Saturday Night Live parodies of Sarah Palin a physical resemblance between comedian Tina Fey and Palin. Fey had decided she would play Palin after her daughter saw a picture of the Alaskan governor and mistook Palin for her mother. Viewers began to speculate who would play Palin on "SNL" during the run up to the November 4 presidential election. Days before the broadcast of the sketch, "SNL" executive producer Lorne Michaels said "there are [ongoing] discussions" about Fey playing Palin. On September 13, 2008, NBC announced that Fey would appear in the thirty-fourth-season premiere. The first sketch, "A Nonpartisan Message from Governor Sarah Palin & Senator Hillary
Sarah Palin National Convention that was well received and watched by more than 40 million people. During the campaign, controversy erupted over alleged differences between Palin's positions as a gubernatorial candidate and her position as a vice-presidential candidate. After McCain announced Palin as his running mate, "Newsweek" and "Time" put Palin on their magazine covers, as some of the media alleged that McCain's campaign was restricting press access to Palin by allowing only three one-on-one interviews and no press conferences with her. Palin's first major interview, with Charles Gibson of ABC News, met with mixed reviews. Her interview five days later with