having them say who they're impersonating, either before or after they do so.
• Have them sound nothing like the guy. When a male comedian impersonates a female (or vice versa), this can be chalked up to voicebox difficulties.
• Butchering the impersonatee's accent. Giving a Cockney celebrity a Scottish accent in your impersonation is firmly this trope. Exaggerating for comedic effect (making the Cockney celebrity speak in full rhyming slang while, normally, he or she just pronounces words in a decidedly Cockney way) is not.
• Doing the voice properly, but misquoting the celebrity in question. Badly. Even if another character corrects him, make sure the impressionist continues to screw up.

If a comedian does this intentionally, it's not this trope. Neither is it if he lampshades the fact that his impressions are terrible and otherwise doesn't make them a big part of his routine. See Stylistic Suck.

Examples of Bad Impressionists include:

Film

• In Help!, Superintendent Gluck does a bad impression of Ringo over the phone: "Hello, this is the famous Ringo, gear, fab. What can I do for you, as it were, gear, fab?"
  • Not a bit like Cagney.

Live-Action TV

• Although it seems to be deliberate to an extent, Keith Olbermann does truly terrible impressions of those he doesn't like. For instance, his Lou Dobbs impression sounds like Yoda.
  • This trope follows Olbermann to Football Night in America whenever he tries to revive this SportsCenter catchphrase complete with bad impression of Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis.
  • Keith is very proud of his Lou Dobbs impression. When Dobbs left CNN his main complaint was that he'd have to retire the impression.
  • Keith can, however, pull off a decent Ted Baxter impression.
• A unique example of this was Andy Kaufman's Foreign Man persona—whom his audience didn't initially know was a persona. Foreign Man did dreadful impressions of whoever the then-current U.S. president was, Archie Bunker and Ed Sullivan, but thought they were excellent. As a result, crowds were nonplussed when Kaufman said he would now impersonate Elvis Presley...and then shocked when it turned out to be a good impersonation, complete with full costume.
• Mad TV used a variant: a geeky white guy gets up on stage and does an absolutely hideous Bill Cosby impression (he even mispronounces it as "Closby") that has the audience in stitches, much to the consternation of a black guy in the audience who we saw earlier doing a decent impression. The black guy tries to go up and show everyone how it's supposed to be done, but he chokes up behind the microphone and can't pull it off.
• A running joke on both versions of Whose Line Is It Anyway is that Colin Mochrie isn't the best impressionist in the world. Taken to an extreme during one infamous "Questionable Impressions" sketch, where his Craig T. Nelson impression is... his own voice, completely unaltered. (Both are Canadian.)
  • Ryan Stiles is hardly any better—in particular, his John Wayne impression is... "unique".
• In one episode of Saturday Night Live, John MacEnroe is pleading with Lorne Michaels to let him host the show, and attempts to display his comic ability with a Jack Nicholson impression. It's very bad, and Lorne tells him so, causing John to mimic one of his infamous on-court outbursts. "You're deaf, Lorne Michaels! That impression was right on the line!"
  • Also done with a one-shot sketch with Alec Baldwin as "The Mimic," who supposedly could imitate any possible voice, but it turned out he was completely incompetent, except for one impression. When Jameson the butler (played by musical guest Paul Mc Cartney) goes to throw him out, Alec Baldwin says in a perfect Mc Cartney impression, "But I'm you! You can't throw yourself out."
  • Also one of the Jeopardy episodes where James Earl Jones shows off impressionist skills with such characters as Tweety-pie and Lucy Ricardo, not changing his voice in the least for his lines.
• Taylor Dedominicantonio from Naturally, Sadie. Her 'impersonations' consist of her describing the person she is 'impersonating'.
• On Wings, Lowell attempts to do some impressions for Roy, all of which consist simply of him speaking in a slightly gruffer version of his normal voice and saying, "Hi, I'm (celebrity)!"
• A Running Gag on Never Mind the Buzzcocks is Phill Jupitus supposedly being a Man of a Thousand Voices, but nearly all of his impressions consist of just saying the person in question's catchphrase in the same throaty Bernard Manning voice.
• Sam Evans' impressions aren't terrible, per se, but they're not great either. What makes them more awkward is his tendency to try and impress girls with them.
• James Quall from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! supposedly makes a living off of horrible impressions of celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Bill Cosby, always mentioning spaghetti and meatballs.

