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Posted
30 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

That was quite possibly the worst SNL show I've seen in years.  Virtually none of it was funny.

Completely agree - This was terrible.

Posted
1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

That was quite possibly the worst SNL show I've seen in years.  Virtually none of it was funny.

Its time to Old Yeller Lorne Michaels.

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Posted

Is Shane this polarizing?! Yikes. A solid and increasingly rare Please Don’t Destroy short, and surly posters are still panning it. 
 

At a minimum, Update was funny sans Wickline.

I worry they’re going to stash Wickline like Devon Walker and jnever use her, but she still gets paid to keep mom happy. The cast is way, way too big. Need to cut it back to 9. This would be consistent with the history of the show. 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Is Shane this polarizing?!

I don't know anything about him.  His monologue was terribly clumsy and unfunny.  A couple of the later bits were OK.  On balance, I thought it was a terrible SNL, and I see most of them.  I don't think I pan them as a matter of habit.

SNL definitely needs to move on from the nerdy suburban family schtick.

Posted

Monologue was awful. The wedding skit gave me a few chuckles. Bad episode especially with the momentum they had from the 50th and all the specials. 

Posted
1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

I don't know anything about him.  His monologue was terribly clumsy and unfunny.  A couple of the later bits were OK.  On balance, I thought it was a terrible SNL, and I see most of them.  I don't think I pan them as a matter of habit.

SNL definitely needs to move on from the nerdy suburban family schtick.

Shane appeals to the middle aged, suburban white guy. Not much else.

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Posted
On 3/2/2025 at 8:44 AM, Reynolds Woodcock said:

I generally don’t find Gillis very funny, but the Shelby Foote bit was hilarious. Burns giving that guy so much airtime has always been comical.

What's the problem with Shelby Foote?

Posted
On 3/2/2025 at 3:15 AM, RPM said:

Honestly, I thought he delivered. SNL hasn't pushed the outside of the envelope in a while. If I'm uncomfortable about laughing, it must be funny.

It wasn't discomfort about laughing. His monologue was just was missing jokes and humor.

 

There were some great sketches though, really hot and cold episode imo

Posted
1 hour ago, Captainant said:

It wasn't discomfort about laughing. His monologue was just was missing jokes and humor.

It was also completely random in a topical sense.

Posted

just tried to watch the monologue. made it about halfway through.  i don't really know how to say it sucked.  he is obviously right leaning so maybe just too much of that has soaked into his comedy now and it turns me off more than most.  it's not like i haven't laughed at him generally in a lot of stuff before though.  but those were some weak couple minutes. 

i closed it after the 'have you ever had sex with a black guy' joke. i think that is just aimed at 19 year olds in general so i'm so far out of the target audience it just hits me as uncomfortable.  unfortunately, not 'uncomfortable farley interviewing jeff daniels,' but 'uncomfortable dumb kid having to present in front of the class.'

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Posted
1 hour ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

just tried to watch the monologue. made it about halfway through.  i don't really know how to say it sucked.  he is obviously right leaning so maybe just too much of that has soaked into his comedy now and it turns me off more than most.  it's not like i haven't laughed at him generally in a lot of stuff before though.  but those were some weak couple minutes. 

i closed it after the 'have you ever had sex with a black guy' joke. i think that is just aimed at 19 year olds in general so i'm so far out of the target audience it just hits me as uncomfortable.  unfortunately, not 'uncomfortable farley interviewing jeff daniels,' but 'uncomfortable dumb kid having to present in front of the class.'

I actually think this is the biggest issue currently with Gillis, from both sides.  I think where he is most comfortable is to be the contrarian voice in a room full of left-leaning people.  You see this dynamic, and him thriving in it, in his early specials.

The times are currently too polarized however for a nuanced viewpoint like this, so he just gets written off (or embraced) as MAGA... and people go into his sets already having decided whether or not they will like him based on this conclusion. I get the mantra that "a man is the company he keeps" and he hangs around some of the worst dudes on the planet, but if you listen to what he actually says in jokes/interviews and the endorsements, etc. that he HASN'T done, I think the label he has gained as a MAGA mascot is more due to our country's inability to handle nuance rather than a reflection of his actual beliefs. 

I can tell you that I saw him last year with what was a VERY obviously right-leaning crowd, and he seemed just as uncomfortable as that SNL performance.  

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Reynolds Woodcock said:

Not the thread for it, but also not very hard to figure out

The author? Never read his books but I didn't know he was controversial. 

Posted
On 3/1/2025 at 11:12 PM, Jive Turkey said:

CouplaBeers and A Lil Bump was funny.  

