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Phil Donahue was more than a trailblazing talk show host, he was also a mainstay of Saturday Night Live. Donahue was one of the few non-political celebrities to be impersonated by three different SNL cast members. The first was Joe Piscopo, who embodied the host during a sketch that aired on Oct. 2, 1982. In the scene, Donahue negotiates peace in the Middle East between Israel’s Menachem Begin (played by Tim Kazurinsky) and Palestine’s Yasser Arafat (played by Gary Kroeger). Though topical, the sketch only generated minor laughs. Still, it established a formula for Donahue as a character, and …

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