James Adomian is a great comedy person more people should know about. In a recent interview he discussed, among other things, the lack of LGBT representation on SNL:

Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that there hasn’t been an out gay male full-fledged cast member on SNL since Terry Sweeney became the first and only one more than 30 years ago [As noted at the end of the article, John Milhiser was the second, appearing in 2013-2014]. He only lasted one season, from 1985-1986, and has since been more or less lost to history. It was another 26 years before the show brought on its next out cast member, current star Kate McKinnon. In 2016, Chris Kelly became the first openly gay co-head writer (along with Sara Schneider) in SNL’s history, but they left to create a new show for Comedy Central the following year.

“It would be nice if they put a gay man on camera on that show,” Adomian tells me over lattes in the lobby of his hotel in Austin. “I’ve been out of the closet the whole time since I auditioned 13 years ago. You would think that they would have tried to put someone else on that was a gay man. It’s about time.”

SNL declined to comment for this piece on the record. However, a source with knowledge of the situation says Adomian auditioned several times but the show decided his comedy wasn’t the right fit.

I believe SNL when they say he wouldn’t be a good fit. To me, SNL is where comedy goes to die (i.e. Amy Poehler, who was in Upright Citizens Brigade before SNL), while actual funny people exist in a state of arrested development until they leave (i.e. Will Forte and Bill Hader). But to each their own, of course.

I think a lot of people, myself included, have affinities for the cast of their formative years – for me the 90’s. Right around when Jimmy Fallon joined the show is when I stopped watching. Looking back, out of a sense of nostalgia, I can laugh at the likes of Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider but recognize it’s pretty bad (though some of the stuff from that era I think has stood the test of time). All of this is to say Adomian is too funny for SNL.

Despite being very well thought of in the comedy community and really fucking funny, he hasn’t been able to break through:

Adomian tells me that he has a lot of larger ideas for television and film, but he’s “not able to make them” because he’s never been given the opportunity. During his Bernie Sanders show last Friday night, he momentarily “broke the fourth wall” to reveal that he had recently pitched a show to Netflix, but was ultimately rejected because they are “only interested in doing deals with famous people.”

He tells me he’s had meetings with “every single network” that a comedy fan might be familiar with and they said no to his TV show ideas every time.

That he hasn’t been at least prominently featured on a show or gotten a Netflix special is bullshit. Despite having what I think is a solid roster (Another Period, Nathan For You, Broad City, Detroiters and Corporate), Comedy Central is apparently floundering and hasn’t had a sketch comedy since Key & Peele, something Adomian would excel at. Netflix is seemingly giving specials to everyone. Adomian thinks homophobia is one of the culprits:

“We are in a golden age of gay male comics, at live shows, around the country and at festivals like this. We are very well-presented at live shows and on the internet. Television? Not so much.” He jokes that gay men hosting TV shows is “almost illegal” in the U.S. (Andy Cohen notwithstanding).

Adomian chalks some of this up to “overt homophobia,” but says most of it is due to the “cowardice” of executives who will say, “I’m not homophobic, but I’m afraid that my audience is.”

Whereas the success of a film like Black Panther is making Hollywood reconsider its racist preconceptions about what audiences want to see, Adomian says it is “impossible to even imagine anything like Black Panther for gay people.”

The rest of this post will be a collection of his brilliance.

He’s a very frequent guest on the Comedy Bang Bang podcast and show, where he’s done a plethora of different characters:

• Christopher Hitchens:

• Slavoj Žižek:

• Paul Giamatti

• Gordon Ramsay

I believe he started doing Sebastian Gorka first on Chapo Trap House and has recently portrayed him on the Chris Gethard Show and Comedy Bang! Bang! (as a side note, he portrayed Elon Musk on the most recent Chapo episode, most of which was about Jordan Peterson)

Paul F Tompkins had a wonderful podcast with the premise of H.G. Wells having a working time machine which allowed him to interview dead authors. Adomian did two episodes, one as Nietzsche, the other as Walt Whitman

http://thedeadauthorspodcast.libsyn.com/chapter-28-walt-whitman-featuring-james-adomian

http://thedeadauthorspodcast.libsyn.com/appendix-b-friederich-nietzsche-and-h-p-lovecraft-featuring-james-adomian-and-paul-scheer

Some other impressions:

• Marc Maron:

• Jesse Ventura:

• Chris Matthews:

Stand-up:

And, finally, here he is on Homophilia where he talks about his life:

Betty Boop, Meeting at the Counter and Looking for Role Models