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Speaker 1: Kalaroga Shock Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny mack In this

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summer on Saturday, is gonna start doing some deep dives

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on some topics. Today, we'll take a look at Shane Gillis.

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And here's the thing about the Shane Gillis story that

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nobody tells. Right. Everybody starts with SNL. Everybody starts with

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September twenty nineteen, the firing, the controversy, the tweets, the

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whole thing, And it's understandable because it's a clean narrative.

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Guy gets the biggest job in comedy, loses it three

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days later, and somehow ends up bigger than he ever

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would have been had he kept SNL. Good story, writes itself.

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The more interesting story, the one that actually tells you

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something useful about where comedy is right now, starts a

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few years earlier, in a much less glamorous place. It

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starts with two guys from Pennsylvania doing a podcast that

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almost nobody was listening to, talking about comedy in a

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way that felt less like a product and more like

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a conversation that needed to be recorded. Matt and Shane's

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Secret Podcast, two guys genuinely entertaining each other, and occasionally

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remembering there might be people listening. There were a lot

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of comedy podcasts in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, even more

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so now. Most have a recognizable formula comedian. You've heard

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of a guest, you've heard of some stories about the road,

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maybe some bits that didn't make the special. Thing about

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Matt and Chane was neither of them were famous enough

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yet to have that kind of show. Plus the show

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had a specific sensibility that was weird and funny in

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its own right. It wasn't using the podcast as a

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promotional vehicle, it was using the podcast as the actual thing.

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Joe Rogan gets credited with proving that the long form

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podcast could be a legitimate media format, but what Rogan

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also did was create a permission structure for comedians to

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build audiences outside the traditional pipeline. Before Rogan, the consensus

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was that the path when something like this, you do clubs,

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you go on late night, you get a Comedy Central special,

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maybe you get a sitcom. Somewhere in that process, the

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industry validates you and the public finds you. Rogan didn't

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quite follow that path. He did TV Fear Factor UFC.

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But Rogan experience operated completely outside that validation system. By

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the end of the twenty tens, Rogan had more reach

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than basically any TV show, and it built it by

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just talking to people for three hours. Now, what he

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pointed out now, what Rogan accomplished was that the gigkeepers

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were optional. Shane Gillis was building something real on top

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of his podcast. The podcast was getting passed around by

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people who cared about stand up and Shane got a

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reputation in the clubs as someone whose material was genuinely

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different in olden times. There's a version of the next

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few years. We would have grinded through the normal progression,

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maybe it gainst a Comedy Central half hour, but instead

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he got the call to SNL. No, you remember that.

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That was a big deal. Shane was funny, original, and

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the fact that SNL was adding him felt like confirmation

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of what his audience had been saying. And then three

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days later, old podcast clips surfaced some bits with some

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racial stuff, some jokes that played differently when pulled out

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of context, and SNL fired him before he even did

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a single episode.

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Speaker 2: It was kind of surreal because I went from I

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was one of the first people to get like canceled

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or however you want to say it. Consequences however, Yeah,

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however you want to say it. It doesn't matter what

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we call it. It is what it is, right, But uh,

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I was one of the first people to go from

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I was doing. I was poor. I was not famous

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at all. I was poor, and then I got canceled immediately,

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like that was my thing, Like right, it was a

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very famous and then yeah, most people that get canceled

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or yeah, you got canceled on the way. I got

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canceled immediately. Yeah. They literally were like how about this guy?

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And everyone was like no.

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Speaker 1: The official statement was polite and final. Lorden Michaels does

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not do messy public disputes. Shane was out USA Today

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September twelfth, twenty nineteen. Shane gillis one of three new

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featured players on SNL is apologizing. Shane posted to Twitter,

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I'm a comedian who pushes boundaries. I sometimes missed some

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happy to apologize to anyone who's actually offended by anything

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I've said. Note the actually in there, the clip that

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was pulled, Shane said, I'll quote it directly from USA

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Today here Chinatown's expletive nuts. Let the expletive live there,

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using a racial slur for the second expletive. Shane's apology continues,

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if you go through my ten years of comedy, most

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of it is bad, You're going to find a lot

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of bad misses. My intention is never to hurt anyone,

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but I'm trying to be the best comedian I can,

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and sometimes that requires risks. From The Independent, October twenty fifth,

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twenty twenty four. Lorne Michaels, the creator of SNL, has

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said that he didn't want to fire Shane Gillis from

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the show, but was ordered to by executives at NBC.

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Lauren told the Whorl Street Journal that was very strong

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from the people in charge, and obviously I was not

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on that side, but I understood it. Lauren said he

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kept in touch with Shane after the firing. Michael said

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he said something stupid, but it got blown up into

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the end of the world. I was angry. I thought,

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you haven't even seen what we're gonna do and what

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I'm trying to bring out in him, because I thought

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he was the real thing. After the firing, an SNL

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spokesperson in Or issued a statement which reads, after talking

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with Shane Gillis. We have decided he will not be

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joining SNL. We want SNL to have a variety of

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voices and points of view within the show, and we

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hired Shane on the strength of his talent as a committe

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and his impressive audition for SNL. We were not aware

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of his prior marks that have surfaced over the past

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few days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful, and unacceptable.

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We are sorry that we did not see these clips

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earlier and that our vetting process was not up to

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our standard. Shane responded to the news of his firing

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on Twitter, saying, I'm a comedian. It was funny enough

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to get SNL that can't get taken away. Of course,

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I wanted an opportunity to prove myself at SNL, but

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I understand it would be too much of a distraction.

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I respect the decision they made, honestly grateful for the opportunity.