Radio

• On Hello Cheeky, Barry Cryer does all sorts of impressions of varying quality. Sometimes, however, he just sets them up for himself, such as 'a discussion on the German economy between Adolf Hitler and a horse', or 'World War II'.
• One of Eric and Ernie's skits revolved around Ernie doing an impression of a newspaper salesman and a butcher. They both sound the same.

Eric: It's the same fellow what runs both shops.
Ernie: What a shame the audience have never met him, otherwise they'd know how good that is. Exactly like him.

Web Comics

• Parodied in Concerned: Gordon Frohman's impression of Gordon Freeman is... well first of all, the latter never speaks, so impersonating him is officially impossible. But his line is "I'm Gordon Freeman! I never say anything! Blah blah blah!"

Western Animation

• The idea for this trope came from a recent Family Guy episode, where Peter tried to do impressions: "This is my impression of John Wayne at the first Thanksgiving. 'Happy Thanksgiving, Pilgrim!'"
  • This was subverted in another episode with an actor who did impressions of his friends and family, but they all sounded exactly the same. In the next scene, we see him talking to his friends and family and they actually all really do sound the same.
  • There was also an earlier one where he did his impressions of Sir Winston Churchill. They all involved him asking for something British (sans British accent): "Would you like a crumpet? I would because I'm Winston Churchill!"
• The Simpsons: "Look at me, I'm Angie Dickinson! Out of my way!"
  • Part of McBain's unfunny stand-up comedy turn on The Simpsons:

"Now, my Woody Allen impression: I'm a neurotic nerd who likes to sleep with little girls."

• King Julien's impression of Mason (a chimp) in The Penguins of Madagascar is bad enough ("Ook ook! I sure do love the tire swing!"), but when asked to do one of Private (a penguin)... "Ook ook! I sure do love a stinky fish!" His impersonation of Maurice is slightly better; he puts on a deep voice, stretches his ears out to the sides, and says "Uh, hey, everybody, stop having fun

"Yes. You. Do."
"Now that's just your robot voice."

• sulky* "End. Transmission."

• The Futurama episode Bendless Love illustrates that Bender can't do a believable impression of Flexo, whose voice is exactly the same as his own.
• In American Dad:

Francine: I pity the fool, who don't think I'm cool! Get it? I was making a Dr. T reference!

• In Dan Vs. "The Ninja," Chris acts as a decoy for Dan by standing in the park and saying things like "I'm Dan! I get mad at everything, then I yell a lot. I sure don't appreciate my friend Chris."

Web Animation

• From Homestar Runner, in "Halloween Potion-ma-jig", choose to do a "Reagan impression" for Bubs:

Homestar: (leaning over, in a low voice) Well... well... Nancy and I... economics... well... rap music... jellybeans... well... we... probably had a... pet...
Bubs: That's the worst Ronald Reagan impression I've ever heard!
Homestar: Ronald Reagan?! I was doing my Keanu Reagan!

• • And then later, at the end, click on Homestar:

Homestar: Hey Strong Bad! (adopts "shady drifter" impression) Let me get a few dollars. I'm trying to catch a train. My wife, she's pregnant. I got thirteen kids. I'm on hard times.
Strong Bad: Well, at least your shady drifter impression is better than your Ronald Reagan.
Homestar: Ooh! I can hit you with some more of that, too! (adopts Ronald Reagan impression) Well... well... Oliver Cromwell...

• • Another time, having accidentally broken up with Marzipan via answering machine, he quickly replaces the tape with a fake he recorded. In the fake messages, he does horrible impressions of several characters, including himself.

Web Original

• An early running gag on Cracked After Hours was Dan O'Brien using the exact same loud, screechy voice to impersonate various celebrities. Michael and Katie don't seem to be impressed (when Dan attempts to imitate Goldie Wilson, Michael retorts "You sound like a blender!"), but Soren is bowled over every time.
• Both Jake and Amir have done bad impressions in their videos.

Newspaper Comics

• Calvin and Hobbes: When said characters imitate each other, they do the "I'm so and so, DURR" variety. One time, Calvin's mom cut it short by calling him back to the house, leading to this exchange:

Calvin: Leave it up to mom to interrupt our repartee.
Hobbes: Just when I had you writhing within the crushing grip of reason, too.