Gary Gulman on Hitler's shenanigans

"I saw this very interesting documentary about Hitler's shenanigans."

A joke I think about all the time: Gary Gulman’s bit about a friend who refers to Hitler's shenanigans. The precision of the language he uses is just perfect. Even though it’s a bit of a thesaurus joke, there’s something about it that feels musical. And the tag at the end is 🤌.

My friend recommended a documentary to me recently about Hitler. It was about Hitler's atrocities. But my friend, god love her, she couldn't think of the word atrocities. She tried to cover for a second; she went "ahhh—" while she searched for a synonym, but it didn't come out right.

She said, "Gary, I saw this very interesting documentary about Hitler's shenanigans." [audience laughter] Shenanigans! [he chuckles] Not even close!

And, as a Jew, I'm obviously not oversensitive, but when people trivialize Hitler's monkey-business... [audience laughter] When the Nazis' hijinks, tomfoolery, and ballyhoo is understated, I feel it does a disservice to the millions who were, ahhh, inconvenienced by Hitler's mischief! [audience laughter]

Tomato, tomahto. Shenanigans, genocide. [shakes his head]