Hulu may be slightly behind its competitors in the stand-up comedy space, but it’s coming in hot with the launch of its newest division, “Hularious.” And the streamer’s first special, launching on November 22, is from a heavy (or, as it were, not so heavy anymore) hitter. In the Jim Gaffigan: The Skinny trailer, Gaffigan “provides the skinny on everything from appetite suppressants to raising teenagers in Hulu’s very first comedy special.”
Gaffigan is a good guy to get when you want to launch a new stand-up division. He’s done specials everywhere, including Comedy Central and Netflix, and his special Quality Time was Amazon Prime Video’s first original comedy special, too. The Jim Gaffigan: The Skinny trailer brings you the funny guy you know and love, though as he points out, he’s lost some weight. “People, they won’t even say anything to me, they’ll just go up to my wife and ask, ‘Is Jim okay?'” He jokes in the trailer. “‘Cause to them, it’s more likely that I’m sick then I would ever have any self discipline.”
Gaffigan has always been a reliably popular presence on the stand-up circuit (as Hulu puts it in the special synopsis, he’s “considered one of the most prolific comedians working today”). However, he’s been having a particular moment lately after playing Saturday Night Live‘s Tim Walz during election season (the comic recently said he was always “secretly hoping” Walz would do something interesting that he could portray on the show). He also earned his eighth Grammy nomination for The Prisoner, which is the only Best Comedy Album entry this year to be released purely as an album, with no accompanying filmed special.
Gaffigan will be Hulu’s first foray into stand-up, but obviously he won’t be the last. The upcoming special line up includes Bill Burr, Chris Distefano, Jim Gaffigan, Ilana Glazer, Jessica Kirson, Matteo Lane, Sebastian Maniscalco, Atsuko Okatsuka, Andrew Santino, Zarna Garg, and Roy Wood Jr. To bulk up its offerings, Hulu is also licensing previously released comedy specials from 800 Pound Gorilla, Comedy Dynamics and Don’t Tell Comedy, according to Variety.
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