#7: Chevy Chase Redefines Gerald Ford
So Gerald Ford fell down a couple of times. The president was still remembered at the University of Michigan as a star football player and cheer leading coach whose mastery of the back handspring was known even at Yale. The guy was a serious athlete and by all accounts a pretty solid golfer in his later years.
So how did he get a reputation for being a klutz that haunted him all the way into the 1976 election season? Blame Chevy Chase.
It was Ford who slipped on his way down the stairs of Air Force One upon landing in Austria in 1975, but it was Chevy Chase who stretched that gaffe into a weekly gag on Saturday Night Live. As a result, Ford never lived down his image as a clumsy oaf who might mistake a water glass for a telephone or go tumbling over his own desk.
Chevy Chase's sketches rebranded the president, and might have influenced the '76 elections by instilling in people's minds an image of an inept president. The moment launched Chevy's career, but was a thorn in Ford's side for the rest of his life.
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