And the midday news segment was the hardest I’ve laughed at an SNL sketch all season. Holy shit that was genius.

”You guys are the chicken people.”

Also the Wedding got me laughing quite a bit...when the Groom pulled out his card, I knew it was gonna be good.  Ol girl glams up nice BTW.

Posted

ftr i had no thought that he was right leaning, or left leaning for that matter, i had no idea he was supposed to be polarizing. i just thought his style (eyebrows repeatedly raised to audience like 'get it? get it? that was funny, get it??') was awkward and just not that funny.

kinda reminded me of Cliff Clavin..."what's up with that??"

 

 

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Posted
just tried to watch the monologue. made it about halfway through.  i don't really know how to say it sucked.  he is obviously right leaning so maybe just too much of that has soaked into his comedy now and it turns me off more than most.  it's not like i haven't laughed at him generally in a lot of stuff before though.  but those were some weak couple minutes. 
i closed it after the 'have you ever had sex with a black guy' joke. i think that is just aimed at 19 year olds in general so i'm so far out of the target audience it just hits me as uncomfortable.  unfortunately, not 'uncomfortable farley interviewing jeff daniels,' but 'uncomfortable dumb kid having to present in front of the class.'

Yeah, the “sex with a black guy” joke wasnt really that nuanced. Its kind of like, “no offense intended, but we have plays called Jap plays…I said no offense.”

He was then implying dudes are jealous of their eskimo brothers, especially if they’re soul brothers because of the stereotype that black dudes are well-endowed. Thats about as edgy as VCR jokes. Mel Brooks think its tired. At best it’s a throwaway joke at the comedy store in Toledo. Not on an SNL monologue.

He admitted it was racist, but it also wasnt funny or insightful. Bill Burr is edgy. This guy is trying to be edgy.
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Posted

Shane Gillis is fine and I have found some of his standup quite funny in the past.  But that monologue was a bad set.  Unfunny.  Just dreadful.  

I thought the rest of the episode was decent, especially for recent SNL. The beer commercial, do not destroy, and Sara Sherman's wedding stood out.  

Posted

I had no idea who he was or any political leanings. I just thought he was some stand-in for that stupid Bud Light commercial. My problem with the episode is that he has no range as a comedian. He has exactly the same delivery and material in every sketch.

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Posted

If we’re being honest, I judge Shane on his two handed approach to holding the microphone as much as his jokes which tend to be awkward just like how he two hand holds the microphone. 

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Posted
8 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

In all seriousness, the sooner Bowen leaves the show the better.

But he doesn’t have to. He can spend the week in LA and fly back on the NBC for dress rehearsal on Friday. Show on Saturday. Back to LA on Sunday. 
 

Some of the greats can get away with it. The Burrows Bros said Kelsey Grammer would read the script for the first time 10 minutes before shooting, memorize all of his lines, and nail his scenes. Yang is not one of the greats 

Posted
5 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

I think where he is most comfortable is to be the contrarian voice in a room full of left-leaning people.  You see this dynamic, and him thriving in it, in his early specials.

Damn sure didn't see it this past Saturday.  He looked as freaked out in the monologue as his did when he was on a couple of months ago.  I didn't even think his material was all that bad or out of place, but he could have worked it a little more to get the room on his side.  He just threw jokes out and then stood there while no one laughed.

 

I will say that I crack up every time I see Yang now, just because I know there's so many of you getting all sourpussed the instant he hits the screen.  Lady Gaga is on next week, so you know he's going to be in every sketch.

 

Posted

What It Takes to Make Shane Gillis Funny

 

Spoiler

Sometimes, you need the SNL writers’ room.

By Esther Zuckerman

The moment that Shane Gillis walked onto Saturday Night Live’s stage last night for his second hosting gig, he seemed to know the audience was not on his side.

Gillis arrived with history. In 2019, he was hired as a featured cast member but promptly fired after it came to light that he had used racist and homophobic slurs in his podcast. Instead of becoming a footnote in SNL history, Gillis transformed into a successful stand-up with a Netflix deal and a Bud Light ad campaign. About a year ago, he was invited to host SNL for the first time—an appearance in which he awkwardly acknowledged the strangeness of the situation, showing a touch of contrition.

