Comedian and honorary Philadelphian Shane Gillis lands a new Netflix show and comedy special

Comedian and Philly adopted son Shane Gillis has a new Netflix comedy special and series.

The streaming giant has secured Gillis’ six-episode comedy series, Tires, premiering May 23, and has greenlit a new stand-up special following 2023′s successful Beautiful Dogs, which ranked in Netflix’s Top 10 in five countries and remained in the U.S. Top 10 for two weeks.

Tires is built around a character named Shane (played by Gillis), who works at his cousin Will’s (Steven Gerben) auto repair chain. The series, which Gillis writes and executive produces, also stars Kilah Fox, Stavros Halkias, and Philly comedian Chris O’Connor.

The series is a collaboration between Gillis and Philly comic and writer John McKeever, who is directing the show. The duo previously worked on Comedy Central’s Delco Proper and the YouTube sketch series Gilly & Keeves: The Special on GillyandKeeves.tv, among other projects.

Before rising to fame, Gillis, originally from Mechanicsburg, Pa., lived in West Philly’s Mantua community, winning Philly’s Phunniest at Helium Comedy Club in 2016 and later being recognized as a “New Face” at the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal.

Recently, Gillis has been under fire for comments he made during his earlier podcasting days.

Nearly five years ago, he was dismissed from Saturday Night Live due to past remarks about Asian people and the LGBTQ+ community, a topic that resurfaced in the media prior to his recent SNL hosting gig.

Gillis was added to the cast of SNL’s 45th season back in Sept. 2019 but was dropped from the show days later for his past offensive remarks about Chinese people.

A video from a Sept. 2018 episode of Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast shows Gillis and cohost Matt McCusker mocking accents and using racial slurs. Another episode had the pair dropping homophobic slurs toward filmmaker Judd Apatow and comic Chris Gethard, among others.

“The language he used is offensive, hurtful, and unacceptable,” an SNL spokesperson said at the time. “We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”

Following news of Gillis’ SNL hosting spot last week, fans of the long-running NBC series took to social media to slam the decision. “You mean the guy you fired as a cast member because he was saying racist [expletive]? Wow. What a disappointment SNL. I’ve been watching for decades and I’m so disappointed,” one user wrote.

Gillis, who wore an Eagles hoodie for his SNL promo photos, joked during his opening monologue about the controversy.

“I was fired from this show a while ago,” he said. “But if, you know, don’t look that up, please, if you don’t know who I am. Please, don’t Google that. It’s fine. Don’t even worry about it.”

Gillis has continued to land opportunities on and off screen. Along with his new special and comedy series, Gillis is set to perform at the 2024 Netflix is a Joke Fest in Los Angeles on May 4 at the Greek Theatre and May 8 at the Kia Forum.

Gillis and his team were not available for comment at the time of publication.