Jon Lovitz stops by ‘The Tonight Show’ as George Santos to pick up Nobel Peace Prize

The Jewish comedian told Howard Stern about the connection between his Pathological Liar character and the embattled congressman

Comedian Jon Lovitz, who rose to fame playing characters like the Pathological Liar on Saturday Night Live, put those skills to good use with his take on Rep. George Santos on The Tonight Show. Courtesy of Jon Lovitz/Twitter

Adam Kovac, The Forward

Comedian Jon Lovitz is having a moment thanks to disgraced congressman George Santos. 

Not that Santos is a fan, having taken to Twitter to say how unimpressed he’s been with the myriad comedic takes on him. Lovitz fired back, saying that even his signature character, the Pathological Liar, “can’t hold a candle to you!”

Lovitz, who rose to fame on Saturday Night Live playing shady, arrogant characters, debuted his take on Santos on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Clad in what has become Santos’ signature outfit — a collared shirt, dark sweater and blazer, with thick black-rimmed glasses — Lovitz did his best to capture the Long Island representative’s smirky tone. 

“I’m just in town to pick up my Nobel Peace Prize,” he told Fallon. “Perform a couple of nights at Madison Square Garden … I’ll be singing all my hit songs. ‘Piano Man,’ ‘Hey Jude,’ ‘Happy Birthday.’”

Lovitz-as-Santos said he hadn’t been caught lying but merely telling, as his “grandfather Winston Churchill” would say, “embellishments.”

“The truth is, I did not work for Goldman Sachs. I am Goldman Sachs.”

The Jewish comedian told Fallon that in his spare time, he is the prime minister of Israel, but isn’t just “Jew-ish. I’m I-rish, Scott-ish.”

Lovitz also had some fun at the expense of Santos’ noticeably clumsy entrance into his office last week. 

The 65-year-old comedian also stopped by The Howard Stern Show (this time as himself), where he spoke about the ties between his signature character and Santos, who has been caught lying about his grandparents’ survival of the Holocaust, his education and work experience, and his mother’s death, which he falsely claimed was connected to 9/11.


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This article was originally published on the Forward.