Whoops. Shane Gillis broke the number one rule at Saturday Night Live last night. The popular stand-up comedian was mid-sketch when he accidentally let out an f-bomb, much to the shock of the audience, his fellow performers and even himself. Of course the accidental flub trended loudly and widely on social media, but I think more people should be talking about the fun little improv response we got from Mikey Day.
The sketch in question was a take on Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. Day played the main character repeatedly rejecting green eggs and ham, while Andrew Dismukes played a man offering him the delicacy over and over again. At one point, Gillis showed up to tell off the man for not listening to his father’s repeated nos. It was during that rant, that he accidentally dropped the already infamous f-bomb.
At first, Day and Dismukes just kinda went with it and tried to get the sketch back on track, but later, during a speech where Day was criticizing Gillis for having no direction in life and working at Jimmy John’s, he added that among his many faults, he also said a bad word. The crowd clearly loved it, and an amused Gillis just owned up to it and said, “Yes, I did.”
The uncensored f-bomb is everywhere on social media, but the powers that be uploaded the full sketch on YouTube with just the swear in question bleeped out. You can watch the full thing below…
Gillis is definitely not the first person to accidentally swear on Saturday Night Live. Charles Rocket infamous dropped an f-bomb during Weekend Update in the early 1980s, and in the decades since, quite a few cast members and hosts have accidentally joined him. Kristen Stewart, Sam Rockwell, Cheri Oteri, Jenny Slate and more have had an on-air whoopsie, but perhaps my favorite live swear of all-time actually came from the studio audience.
A few years ago during Weekend Update, Ego Nwodim was doing a bit where she played a comedian interacting with the audience. She said these men ain’t what and several members of the audience loudly shouted, “shit!” much to the shock of everyone involved. It was the type of organic bit of craziness you can only get from SNL.
Gillis played it off during the sketch, but he clearly felt bad about what happened. You can hear him say “Sorry about earlier” at the very end of the Green Eggs & Ham sketch as the broadcast is cutting away, and during the closing segment where he said his goodbyes, he repeated that he was sorry about earlier. I’m not sure if the Lorne Michaels and company asked him to formally do the second apology, but the first one was definitely just a nervous, off-the-cuff that was my bad comment.
Some fans are speculating Gillis likely won’t return to Studio 8H after his flub, but I’m not so sure about that. The popular stand-up has a long, strange history with the show. He was originally brought in as a featured player but was let go by the network (not Lorne Michaels) prior to his first episode over some old jokes he made. He then blew up with comedy specials and his own television show Tires and has since come back three times to host. His comedic style is more abrasive than we get from the majority of hosts, but it’s also produced a lot of really funny sketches that we wouldn’t get on episodes with more traditional hosts.
SNL is off for a few weeks but will return on Halloween with host Inde Navarrette. Fingers crossed she can get through the whole thing without swearing.