This time, the tentativeness was mostly gone. After opening with some politically mild, middle-of-the-road jokes—poking fun at both Joe Biden’s age and Donald Trump’s “fifth-grade-level ideas” about trying to annex Greenland—and acknowledging the audience’s likely biases (“You guys are pretty liberal”), he swerved. “Now I’m going to lose you even more,” he said. He launched into a thread about “a thing I’ve noticed that white guys do.” At some point, he said, white guys can’t help asking their girlfriends: Have you ever had sex with a Black guy? Before posing the question, Gillis seemed to attempt to preempt criticism, suggesting that he understood the exoticizing subtext embedded in the question. “It is racist,” he said, gesturing as if to punch anyone who’d dare to say such a thing. He also copped to having asked the question himself. Once, he said, a woman he was dating told him she’d found his friend “Jamal” handsome—after which Gillis worked up the nerve to ask, Have you ever … ? Her response: “Ew, no.” To which he replied, “Jesus Christ, what are you, racist?”

The twist was meant to absolve Gillis: After saying something racist himself, he found someone even more racist than he was. You might read the joke as Gillis’s attempt to poke fun at himself. But from a pure comedy standpoint, the joke was just basic—and unfunny. (“I’m not the worst of them” is hardly a winning punch line.)

Gillis had other groaners. While discussing how much he loves Ken Burns’s documentary series The Civil War, he asserted that “it’s kryptonite to women.” Put it on, he riffed, and they’ll fall asleep instantly. Setting aside that I know plenty of women who like Burns’s work, it’s pretty hard to find anything funny in what Gillis said next: “That’s a little Cosby tip for you.” Translation: If you want to sexually assault a woman—as dozens of women have credibly accused the comedian Bill Cosby of doing (Cosby has denied the allegations)—put on a historical documentary, because it’ll induce women to pass out from boredom.

Like any stand-up, Gillis is playing a part. His happens to be that of the boorish, conservative-leaning white dude. But his monologue fell flat because even when he pretends knowingness, his jokes are ultimately directed to other boorish, conservative-leaning white dudes. He’s not doing anything to really bring the rest of the audience along.

Gillis’s act went over better in the context of the night’s sketches. You could see hints of how he might have figured into the show had he stayed on as a full-time cast member. In the parody ad “CouplaBeers,” he portrayed a disaffected suburban office worker who treated his anxiety and depression with a medication that was just, well, a couple of beers. The sketch worked as a takedown of both TV pitches for prescription drugs and the guy who drinks to quell his pain while causing harm to those around him.

Similarly, Gillis’s persona was well used in “Mid-Day News 2,” a reprisal of a sketch from Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s SNL appearance in 2019. Ego Nwodim and Kenan Thompson once again played Black news anchors who became overjoyed when the alleged perpetrators of the crimes they were reporting on turned out to be white. Gillis and Heidi Gardner played white anchors who got in on a “game” in which the anchors racked up points depending on the crime suspects’ race. The premise worked even better with Gillis than with Waller-Bridge, in part because of Gillis’s history and in part because the sketch offered a bit of social commentary that implicated everyone in the joke.

That was a key distinction between Gillis the sketch collaborator and Gillis the stand-up. Alone on stage, left to his own devices, he fell into the schtick of being crass for crassness’s sake. When he slipped into fictional character—and allowed SNL’s writers to take the reins—the commentary came closer to hitting its mark, and he finally earned some chuckles.

 

Posted
2 hours ago, Mittens said:

What It Takes to Make Shane Gillis Funny

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Sometimes, you need the SNL writers’ room.

By Esther Zuckerman

The moment that Shane Gillis walked onto Saturday Night Live’s stage last night for his second hosting gig, he seemed to know the audience was not on his side.

Gillis arrived with history. In 2019, he was hired as a featured cast member but promptly fired after it came to light that he had used racist and homophobic slurs in his podcast. Instead of becoming a footnote in SNL history, Gillis transformed into a successful stand-up with a Netflix deal and a Bud Light ad campaign. About a year ago, he was invited to host SNL for the first time—an appearance in which he awkwardly acknowledged the strangeness of the situation, showing a touch of contrition.

This time, the tentativeness was mostly gone. After opening with some politically mild, middle-of-the-road jokes—poking fun at both Joe Biden’s age and Donald Trump’s “fifth-grade-level ideas” about trying to annex Greenland—and acknowledging the audience’s likely biases (“You guys are pretty liberal”), he swerved. “Now I’m going to lose you even more,” he said. He launched into a thread about “a thing I’ve noticed that white guys do.” At some point, he said, white guys can’t help asking their girlfriends: Have you ever had sex with a Black guy? Before posing the question, Gillis seemed to attempt to preempt criticism, suggesting that he understood the exoticizing subtext embedded in the question. “It is racist,” he said, gesturing as if to punch anyone who’d dare to say such a thing. He also copped to having asked the question himself. Once, he said, a woman he was dating told him she’d found his friend “Jamal” handsome—after which Gillis worked up the nerve to ask, Have you ever … ? Her response: “Ew, no.” To which he replied, “Jesus Christ, what are you, racist?”

