Shane Gillis

Thursday

Neal Pollack

‘From the folks that brought you 9/11’

The American comedy world finds itself embroiled in a not-so-civil war of words over the Riyadh Comedy Festival, sponsored by the Saudi royal family. The Saudis have given enormous paychecks to big names like Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, and Bill Burr.  On one side, you have the people invited to perform at the festival, who mostly lean toward the anti-woke, sometimes-semi-canceled, will-do-anything-for-a-dollar camp. On the other, you have hyper-woke, mostly male Gen X comics whose routines these days involve delivering panicked podcast screeds about the end of democracy.

Riyadh

Friday

Britt McHenry

Shane Gillis: MVP of the ESPYs

Okay, I’ll admit it: Shane Gillis made the ESPYs entertaining. Gillis was the only person worth talking about. If not for his name trending on social media, I would have had no clue the award ceremony was still televised in 2025. For an event once heralded for its altruism, prestige and celebrity, it’s remarkable that a former Saturday Night Live comedian is all that’s left of the withering carcass. Full disclosure: I worked for ESPN from 2014 to 2017. When I was there, colleagues clamored for a call from network brass to host sections of the event’s red carpet. As a more “serious” SportsCenter journalist, I never received the call to charge the company for an overpriced dress and fly to the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.

Gillis

Wednesday

Stephen L. Miller

Bill Burr is going the way of the media armchair scolds

Bill Burr has built a successful stand-up comedy and film career on being the cranky scold next door – and his acts have always been tinged with the politics of the moment. He built his reputation as an expert on reading a room and knowing exactly how uncomfortable to make the people in said room while also making them laugh.Beginning some time last year, however, Burr’s act started to risk taking a backseat to his media armchair-political scolding, whether it’s Israel, Ben Shapiro or now Elon Musk. It’s one thing to work material about any of those topics into a stand-up routine, as Burr has done with Israel, when he spoke about “launching missiles at people using kids as human shields.

Thursday

Ben Domenech

‘I had two jobs: to run the country and to survive’: an interview with President Trump

From the moment you enter Donald J. Trump’s Oval Office, you are surrounded, not by staff or Secret Service, but by presidents. In his second term, he has chosen to envelop himself in Americana to an unprecedented degree. He faces Franklin D. Roosevelt whenever he sits at his desk. Looking back are Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, McKinley, Polk, Jackson, Jefferson, and alone among them as a non-president, Franklin. Ronald Reagan looks over his shoulder for every decision he makes. “We took them out of the vaults. We have incredible vaults of things,” he tells me. “They have 3,900 paintings.” It’s a roster of the greatest American leaders assembled in an oval around him in their most sterling depictions. They serve as motivation.

Thursday

Ben Domenech

Why SNL 50 bombed in the ratings

On my favorite Hollywood-focused podcast The Town, host Matt Belloni and his producer and guests offer predictions all the time on television ratings, relying on the Nielsen numbers for reference for what's anticipated versus what it turns out to be. Predictions for Saturday Night Live's fiftieth anniversary had it tracking above 20 million viewers — a reasonable expectation given the year-long promotional campaign and the fact that it would be on NBC, streaming on Peacock and on E! Network at the same time. The conversation on The Town was mostly a debate about whether it would hit 25 million, putting it well above expectations for the Oscars. Instead, it came in far lower, not even getting to 15 million — below the Grammy Awards, for sake of comparison.

snl 50

Friday

Stephen L. Miller

The battle of the late-night scolds

Chris Farley would have had his sixtieth birthday last week. One of the comedian’s most memorable live bits happened when, after being introduced by Late Show host David Letterman, burst through the back of the auditorium doors, charged down the audience aisle, slugging applauding attendees in the arm, grabbing them and eventually dumping a plant in a dumpster outside the theater. He ended this entrance with a double cartwheel — no small feat for someone of Farley’s stature at the time.The crowd was treated to a hilarious moment of personal interaction with one of comedy’s biggest stars at the time. That was then, though. It’s apparent to just about everyone how far late-night comedy and variety shows have fallen.

