SNL Cut Shane Gillis' Best Sketch - A Dark Liberty Mutual Parody

Shane Gillis is one of many comedians who took their material too far, getting fired from a cast spot on "Saturday Night Live" after clips of him making racist jokes surfaced. Things came full circle on the February 24 episode of "SNL" where he actually hosted the program. Reactions were mixed to the episode, with The Hollywood Reporter writing in its review, "[Gillis] struggled throughout his monologue and was visibly anxious as he pivoted to new topics." Many of the sketches didn't land well, either, which makes it odd that the best one from the night didn't appear.

The cut-for-time sketch was uploaded to YouTube, and it features Gillis in a parody of the Liberty Mutual LiMu Emu commercials where renegade insurance brokers help people save money. This time around, Gillis and his emu partner break into a guy's apartment to help with his insurance, only for the emu to go all dirty cop and shoot the man, played by Marcello Hernández. Gillis' character freaks out, and things only get wilder when the emu finds drugs under the guy's couch, snorting some in the process. 

It's a wicked two minutes, made even better with Gillis having to interact with an emu puppet. The sketch goes to some dark places, but the fact all these crimes are perpetrated by an emu lends itself to absurdity. Many seem to think the LiMu Emu parody was better than anything else "SNL" had that night, with YouTuber @makatron commenting, "Being this good of a sketch and also cut for time it's straight up criminal!"

Many of the sketches featured on the February 24 episode of "Saturday Night Live" seemed to play into Shane Gillis' persona as a bro-y white dude who always seems like he's on the cusp of saying something offensive. It perhaps plays into Gillis' initial "SNL" backlash that many of his characters weren't exactly politically correct. For example, one sketch was a parody of the game show, "The Floor," where Gillis is tasked with naming historical figures. However, he's unable to identify any Black people throughout history (minus Cleveland Brown from "Family Guy").

The LiMu Emu parody sketch also isn't very PC, seeing as Gillis essentially plays a law enforcement officer who's an accessory in a man's death. However, the reaction to this sketch is far more positive compared to what the rest of the episode received. On X (formerly known as Twitter), @JonahDispatch wants more of the dirty buddy-cop dynamic: "I would watch a whole TV series featuring Dark Limu Emu. Not even necessarily a comedy. Like the Shield but everybody takes it for granted that the rogue cop on the squad is a giant flightless bird."

It's perhaps understandable the commercial parody was cut simply due to how dark it gets. Then again, the reaction to the sketch may convince "SNL" to take greater chances on darker material that may not appeal to everyone, but that is funny nonetheless. Either way, "SNL" definitely could've afforded to cut back on the cold open, which saw various senators discuss Donald Trump's various insults toward them. Room could've been made by shortening that sketch and inserting the LiMu Emu sketch elsewhere.