The twist was meant to absolve Gillis: After saying something racist himself, he found someone even more racist than he was. You might read the joke as Gillis’s attempt to poke fun at himself. But from a pure comedy standpoint, the joke was just basic—and unfunny. (“I’m not the worst of them” is hardly a winning punch line.)

Gillis had other groaners. While discussing how much he loves Ken Burns’s documentary series The Civil War, he asserted that “it’s kryptonite to women.” Put it on, he riffed, and they’ll fall asleep instantly. Setting aside that I know plenty of women who like Burns’s work, it’s pretty hard to find anything funny in what Gillis said next: “That’s a little Cosby tip for you.” Translation: If you want to sexually assault a woman—as dozens of women have credibly accused the comedian Bill Cosby of doing (Cosby has denied the allegations)—put on a historical documentary, because it’ll induce women to pass out from boredom.

Like any stand-up, Gillis is playing a part. His happens to be that of the boorish, conservative-leaning white dude. But his monologue fell flat because even when he pretends knowingness, his jokes are ultimately directed to other boorish, conservative-leaning white dudes. He’s not doing anything to really bring the rest of the audience along.

Gillis’s act went over better in the context of the night’s sketches. You could see hints of how he might have figured into the show had he stayed on as a full-time cast member. In the parody ad “CouplaBeers,” he portrayed a disaffected suburban office worker who treated his anxiety and depression with a medication that was just, well, a couple of beers. The sketch worked as a takedown of both TV pitches for prescription drugs and the guy who drinks to quell his pain while causing harm to those around him.

Similarly, Gillis’s persona was well used in “Mid-Day News 2,” a reprisal of a sketch from Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s SNL appearance in 2019. Ego Nwodim and Kenan Thompson once again played Black news anchors who became overjoyed when the alleged perpetrators of the crimes they were reporting on turned out to be white. Gillis and Heidi Gardner played white anchors who got in on a “game” in which the anchors racked up points depending on the crime suspects’ race. The premise worked even better with Gillis than with Waller-Bridge, in part because of Gillis’s history and in part because the sketch offered a bit of social commentary that implicated everyone in the joke.

That was a key distinction between Gillis the sketch collaborator and Gillis the stand-up. Alone on stage, left to his own devices, he fell into the schtick of being crass for crassness’s sake. When he slipped into fictional character—and allowed SNL’s writers to take the reins—the commentary came closer to hitting its mark, and he finally earned some chuckles.

 

I feel like a CouplaBeers™ wouldn't hurt

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Posted
3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

In all seriousness, the sooner Bowen leaves the show the better.

Not a chance. He's getting groomed to be the next Keenan and become the perpetual face of SNL.

He even got forcefully inserted into the Oscars last night.

 

Posted
15 hours ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

he is obviously right leaning so maybe just too much of that has soaked into his comedy now and it turns me off more than most. 

he’s really not though. so many people think he is, but a)he’s explicitly said that he voted against trump, and b)if you ever watch on his own/any podcast it’s more than obvious that he himself politically leans left, but being from a red part of pennsylvania he often comedically leans right with a wink and a nod, but so many people are offended by it that they don’t even realize that he’s being satirical. this is the same guy who went into andrew schulz’s podcast and called out his entire crew for making fun of mentally disabled people. he just stopped joking and got totally serious and told all of them that it just straight up wasn’t funny. no right wing comedian has ever/will ever do that.

Posted

The funniest thing on this thread is the claim that Gillis works in nuance.  His comedy is lazy, simple, and obvious. The monologue was what I would expect to see at the first show on a Friday night at Chuckles Comedy Hut. There's zero insight or barrier pushing in his bits, just grabbing the fruit that already fell off the tree.

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Posted
4 hours ago, Herpa Derpa said:

The funniest thing on this thread is the claim that Gillis works in nuance.  His comedy is lazy, simple, and obvious. The monologue was what I would expect to see at the first show on a Friday night at Chuckles Comedy Hut. There's zero insight or barrier pushing in his bits, just grabbing the fruit that already fell off the tree.

I think Gillis is hilarious. His monologues at SNL have struck such a different tone than his usual stuff that I genuinely think he's nervous and uncomfortable, which is strange. The other thing I guess would be he's doing a Norm MacDonald stylized bit.

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