\n<\/p>\n
Finally given the opportunity to take the stage at NBC\u2019s Studio 8H<\/a>, the comedian Shane Gillis did not say much about how he\u2019d been fired as a cast member from \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d before appearing in a single episode.<\/p>\n Instead, Gillis, who has since gone on to become a popular standup and podcaster, delivered an opening monologue that perhaps suggested he and \u201cS.N.L.\u201d were both better off for having followed separate trajectories.<\/p>\n Gillis, who has performed in standup specials like \u201cBeautiful Dogs\u201d<\/a> on Netflix and is a co-host of \u201cMatt and Shane\u2019s Secret Podcast,\u201d<\/a> was announced to be an \u201cS.N.L.\u201d cast member in September 2019. Just days later, \u201cS.N.L.\u201d reversed course and dropped him<\/a> from its lineup, following criticism of resurfaced podcast segments in which Gillis used a slur to describe Chinese people and performed a caricature accent, and used a homophobic slur to refer to the filmmaker Judd Apatow and the comedian Chris Gethard, as well as the presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Senator Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n At the time, \u201cS.N.L.\u201d said in a statement that the language Gillis had used \u201cis offensive, hurtful and unacceptable.\u201d Gillis himself wrote in a social media post that he was \u201ca comedian who pushes boundaries\u201d adding that in comedy, \u201cyou\u2019re going to find a lot of bad misses.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Returning to \u201cS.N.L.\u201d nearly five years later as a guest host, Gillis did not take a scorched-earth approach in his monologue, like when Norm Macdonald appeared as a host<\/a> in 1999 after he\u2019d been fired from the show. (\u201cI haven\u2019t gotten funnier,\u201d Macdonald said at the time. \u201cThe show has gotten really bad.\u201d)<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I\u2019m here,\u201d Gillis began. \u201cMost of you probably have no idea who I am. I was actually \u2014 I was fired from this show a while ago. But if, you know, don\u2019t look that up, please, if you don\u2019t know who I am. Please, don\u2019t Google that. It\u2019s fine. Don\u2019t even worry about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Gillis joked that he \u201cprobably shouldn\u2019t be up here, honestly,\u201d adding that he was biologically designed to be \u201ca high school football coach.\u201d He also teased his father, who was shown in the studio audience, and whom Gillis said was a volunteer assistant girls\u2019 high school basketball coach.<\/p>\n He also joked about his mother and a time in his life when he was closer to her. \u201cI was gay for my mom,\u201d Gillis said. \u201cShe would pick me up from school, I would hop in the van. I would be like, \u2018Girl, tell me about your day.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Gillis then spoke about having family members with Down syndrome. \u201cIt almost got me,\u201d he said, shifting from side to side. \u201cI dodged it, but it nicked me. It nicked me.\u201d<\/p>\n Playing off the bemused reaction of his studio audience, Gillis joked, \u201cLook, I don\u2019t have any material that can be on TV, all right? I\u2019m trying my best. Also, this place is extremely well-lit. I can see everyone not enjoying it. This is the most nervous I\u2019ve ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n Gillis acknowledged that talking about Down syndrome can make people nervous. But he said the people he knows who have it are \u201cdoing better than everybody I know \u2014 they\u2019re the only ones having a good time, pretty consistently. They\u2019re not worried about the election. They\u2019re having a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cI thought that was going to get a bigger laugh. I thought we were allowed to have fun here.\u201d<\/p>\n Gillis joked about his sister, who he said had adopted three Black children and has a daughter with Down syndrome. He imagined a day in the future when his niece is older and she is bullied by a white student.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then three Black kids coming flying out of nowhere, start whaling on that cracker,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s, like, a nice moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Gillis also spoke about a coffee shop he said his family runs where they employ people with Down syndrome.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s zero difference between us and them, especially at work,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re like, \u2018What\u2019s your problem, dude?\u2019 They\u2019re like, \u2018I hate this job so much.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Even in an election year, \u201cS.N.L.\u201d recognizes that it cannot kick off every broadcast with Mikey Day impersonating President Biden and James Austin Johnson playing his likely Republican rival, former President Donald Trump. Some weeks you\u2019re going to get Johnson as Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and Day as \u2026 Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho?<\/p>\n That is the setup for this week\u2019s opening sketch, which finds Day and Johnson sitting around a table at a bar with Marcello Hern\u00e1ndez (as Senator Marco Rubio) and Devon Walker (as Senator Tim Scott), commiserating about Trump while they continue to fall in line behind him. When Hern\u00e1ndez teased Walker, saying that Trump had forced him to stand up and denounce Nikki Haley, Walker answered, \u201cHe didn\u2019t make me say that I hate her. He said, \u2018You must really hate her.\u2019 But y\u2019all saw what I did, right? I stepped right up to the mic and I said, \u2018No, I just love you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYou showed him,\u201d Johnson replied.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In a brighter glimpse of what Gillis\u2019s \u201cS.N.L.\u201d tenure might have looked like if he had stayed on as a cast member, the show parlayed his abilities as a Trump impressionist \u2014 along with some recent news about a limited-edition set of high-top sneakers<\/a> that Trump has been promoting \u2014 into this cleverly satirical movie trailer.<\/p>\n In the segment, Gillis plays Gordon Dwyer, an office-bound doofus who is terrible at basketball and life in general \u2014 until he receives a magical pair of the Trump sneakers that bestow him with a familiar tousled hairdo and an aggressively confident attitude. \u201cYou\u2019re saying these Trump shoes made you good at basketball?\u201d Andrew Dismukes asks him skeptically. \u201cNo,\u201d Gillis answers. \u201cThey give me the power to say<\/em> I\u2019m good at basketball, and then double down on that until people actually start to believe it.\u201d Not to be outdone, Johnson appears as Trump as well, for a Donald-a-Donald showdown with Gillis at the trailer\u2019s end.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nCold open of the week<\/h2>\n
Fake movie trailer of the week<\/h2>\n