Not all comedic heroes wear capes.

Shane Gillis — who was on SNL and canceled on SNL before he ever did an episode, then was rehabbed because we now live in the post-cancel culture era — has become one of the most famous comedians in the country. 

Somehow, some way, Shane Gillis, who is incredibly politically incorrect, who is willing to go all the way to the edge on his jokes, and who probably has some rather conservative leanings, was hired to be the host at the ESPYs.

I just enjoyed the living hell out of this, and I wanted to share it with you because it is really funny and indicative of the fact that if you are a comedian who is not of the radical Left, people on the Left get very angry at you.

They won’t laugh at you. They leave you hanging. 

But Shane Gillis simply doesn’t care, and that’s what makes him unbelievably charming.

The ESPYs are typically an exercise in pandering. Because ESPN is a left-wing network, they go out of their way to play into left-wing social tropes. 

Shane Gillis didn’t do that. Instead, he started taking shots, and a bunch of people caught strays. 

Gillis on WNBA star Caitlin Clark: “When Caitlin Clark retires from the WNBA, she’s going to work at a Waffle House so she can continue doing what she loves most: Fist-fighting black women.”

That was a riff on the fact that the WNBA turns into a hockey game when Caitlin Clark plays because she’s bullied by various members of the WNBA contingent, who are mostly black, supposedly because she’s being favored by the league for being white.

Even the ESPY crowd couldn’t help but love that joke.

That wasn’t even his best WNBA joke of the night. The next one was an all-timer: “Four-time WNBA All-Star Brittany Hicks is here. Give it up for Brittney, everybody,” which was followed by tepid applause. “I’m joking around. That’s my friend’s wife. I knew none of you knew WNBA players.”

ESPN, of course, has a pretty large stake in the WNBA doing well. Thus, Gillis taking an enormous dump on the entire league is pretty spectacular stuff. 

He also launched a really good immigration joke as well: “Joe Rogan actually wanted me to be here to host this award show so that I could capture Adam Silver because Joe thinks he’s an alien, and Donald Trump wanted me to be here to capture Juan Soto for the same reason. It’s an alien joke. Who booed up there? Shut up.”

What was funny about this is that people seemed a little bit uptight about it. That’s not even a right-wing joke. It’s not clear where his sympathies lay in that joke, but people are just so used to left-wing humor that the fact that the joke was not a left-wing joke left them absolutely puzzled.

Gillis also did a January 6 joke and an Epstein joke. He said, “Donald Trump wants to stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn. The last time he staged a fight in D.C., Mike Pence almost died. You don’t have to do that … I didn’t write it. Actually, there was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but I guess it got deleted. Probably deleted itself, right? Probably never existed, actually. Let’s move on as a country and ignore that.”

It’s worth checking out his full set. He did end with a fitting tribute to Norm Macdonald, who told an O.J. Simpson joke at the ESPYs long ago that basically got him canceled from ESPN.

“There’s one thing I want to say before I get out of here, and this is a dumb joke,” Gillis said. “You guys aren’t gonna like it, but it was just a Norm MacDonald joke that I loved when he hosted the ESPYs, and I’m gonna do it now: ‘Travis Hunter won the Heisman Trophy this year. He’s the first defensive player since Charles Woodson to win the Heisman. Congratulations, Travis Hunter winning the Heisman. That’s something they can never take away from you unless you kill your wife and a waiter, in which case they can take that away from you.’”

Full props to Shane Gillis for doing the thing that nobody at ESPN wanted him to do.

Whichever general manager decided that Shane Gillis was going to be the host of the ESPYs doesn’t have a job today, but you know what, sir or madam, hats off to you. 

Excellent. Well done, Shane Gillis.

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