SHAWN BALDWIN/AP
John Lamparski/WireImage
REUTERS/Steve Marcus/File Photo
Mark Mainz/Getty Images
Vince Bucci/Getty Images, Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
JEFF CHRISTENSEN/Reuters
Jim Spellman/WireImage for United Artists
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Kevin Winter/WireImage
Gary Gershoff/Getty Images
AP Photo
MARY ELLEN MATTHEWS/AP
Andre Csillag/REX/Shutterstock
Andy Kropa/AP Photo
Jim Mooney/New York Daily News, Bryan Linden/WireImage
Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images
Matt Sayles/AP Photo
Jason Merritt/Getty Images, 20th Century Fox Film Corp.
JAVIER SORIANO/AFP/Getty Images
Paul Natkin/WireImage
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Eamonn McCormack/WireImage
PIERRE ANDRIEU/Getty Images
Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images
Evan Agostini/Getty Images
Jesse Ward / New York Daily News
Phil McCarten/AP Image
Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
John McCoy/Staff Photographer
REUTERS/Fred Prouser
Richard Shotwell / Invision / AP
Franziska Krug/Getty Images
C Flanigan / Getty Images
Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images
Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters
Rob Carr/AP
John M. Heller/Getty Images
Paul Zimmerman/WireImage
Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images
Paul R. Giunta/Getty Images
Johnny Louis/WireImage
Jamie McCarthy/WireImage
Jason Merritt/Getty Images, 20th Century Fox Film Corp.
Domenico Stinellis/AP Photo
Andrew Goodman/Getty Images
SGranitz/WireImage
USA Network / NBC
MARY ELLEN MATTHEWS/AP
Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP
Randall Michelson/WireImage
DANNY MOLOSHOK / Reuters
Paul Vernon/AP
Bobby Bank/WireImage
Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Reg Innell/Toronto Star via Getty Images
Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Niche Media
Mark Blinch/REUTERS
Getty Images
Kevin Winter/Getty Images, Herb Ball/NBCU Photo Bank
She was a towering figure — at the top of the justice system, in stature and for a brief time on “Saturday Night Live.”
Former Attorney General Janet Reno, 78, who died Monday, stood nearly 6-foot-2 and exuded a tough, no nonsense persona — which was perfect for 6-foot-3 comedian Will Ferrell who famously impersonated her in drag as a deep voiced Washington D.C. warrior during the late 1990s on “SNL.”
“Nothing is too hard on me,” Ferrell as Reno once growled in a sketch. “I have nails for dinner and for dessert I eat A-bombs.”
You could read a lot into the most powerful woman in the nation at the time to be portrayed by a man, there was a lot of subtext. But Reno had the last laugh — when she appeared alongside Ferrell shortly before she left office.
Given that that so much of our collective memories are reflected through the lens of popular culture, it’s not surprising that many immediately lump her name in with the words “Dance Party.”
We can thank Ferrell and his regularly recurring sketch, “Janet Reno’s Dance Party” in which he portrayed the nation’s first female Attorney General as a powerful, humorless, automaton who would burst through wooden doors like a superhero and secretly fantasize about marrying her boss, President Bill Clinton.
That last one featured Reno laying on a frilly bed eating a pan of Jiffy Pop popcorn and making out with a stuffed tiger named Simba. In another sketch, when NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani popped up in a cameo, he ended up losing a boxing match against Reno after being taunted: “How does it feel to be interviewed by the Attorney General of the United States? The job you only dreamed about having! It must feel like crap.”
The Attorney General herself got in on the joke: turning up in a 2001 “Janet Reno’s Dance Party,” skit by bursting through a fake brick wall, dancing the twist in a matching royal blue dress and shouting: “It’s Reno time!”
Sure Reno had her controversies, her office authorized the return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba and she was responsible for the deadly raid in Waco, Texas.
In a “Dance Party” sketch, Reno/Ferrell shouted down Clinton (a powder wigged Darrell Hammond) when he brought up the tragic Texas raid: “Waco! Dance Party takes away Waco! Get Out!”
At other times, as Ferrell played her, Reno hoped to have an affair with David Duchovney’s FBI agent, Fox Mulder and Vice President Al Gore.
“Let me tell you something about Al Gore,” Reno/Ferrell growled in sketch. “He’s a beautiful boy, but he’ll do anything to get you into the sack.”