The X-Presidents is a NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

/Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

Saturday TV Funhouse cartoon created by Robert Smigel

Robert Smigel

Robert Smigel is an American actor, humorist, comedian and writer known for his Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts and as the puppeteer and voice behind Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.-Early life:...

 and J. J. Sedelmaier

J. J. Sedelmaier

J. J. Sedelmaier is an American illustrator, designer, author, and film director/producer. He and his wife Patrice run J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, Inc., an animation/graphic design studio they established in 1990 in White Plains, New York, to create and produce animated television commercials...

 Productions, Inc., that features former American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Presidents

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford

Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...

, Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

, Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

, and George Herbert Walker Bush as a superhero

Superhero

A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

 team. This recurring sketch debuted on January 11, 1997. The four former leaders were endowed with superpowers when struck by lightning

Lightning

Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...

 at a celebrity golf

Golf

Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

 tournament. The title is a play on words, both referencing that the members are ex-Presidents, and alluding to the Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

 franchise, X-Men

X-Men

The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...

In the episode "Nixon", Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 and his dog Checkers

Checkers speech

The Checkers speech or Fund speech was an address made by Richard Nixon, the Republican vice presidential candidate and junior United States Senator from California, on television and radio on September 23, 1952. Senator Nixon had been accused of improprieties relating to a fund established by his...

 are resurrected to aid the group. Ford and Reagan have become "Ex-X-Presidents" since their deaths. Presidents Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 and George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 attempted to join the group after leaving office but were hindered by their lack of superpowers. The cartoons end with the X-Presidents singing a song that recounts the episode's message. The Ambiguously Gay Duo

The Ambiguously Gay Duo

The Ambiguously Gay Duo is an American animated comedy sketch that debuted on The Dana Carvey Show before moving to its permanent home on Saturday Night Live. It is created and produced by Robert Smigel and J. J. Sedelmaier as part of the Saturday TV Funhouse series of sketches...

, another series of shorts created by Robert Smigel and J. J. Sedelmaier, made a special guest appearance in Episode 58 of The X-Presidents, "The Hunt for Osama". The sketch broadly parodies Hanna-Barbera/Filmation cartoons from the 1970s.