Following in the footsteps of his running mate Sarah Palin, Republican John McCain will appear on NBC's Saturday Night Live this weekend. Coming just three days before Americans head to the polls, McCain is hoping a little levity might help reverse his long slump in the polls.

Sadly for the supposed maverick, his defining moment on SNL already came four years ago.

McCain's most important performance by far on SNL came neither this May nor during his 2002 rendition of a Barbara Streisand medley. Instead, McCain was most animated - literally - during a fall 2004 episode of the NBC comedy which ran just prior to the reelection of George W. Bush.

In October 2004, Saturday Night Live animator Robert Smigel created "John McCain's Speech," a TV Funhouse cartoon that comically depicted McCain's anguish in stumping for President Bush after all the slurs he had endured at Bush's hands back in 2000 (click the image below or here for the video):

As it turns out, the only thing John McCain hates more than George W. Bush is the thought of not becoming president himself in 2008.

Of course, we'll see how he feels about Barack Obama after Tuesday night.