“I’m Gonna Roast YOU!” Dave Smith vs Adam Sosnick Reunite In Comedy Battle

“The roast of Kevin Hart aired on Netflix on Sunday has been debated breathlessly ever since. There was something to offend everybody. Racism, sexism, ableism, classism, sizeism, anti-Semitism.” So opens Piers Morgan’s panel on the return of anything-goes comedy, with a specific focus on two jokes from the special: Tony Hinchcliffe’s line about George Floyd “looking up at us all laughing so hard he can’t breathe,” and Pete Davidson’s joke comparing Charlie Kirk to a man letting someone “unload in his throat.” The episode asks whether comedy can go too far, who gets to decide, and whether the outrage is consistent across political lines.

The market speaks: why woke comedy failed

Dave Smith, a touring stand-up comedian and political commentator, argues that the decline of wokism in comedy was driven by market forces, not activism. “By the very fundamental nature of what wokeism is, it cannot be funny,” he says. When comedy became a lecture, audiences stopped watching. Comedy Central, which once aired Chappelle’s Show, South Park, and Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, produced almost nothing during the woke era. The turning point, Smith says, was when Shane Gillis—fired from Saturday Night Live before even starting as a cast member—was later invited back to host the show. “Why? Because it was selling out stadiums all over the country.” Netflix and SNL, he argues, followed