Watch any of the best sketch TV shows of all time, and it’s easy to see how unique a small-screen offering they are, and Saturday Night Live is an organizational beast all on its own, with Lorne Michaels as its nail-chewing figurehead. As depicted in Saturday Night in limited fashion, Michaels has long adhered to a certain system for plotting out each week’s sketches alongside the talented cast and crew. But sometimes it’s a guest host like Donald Trump that can affect the lineup.
Ahead of SNL hitting the 2025 premiere schedule with the back half of its celebratory 50th anniversary season, The New Yorker ran a lengthy profile on Michaels and the methods behind the perceived madness that goes into the alchemy of weekly sketch-sorting. But no matter how purposefully selective and meticulous the legendary producer can be with his choices, it’s impossible to predict a situation like the former and future POTUS opting out of a sketch semi-parodying a beloved children's book.
Donald Trump’s SNL episode was the fourth of Season 41, airing back in 2015. It appears he was set for an approved-by-Michaels sketch in which the business mogul would be dressed up like a tree while standing next to Shel Silverstein’s titular Giving Tree, who offers up its apples, shade, lumber and more until a point when its reduced to a stump.
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The crux of the sketch was the end punchline, which would have had the tree-costumed Trump looking over and calling the Giving Tree a “sucker” for sacrificing all of its goods. A clever enough gag, if limited in scope, the sketch was brought up in reference to the Saturday afternoon run-through at Studio 8H, so it sounds like Lorne Michaels may have had to do some last-minute shifting at the then-candidate’s request.
Why did Trump refuse to go forward with the Giving Tree sketch? It allegedly wasn’t about the content of the sketch itself or the way in which he was portrayed; instead, it’s claimed that Trump was worried that the tree costume set up for him would make him look fat.
Such a late-stage game-change might sound like something that would completely set off Lorne Michaels and others in charge, considering the costume possibly had to be crafted in full, or at least altered to Trump's specifications, not to mention any sets that were built. However, Michaels himself is self-awarely guilty of the same kind of timing.
Here's how Lorne Michaels himself summed up the mindset behind waiting until the afternoon before SNL tapings to make the final decisions about which sketches will be used:
Snap decisions get you into trouble. I tend to do rolling decisions.
Donald Trump likely won't be remembered as one of the best guest hosts of all time, and likely won't be back in the fold among other upcoming Saturday Night Live guest hosts.. And I guess we can also go on the record saying he probably won't be dressed as a tree on TV in the near future, either.
But fans can see upcoming guest hosts like Dave Chappelle and Timothée Chalamet when SNL reutns to NBC for its midseason premiere on Saturday, January 18.
