The Pennsylvania native made his debut on “Saturday Night Live’s” coveted Studio 8H soundstage at 30 Rockefeller Plaza on Feb. 24—tabbed to host the same iconic NBC program that gave him the boot some four years ago.
“It feels ridiculous for comedians to be making serious public statements but here we are. I’m a comedian who was funny enough to get SNL. That can’t be taken away,” Mr. Gillis said in 2019.
That much is true; rebel against his “don’t Google me” pleas and you will find what denied him “SNL” supplied him what no one could foretell.
Mr. Gillis was fired five days after his September 2019 casting announcement due to network fears over a wholly misframed blight that came to light: a sloppily contextualized, anti-Asian slur he used on his show, “Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast,” the year prior while performing an impression that mocked racists who would state similar sentiments.
Not exactly the poster child of polish in the alt-comedy scene, Mr. Gillis has nevertheless cultivated cult-like status since his fast and curious exile.
Despite his knack for lampooning his Fox News-loving dad, and even admitting to audiences he’s never brought himself to vote for their candidate, this has seemed to matter nil.
Mr. Gillis’s forgiven-upon-arrival embracement by “the Trump Train” has christened him a red-state success story.
This news hit like music to the ears of right-wing-leaning subscribers long in search of their next “The Ranch” (2016-2020).
Unfortunately, “SNL” decided not to come screaming out of the gate; its arguably jokeless cold open rubbed viewers the wrong way because it did not feature the man every man in America had run home earlier than usual that night to see.
“I feel that as society evolves in what is appropriate and inappropriate language, comedians need to evolve as well. And I feel after watching Shane’s latest works, you’ve seen a comic who has evolved,” said Mike Ellison, 35, winner of the Aragona’s Comedy Contest on Long Island.
“He’s really become an absolute force in today’s world of stand-up and it makes total sense that Saturday Night Live would allow him to host.”
Through no fault of his own, other than the undeniable talent and somehow understated “aw shucks” stage neurosis he’s known to wield, Mr. Gillis is made out by his lot to be a comic prophet he simply is not.
In all actuality, Mr. Gillis seems to be, damn near endearingly so, more in the business of playing to both sides.
He dares to swing “no-no” words—“retard,” “gay” and the like—around in the woke era, with the hopes that maliciousness goes correctly undetected because there is none in his heart.
Though it’s worth noting Mr. Gillis revealed on the “Legion of Skanks” podcast—one of the many stops during his post-mortem tour—that he did not use the aforementioned salacious words during dress rehearsal.
Max Dean Tenenbaum, 29, of Medford, Massachusetts, was in the “unimpressed” camp.
“I’m going to be honest, it [the monologue] was pretty underwhelming. I didn’t necessarily think he was bombing—but it didn’t really have me laughing at all.”
Mr. Tenenbaum, who trained under “Blazing Saddles” co-writer, the late Norman Steinberg, in an MFA screenwriting program at Long Island University Brooklyn from 2017-2019, believes there should always be a place for shock comedy and hard satire; but that Mr. Gillis is perhaps unfairly considered a comic songbird of this generation who hasn’t quite mastered the music, nor his instrument of choice just yet.
“I think in a way he became like the martyr for the anti-woke, anti-cancel culture movement when he gained more popularity, getting fired from ‘SNL’ for using the language he did,” said Mr. Tenenbaum.
“But using incendiary language just to use it and to get the shock value? It’s not clever humor to me.”
Discerning his “I Should be a Football Coach” opener wasn’t playing, Mr. Gillis subsequently inside-drew through the politically correct blockage his fan base was born ready to watch him tush-push against.
If you knew his “schtick” already, you were certainly pleased to see Mr. Gillis resort to pulling off punches about one of his many relatives with Down’s Syndrome.
With some of the same self-deprecative premises on the topic he dealt in 2023 Netflix special “Beautiful Dogs,” Mr. Gillis audibled the focus onto his niece with Down’s, her adoptive black brothers, and the hypothetical pulp the latter members of his family would beat out of a sixth-grade “cracker” for bullying their mentally-disabled sister.
“I’m not saying you can’t joke about Down Syndrome,” said Mr. Tenenbaum, who recounts a family member medically diagnosed with retardation that passed away a few years ago.
“There’s nothing you shouldn’t be allowed to joke about, I think that’s over-the-line censorship. You have to find a way to joke about things that are sensitive topics—and most times that depends on the audience.”
He [Gillis] was saying a lot of things I didn’t disagree with—what it’s like to be related to someone with a mental disability,” Mr. Tenenbaum adds. “It’s not that I was offended; I just didn’t find it all that funny, either.”
