Exactly one day after the close of the Democratic National Convention last August, Senator John McCain made a big announcement: Alaska governor Sarah Palin would be his running mate.

I was still in Denver at the time, riding the wave of Barack Obama’s stirring speech at Invesco Field the night before.

The second I saw Governor Palin on my TV screen, I—along with almost everyone else in the world—had just one thought: “That is Tina Fey! Next stop: Saturday Night Live!”

Tina first joined SNL in 1997, as a writer (like many of the show’s great talents, she came out of Chicago’s Second City school of improv comedy);

within two years, she was promoted to head writer, the first woman to hold that position in the show’s then 25-year history. Three years later she took on the role that originally made her famous—co-host of SNL’s news show parody, “Weekend Update.”

In 2006, Tina left Saturday Night Live to create the Emmy-winning comedy series she both oversees and stars in, NBC’s 30 Rock.

And this is why, when everyone from strangers to her own husband started suggesting that she impersonate Palin on SNL, she felt compelled to remind them, “I already have a day job.”

Luckily that didn’t stop SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels from wooing her. As Michaels told an interviewer, “The whole world cast her in that role.”

The result was a Saturday Night Live jackpot: The brilliant comedian who has satirized everything from elastic-waisted “mom jeans” to “the girl with no gaydar” made the presidential campaign as hilarious as it was historic.

Her six appearances as Palin, beginning with SNL’s season premiere on September 13, were watched by millions of people live and millions more online and were a genuine international sensation.

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