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I was always a mad TV guy anyway, After all that.

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The discourse that followed depended on which side you were on.

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Was it a reckoning with the kind of comedy that

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gets platformed, or an example of outrage culture eating someone

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who was clearly not a bad person. Or some complicated

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thing in between those two positions. Now, Shane's statement is interesting.

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He didn't grovel in the way that crisis PR people

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usually suggest one does. But he also didn't go on offense,

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and he went back to work. He did the podcast,

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he kept doing clubs. He didn't disappear. And here's what

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the TV executives missed. A huge number of people already

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felt like they knew Shane Gilly. They've been listening to

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the podcast and watching the clips. They had a relationship

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with him that preceded SNL. When SNL fired him, those

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people didn't update their opinion of Shane based on SNL's decision.

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If anything, his fans dug in harder. Then there's the

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Gillian Keeves stuff. Shane and John McKeever started doing character

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videos that lived on YouTube and existed outside the podcast

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ecosystem and outside the stand up ecosystem, just doing their

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own thing. Gilly is a character Shane does, kind of

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a dumb, sweet, vaguely threatening guy from Pennsylvania, and the

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sketches have a handmade quality that it feels unpolished. Their

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production value is intentionally low. The pacing is often ways

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that feel deliberate they're funny in a way that's generally

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hard to explain if you haven't seen them.

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Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Bob Isis of Isis Toyota, and we have

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a great collection of pre owned, certified Toyotas. But there's

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one thing I want to make very clear, and it's

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that we have nothing to do with the terrorists over

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there in the Middle East right now, and that's why

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we are the good Isis all right, listen, yeah, lean

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into the Isist thing. It's a good marketing tool, the

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great marketing tool. I agree with Barbie.

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Speaker 1: I think you should be like here at Iss Toyota

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will behead the competition.

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Speaker 2: Yes, no, we're not doing this. What are you guys

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talking about. We're not wishing death to any of our enemies.

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We are wishing death to low the high prices.

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Speaker 1: Me and Barbie.

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Speaker 2: We can hold AK forty seven. Yeah no, no, that

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would be so cool. So I'm holding an AK forty seven.

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She's holding AK forty seven. You're like, we gotta go

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both toyotas and I I can be doing that like

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terrorist turkey gobble thing, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: We're like good.

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Speaker 2: Enough at Ices Toyota. We have nothing to do with

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Aboo Bakar albak Dottie and his vicious gang of thugs.

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All we're trying to do is put you into an

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affordable tree owned, certified Toyota.

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Speaker 1: What's notable about it, it's it's proof of something that

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not every stand up can pull off, which is being

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funny in multiple formats. It also helped Shane reach more

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people because you might not be ready to listen to

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two hours of him and Matt, but you'll watch a

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four minute sketch on YouTube where something weird and funny happens.

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Different entry points, different audience relationships, all building towards the

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same thing. By the time Shane's Netflix special That's My

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Time came out, Shane was operating with an audience that

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had been built over years through channels that Netflix had

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nothing to do with. The special was good, confidently good,

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the kind of stand up special where you can tell

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the comedians knows exactly what they're doing and it's comfortable

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taking their time.

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Speaker 2: A lot of guys would knock on the front door.

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Not these guys, not our guys, not our guys. Our

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guys went through the wall. They blew up his roll,

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and they used dogs beautiful dogs. Beautiful dogs is the

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funniest detail. It's true. They actually did use It was

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the Army Rangers, and they used dogs because they were

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afraid howback daddy was gonna be wearing a suicide vest,

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so they killed him with dogs in a robot and

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then made fun of him for crying. Let that guy cry.

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That's the scariest death I've ever heard of. That dude

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was laying in his bed in the middle of night.

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His wall exploded ten dogs in a robot.

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Speaker 1: Netflix wasn't breaking Shane Gillis to the world. They were

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confirming what people already knew. Historically, the platform, whether it

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be HBO or in later days, Comedy Central and then

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Netflix was the thing that made you the special was

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how people found you. Netflix wanted this special because they'd

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watched enough comedians to understand that an audience that was

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earned through years of direct relationship is more durable and

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more engaged than an audience that came through a platform

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recommendation algorithm. Then in twenty twenty four, Shane hosted Saturday

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Night Live Ladies and Gentlemen. Shane Giless.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. It's yeah,

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I'm here. They Most of you probably have no idea

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who I am. I was, actually I was fired from

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this show while ago. But if you know, don't look

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that up. Please. If you don't know who I am,

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please don't google that. It's fine, don't even worry about it.

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I don't know this is I probably shouldn't be up here.

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Speaker 1: Honestly, Lord Michaels does not do things accidentally. Inviting Shane

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Gillis back to host was not a neutral decision. It

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was a signal that this person is large enough that

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the firing now looks like a mistake. I thought Shane

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was very funny that night. Some people did not. I

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thought it was great. He did a monologue that acknowledged

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the history without making the whole episode about the history

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that brings us to today. The comics coming up right

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now are watching all this. They're watching the way Shane

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navigated the firing, watching the way the podcast became a

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real thing, watching the YouTube stuff find its own audience,

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watching the Netflix deal, watching the SNL hosting. They're learning

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that you don't have to go through the old paths.

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Doesn't mean SNL doesn't matter, doesn't mean Netflix doesn't matter.

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It means they're different now. You can comments on this

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program in the Facebook group, Daily Company News Poscast Group,

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or on Spotify in the comments section. Also follow the

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show on Spotify, turn notifications on so you never miss

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an episode. And I'll see you tomorrow with a regular

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episode