Tom Lloyd Andrews, 24, a self-admitted “moth” in the New York stand-up game who first reported to the late Norm MacDonald’s school of dark comedy simply because the light was on, considers himself a “big fan” of “Beautiful Dogs,” and Mr. Gillis to be “the best comic in America, in terms of current body of work.”
He stipulates that [Dave] Chapelle and [Bill] Burr have better “overall careers,” but that “no one is more current [than Gillis].”
Mr. Andrews believes Mr. Gillis’s episode “wasn’t anything special,” but that he still provided memorable moments while clearly watering himself down for a stage already proven hypersensitive to his brand in the past.
“I expected the monologue to be like Norm’s return after getting fired,” Mr. Andrews said, “blasting the current cast and production … but he didn’t, and I respect the hell out of him [Gillis] for that.”
The Canadian-dry extraordinaire confidently strutted out for his Nov. 18, 1999, monologue and flaunted that classic grit, wit, and edginess to his bits while under invitation to do just that.
“Either I’ve gotten funnier, or the show’s gotten worse!” Mr. Macdonald honestly quipped to a raucous reaction.
This came less than two years after network executive Don Ohlmeyer removed the former “Weekend Update” anchor for making too many jokes at the expense of the exec’s friend, the criminally acquitted of double homicide, but civilly found responsible superstar-turned-pariah, O.J. Simpson.
Mr. Gillis never vowed to be the next Mr. Macdonald, when he “knew he could be” the man-childishly indifferent, Frank the Tank “fratgod” made famous by Will Ferrell in 2003’s bro-charged “Old School.”
Four years after the fall, it’s safe to say that Mr. Gillis knows the ball, after all.
Persona non-grata status didn’t get Mr. Gillis, but it nicked him, alright—nicked him enough to bring on the heat.
Although, in the interest of not vindicating “X” hawks overly so—the stone-cold backing musician seen over Mr. Gillis’s shoulder repurposed the same death stare a week later behind an equally undeserving of vitriol host Sydney Sweeney, perhaps speaking more to her professionalism rather than a lack thereof.
And Mr. Gillis’s celebratory interactions with the cast and crew, including current cast standout Bowen Yang—though such was prematurely cut, oddly enough—during the “goodnights” portion at the tail-end of Feb. 24’s broadcast were as genuine as can be as they seemed, because, why wouldn’t they be?
Mr. Tenenbaum didn’t sugarcoat his disappointment when grading the entire episode.
He heralds “Daniel Craig/The Weekend” (2020)—which aired post-COVID-19 outbreak, but immediately pre-global shutdown—as the standard to match in live sketch comedy.
In contrast, Mr. Tenenbaum doesn’t believe Mr. Gillis’s episode came close to living up to its own hype.
“I think there have been very turbulent, unstable economic times since the pandemic in 2020,” said Mr. Tenenbaum. “People are less willing to take risks than ever, they want to go the safe route, something that has a built-in audience, that will get views, that will get them money.”
Ironically, in “SNL’s” case, this meant Mr. Gillis, who they once canned to maintain their good name, then became, at another moment in time not long afterward, precisely what could help replenish it.
“SNL even asking him to host, it felt they had kind of conceded that they were probably in the wrong in their evaluation when they wound up firing him—as if all his independent success wasn’t enough,” Mr. Tenenbaum added.
“That said, it seems like he has a long way to go in his career, sharpening who he is, and what his brand is as a comedian … we’re clearly far from his final stage.”
Mr. Gillis’s objectively vanilla brand of shock comedy compared to, say, the Andrew Dice Clay’s of yesteryear, proves that it was beholden upon “SNL” to extend him an invite, as they will soon be in need of cross-cultural favor, should Nov. 5, 2024, make like 2016 Election Night and swing right.
In turn, they knew Mr. Gillis to be wise enough not to decline, nor create a stink when given the stage, regardless of how sanitized he would ultimately have to be.
The final ruling on “Shane Gillis/21 Savage?”
Satisfactory, sans shifting the tides, and that’s OK.
Say what you want about the monologue, but it’s a week-and-change later and the chatter has refused to relent. Nor should it; monologuing is a talk-based art form, and Mr. Gillis sure can move the masses with mild-to-hot button words we may not want to be caught uttering outside closed quarters ourselves.
“Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it,” former “SNL” head writer and “30 Rock” creator Tina Fey wrote in her 2011 autobiography, “Bossypants.”
And say what you want about the man, but the night of Feb. 24, 2024, was Shane Gillis’s, and no one can ever take that, nor the positive ripple effect that’s become of his national exposure, away from him—save for Ms. Sydney Sweeney acting in a Hooters sketch the following Saturday night.
Thank you, chefs, and let the internet’s uniform rejoice to commence for a change. They sure know how to move on to the next flavor of the week with indiscriminate velocity.
