- - Maya Rudolph Reveals Why “SNL” Pulled Her Infamous Barack Obama Sketch from the Show

Virginia ChamleeDecember 31, 2025 at 1:58 AM

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Maya Rudolph, Barack Obama -

Maya Rudolph is recounting the Saturday Night Live sketch with Barack Obama that never made it to air

Speaking on Amy Poehler's podcast, Maya said the first time she met the then-presidential candidate was during the show's dress rehearsal

In the sketch, she was playing Obama — but the impression didn't quite land

Maya Rudolph is recounting the first time she met Barack Obama — and the Saturday Night Live sketch the two starred in that never made it to air.

On the Dec. 11, 2025 episode of Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast, Rudolph, 53, said she and the former president planned to appear in a sketch alongside Poehler and Darrell Hammond. The sketch became part of SNL lore, because little has been said about why the sketch was removed from the show.

"It was a sketch where you and [Darrell] were Hillary and Bill Clinton at a Halloween party," Rudolph said on the podcast. "I remember Barack was new on the scene, looking smooth. And at that time, I think Barack Obama masks were popular, because he was the new candidate."

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Maya Rudolph as Michelle Obama, Fred Armisen as Senator Barak Obama during the 'The Barak Obama Variety Half Hour' skit

Rudolph continued: "So the joke was going to be that I come in like, 'I'm Barack Obama!' and then he taps me on the shoulder with his mask and takes the mask off and he goes, 'Oh my God, it's the real Barack Obama.'"

The plan was for the sketch to open the fourth episode of season 33 of the show in 2007, though it never made it past the dress rehearsal.

"We did that at dress," Rudolph said. "And that was it. We did not do it at air. Thank God."

Even Poehler was unclear on the reasoning, asking, "Why? Do we know why?"

Rudolph said the failure of the sketch was due to her not having a read on Obama at the time.

"I mean, I did not have a take on Barack Obama at all," she said, going on to explain that she met the politician — who had at the time just launched his 2008 bid for the presidency — for the first time right before the dress rehearsal.

"I remember the first time we saw each other was when we were about to walk out onstage," she said. "I'm there waiting in my little Brooks Brothers suit, and I think we bound my boobs, and I used to play Scott Joplin, so I had my Scott Joplin wig on and I was standing there..."

Obama, she added, "came over and I said, 'Well, what do you think?' And all he said to me was, 'I don't wear a three-button suit.' I still don't know what that means. That's like a guy knowledge thing."

Ultimately, the episode did include a revised version of the sketch, in which Obama played himself at the Clinton's Halloween party, delivering the iconic, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night Live!" to kick off the opening credits.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”