For Washington and Lincoln it was a silent short (“Washington Under the British Flag” and “His First Commission,” respectively). For Grover Cleveland, it was a James Cagney/Humphrey Bogart western (“The Oklahoma Kid”). JFK got an episode of a forgotten TV show, “Navy Log,” LBJ got “Batman: The Movie,” and FDR, believe it or not, got the Three Stooges.

These are the first moments our presidents have been portrayed on screen. Per IMDb.com.

Some surprising revelations. Herbert Hoover (1929-33) was never portrayed on screen until 1979's “Backstairs at the White House,” a mini-series appearing to combine “Upstairs Downstairs” and “Roots.” James Buchanan (1957-61), meanwhile, has only been portrayed once, as voicework by David Gergen in the 2000 PBS documentary “The American President.” At least he had John Updike watching his back.

More recent presidents, of course, are first spoofed on television, generally “Saturday Night Live,” which has given us our first screen portraits of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The British series “Spitting Image” beat them to George H.W. Bush, while “The 1/2 News Hour” beat them to Barack Obama.

Speaking of the Bushes: IMDb.com needs to fix its algorithms or something, since it includes obvious H.W. characters (a 1990 “Golden Girls” episode, voiced by Harry Shearer, for example) under W.'s character page. The site also includes the “Richard Nixon” thug in Godard's “Made in U.S.A.” on Nixon's character page. I've tried to adjust the numbers accordingly but take these numbers with a grain of salt. Treat them, in other words, as campaign promises.

Here are our 44 presidents in presidential order:

  And here they are as ranked by how often they've been portrayed on screen:

No one's messing with Lincoln, not even Washington. As for James Buchanan, well, at least he was fodder for John Updike in “Memories of the Ford Administration,” from which this quote, appropos, is taken:

History buries most men, and then exaggerates the height of those left standing.

There's a book in here somewhere.

FDR: “As for you gentlemen, I find it possible to extend to you exective clemency.” Curly: “No, please not that.”

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