Ricky Gervais and Whitney Cummings Prove That Comics Who Miss Out on Awards Show Gigs Should Probably Just Shut Up

How do you know if a stand-up comedian missed out on hosting an awards show? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

Now, for as unoriginal, surface-level and entirely trite as that joke is, it’s still a half-step above the level of humor that has come out from a certain A-list comedian who, plagued by jealousy of Nikki Glaser landing the hosting job at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, astoundingly decided to tweet all of the Hollywood-flavored zingers he would have delivered if the Golden Globe Foundation had given him the coveted gig. According to the awards show’s producers, Glaser was so good as the host of this year’s Golden Globe Awards that she is already a shoe-in for next year’s show if she wants the job – but did they even see Ricky Gervais’ uncomfortable social media audition before making that incredibly easy decision?

Gervais, who has already hosted the Golden Globes a record-holding five times, pre-empted Glaser's performance and subsequent claiming of the position of the Golden Globes' favorite funny person by typing out the opening monologue that he wished he could perform instead of Glaser and reposted numerous clips of his past performances, thus proving the Golden Globe Foundation absolutely correct in their choice:

I don't know which part of this is more sad – the fact that Gervais felt so insecure about not getting attention on the weekend that's supposed to be the most attention-getting part of his year, or how the only three jokes he could come up with in a “pretty good year for material” were the three most simple, surface-level rape jokes of his career.

But Gervais wasn't alone this past week in embarrassing himself with all the jokes he would have told on TV but couldn't – Whitney Cummings, apparently unsatisfied with her own performance at the Roast of 2024 during CNN's New Year's Eve coverage, tweeted out some of her own questionable cut-from-broadcast material that raised eyebrows even further than her aesthetician:

It may be unfair to lump Cummings in with Gervais in the category of “bitter comics who clearly wanted to host the Golden Globes this year,” but doesn't Cummings' dissatisfaction with the end-of-year roasting job she did land feel like it has a sort of Golden-y flavor? Cummings' fans certainly see her as a snub – when she started posting her own Golden Globes joke on TikTok yesterday with the aloof caption of “Finally getting around to watching the Globes,” the top comment read, “You should have hosted!”

But, ultimately, these comics' decision to air out all of their unused topical material days before Glaser brought the house at the Beverly Hilton down with her own pop culture punchlines highlights the fact that, if a joke doesn't make it to the broadcast, it probably wasn't worth telling – especially if the entire bit boils down to “lol, trans" or “lol, rape.”