Sophia Michaels
Donald Trump appeared in a number of TV shows and movies before he became the third president to ever be impeached by the US House of Representatives, but at least one of those appearances will apparently be lost to Canadian broadcast television history.
Trump made a brief appearance in Home Alone 2, a notable Christmas movie that often sees broadcast on television during the holiday season. But in Canada this year, Trump’s conversation with Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister wasn’t aired on the public network. At least a few people noticed, and it became news in America to the point that CBC had to explain why Trump was omitted, but not before the president tweeted about it.
Trump tweeted about what the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had to report about its own broadcast, explaining via a spokesperson that the edit of Home Alone 2 that aired this week first ran in 2014.
CBC spokesperson Chuck Thompson confirmed Thursday that Trump’s scene and others were cut from the film five years ago to make way for commercials.
“As is often the case with feature films adapted for television, Home Alone 2 was edited for time,” Thompson said. “The scene with Donald Trump was one of several that were cut from the movie as none of them were integral to the plot. These edits were done in 2014, when we first acquired the film and before Mr. Trump was elected president.”
Thompson said a total of eight minutes was trimmed from the film. He said it was too early to decide whether CBC would air the movie again next holiday season, and whether or not Trump’s scene would be added back in if it does.
In other words, it wasn’t a functional scene in a movie that didn’t fit perfectly in a broadcast window — after all, it had nothing to do with pigeons — and so it hit the cutting room floor. And as CBC’s own news outlet reported on Thursday, the move was made far before Trump was even the Republican nominee for president.
That didn’t stop Trump from tweeting about the perceived slight on Thursday. He blamed Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau for the edit that put him in the credits of Home Alone 2 but nowhere to be seen during the movie itself.
The non-controversy gave plenty of people reason to blame CBC for one thing or another, but given the “just kidding” it’s unclear if Trump is actually upset about this, or if he had seen the CBC explanation for why the scene was cut nearly five years ago. Whatever, it wasn’t Culkin’s favorite Home Alone, anyway.
Written by: Uproxx
