President Donald Trump's hosting of Saturday Night Live in November of 2015 has now become a piece of history in a long-running feud between Washington and the NBC sketch comedy show. We've heard bits from cast members about that experience, and now a writer for SNL, Bryan Tucker, adds to the story by detailing a ridiculous sketch that Trump refused to do. Here's what he had to say about it:
We did do a dress-rehearsal sketch where he was the Giving Tree, and the Giving Tree was giving fruit to a boy. And eventually the Giving Tree got completely chopped down and was a stump, and Trump was a neighboring tree saying, "You're a sucker, you're getting played, you should not be giving things to these people." And Trump had to stand in a tree with his face looking out of the hole of this tree, and he did not like that. I don't think he enjoyed looking like a tree. He was not into it and it showed, and it did not get a lot of laughs.
As Bryan Tucker mentioned to Huffington Post, he thinks President Trump didn't like portraying a tree. As I visualize our President's face in a cardboard cutout of a pine tree, I can see the humor in why they would want it, as well as why President Trump wouldn't want to participate in that. One might also think that perhaps Trump picked up on some unsavory symbolism Saturday Night Live was injecting between his tree and the "giving tree," and didn't want to be played for a fool.
The oddest part about Trump's refusal was that he was making the calls on what he would or wouldn't do by himself. The SNL writers interviewed said that, oftentimes, when a political candidate appears on their show they'll bring two or three staff members to vet their sketches ahead of time, but, for President Trump, it was just him and his security guard. While Tucker says that Trump made the calls himself regarding sketches, he occasionally asked his security guard what his opinion was of the pitched sketch before deciding.
The writers also reminisced on the controversy and criticism NBC received over having a political candidate on the campaign trail as host of their program. Saturday Night Live writer Tim Herlihy mentions that while it was unprecedented for the show to do such a thing, no one on the program believed President Trump would actually secure the Republican nomination at the time. If you'll remember, at that point on the election campaign trail, not many on either side of the political aisle believed he would do that, either. Despite that, President Trump defied the odds and not only took the election, but also declined an invite from SNL following his win.
With Saturday Night Live in the offseason, you have to wonder if the tension between our President and this show will have some time to cool before they return for Season 43. While you ponder that internally, fill that increasing void of worthy television in your life by picking up great new shows from our summer premiere guide. If you're currently locked into some great shows, then check our finale guide to see when they'll come to an end.