late night

Wednesday

Ben Domenech

Shane Gillis and the year cancel culture dies

The news that comedian Shane Gillis is walking back into 30 Rock to host Saturday Night Live this month isn’t just a great moment for comedy or a testament to how much America loves a comeback story. It’s also a definitive moment in the history of cancel culture — a live representation on national television of how much the media’s power to achieve personal destruction has diminished. Gillis was by no means a famous comedian when he was chosen for the SNL cast five years ago, but the media (aided by some jealous comics) did successfully make him infamous within the space of a week. The story is familiar to everyone by now, but rather than hang his head and walk away from comedy, Gillis battled back by being really, really outrageously funny.

shane gillis

Thursday

Ben Domenech

The Toad’s Morale puts Sam Tallent’s filthy genius on display

The Toad's Morale, Sam Tallent's stand-up comedy special, gives you the answer to the question: what if a genius-level writer decided to devote himself thoroughly to writing jokes on the subjects of sex, death and bodily fluids? Distributed on comedian Shane Gillis's YouTube channel — another giant phenomenon and also in the top tier of best podcast guests who could also play offensive tackles — Tallent's special showcases his capability for timing and rhythm. His jokes have a tempo that seems natural and relaxed in the moment, but is clearly intentional, effortless on the surface but disguising the skill of the construction under a thick layer of blue.  https://youtu.be/0eIUA1jfEk0?

sam tallent

Wednesday

Ben Domenech

Shane Gillis and the return of the dawgz

When the history of comedy’s resurgence in the early twenty-first century is written — when masses of people, silenced by the speech codes of the day, found solace and contrarian hope in the words of unsilenced comics — Shane Gillis will be a major turning point in that story.  It’s not just that he’s arguably the best stand-up under forty working today; it’s that his work won out over all the obstacles the world threw at him. He is now the comedy world’s embodiment of the Streisand Effect, where his attempted cancellation functioned instead as a rocket ship for his career based not on victimhood but on the stubborn nature of his skill. Gillis’s first special, Live in Austin, was a YouTube joint that has racked up 14 million views.

shane gillis

Tuesday

Bill McMorris

Closing the curtain on Norm Macdonald’s comedy

The biggest threat to the comedian of yesteryear was penury, but today even the most famous must dodge slaps, tackles and professional ruin. As a result, many have assumed a defensive posture. But on September 15, 2021, the court jesters were more defensive than ever. Norm Macdonald had perished twenty-four hours earlier, defeated by leukemia, and a chorus of his peers donned headsets to reassure the podcast world they’d “had no idea he was sick.” The one who spoke loudest was Conan O’Brien. Three months before O’Brien had wrapped his three-decade run on late night without a peep from the best guest he ever had: the man who gave us the Moth joke, “b-o-r-e-d,” Swedish-German and “that means he had sex with Madonna without a condom.

norm

Monday

Ben Domenech

Shane Gillis is going places

It is a hot summer night at the truck warehouse that is home to Magooby’s Joke House, and 2014’s Baltimore New Comedian of the Year is in need of another cold Bud Light. Shane Gillis, the Pennsylvania man who was nowhere close to a household name until he had the misfortune to be fired by Saturday Night Live in 2019, and then the follow-on great fortune to become famous for being incredibly funny, does not love the impression he gives as the apex predator of beer-drinking. But he is a week removed from leaving fellow comic Ari Shaffir, no lightweight himself, passed out in intense liver pain on the studio floor of The Joe Rogan Experience because he dared come at the T. rex. “So who is your trainer? Your trainer has to be incredible.” “My dad. He’s an alcoholic.

gillis

Friday

Ben Domenech

Louis’s comebaC.K.

He's officially back. The past month has seen the quiet return to public life of comedian Louis C.K. as the incredibly popular — but very much canceled — creative genius has gone on a podcast tour promoting his latest film, Fourth of July, which is available to stream at his website starting August 6. His path to a comeback was made possible not just by his stature as a member of most comedians' Mount Rushmore of comics, but also by his innovative approach to connecting with his fans — an approach that was ahead of the curve at the time, and signals the path comedians may increasingly take in an era where their jokes can cause headaches for streaming services. C.K.

louis c.k.