The X-Presidents The X-Presidents The X-Presidents is an NBC/"Saturday Night Live" "Saturday TV Funhouse" cartoon created by Robert Smigel and animated by J. J. Sedelmaier Productions. This cartoon features the living former American Presidents at the time: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush (all voiced by Jim Morris) as a superhero team. This recurring sketch debuted on January 11, 1997. The four former leaders were endowed with superpowers when struck by lightning at a celebrity golf tournament. The title is a play on words, both referencing that the members are "ex-"Presidents, and alluding to the Marvel Comics franchise,
Oval Office grandfather clock clocks have all been disabled since an order by Harry S. Truman, due to the difficulty of keeping them all synchronized. Jimmy Carter said that, during the last stages of the Iran hostage crisis negotiations when he spent forty-eight hours continuously in the Oval Office, "No matter who was with me, we watched the big grandfather clock by the door." Due to its location, the clock has appeared in the background of many photographs of successive American Presidents receiving world leaders and during meetings in the Oval Office: The clock was mentioned specifically by the former FBI director James Comey,