Comedian Jim Gaffigan to perform at the Met
"The Pale Tourist" will serve as Gaffigan’s eighth comedy special.
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A night of comedy in Philadelphia may have a chance to be immortalized in comedian Jim Gaffigan’s next TV special when he comes to town in the fall.
Gaffigan will perform at the Met Philadelphia on Saturday, Oct. 24, Met organizers announced Tuesday, adding that the comic is scheduled to tape a new TV special, The Pale Tourist, as part of the appearance. Representatives for Gaffigan, however, have told the Inquirer that the taping is not confirmed.
Gaffigan shared news of the Philadelphia show on Twitter with a clip from his 2018 special Jim Gaffigan: Noble Ape in which he jokes that calling Philadelphia the City of Brotherly Love is “a bit like saying, ‘Syria, a place for peace.’ ”
In fact, he adds, the whole Northeast from Philadelphia to Boston is angry, which is why he has jokingly dubbed the area the “corridor of hate.”
“I love you corridor of hate,” Gaffigan tweeted.
Known for projects such as The Jim Gaffigan Show on TV Land and his 2019 Amazon Prime comedy special Quality Time, Gaffigan is among the highest-grossing comedians in the world, according to Forbes.
Gaffigan was last at the Met in February. But it’s hardly the comic’s biggest Philly show — that honor goes to his 2015 gig at the Festival of Families, during which he performed for Pope Francis.
As Gaffigan later said of the performance, one joke about Philadelphians not being nice to Santa Claus bombed, earning him boos from an estimated 100,000 attendees. The line was a reference to a 1968 incident in which Eagles fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus, which has since become a Philly sports fan stereotype. But, as Gaffigan told Stephen Colbert in 2017, at least he got to warn Pope Francis.
“Eventually I got a chance to meet the pope and I was in this room and everybody was saying something to the pope and I didn’t know what to say. So when it finally came my turn, I said, 'Don’t bring up the Santa incident,’ ” Gaffigan said. “The pope didn’t say anything but he gave me a look like, ‘Dude, I would never bring that up.’ "
Tickets for Gaffigan’s show at the Met go on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. via the Met’s website and Ticketmaster, with a presale scheduled to begin Wednesday.