PHILADELPHIA — On the afternoon of April 9, 2026, partisans of the Albertan separatist movement—who rally for the landlocked province’s secession from the broader, united commonwealth of Canada, and the establishment of a self-sufficient petro-state bankrolled by the its ample oil, gas and mineral reserves—scored a major endorsement.
“I officially RECOGNIZE the NEW INDEPENDENT NATION of ALBERTA,” the comedian, actor, and adult Catholic convert Rob Schneider posted on Twitter “and its separation from the People’s Republic Of Canada and the socialist morons in Ottawa.” That’s right. Renegades and heretics of the Wild Rose Province take heart: Deuce Bigelow, the male gigolo, has your back. This foray into the crankiest corners of Canadian politics might seem a little odd—if you haven’t been paying attention.
Rob Schneider is probably still best known for his five-year stint as a cast member on Saturday Night Live in the early ‘90s. He was part of a cohort of young comics (Adam Sandler, David Spade, Chrises Rock and Farley) who would leave a more sizable imprint on the landscape of American comedy. On SNL, Schneider distinguished himself with such classic characters as Richard Laymer (a.k.a. the “makin’ copies!” guy) and…well, that’s the main one.
Credit where it’s due: Schneider was really funny in a few sketches, including one where he plays a self-pitying busker, and another hilariously absurd bit where he and John Malkovich appear as parent-murdering teens Eric and Lyle Menendez and “recently discovered” identical twin Menendez brothers, Danny and Jose Junior. On the silver screen, Schneider could be counted on to pop up in his friend Adam Sandler’s movies, usually to shout, “You can do it!” And, yes, he starred in two films where he plays a male escort (a “manwhore,” in the films’ parlance) with a heart of gold. A modest career, perhaps. But nothing to sneeze at. He’s certainly more famous than most guys I know.
But time has not been particularly kind to Schneider’s brand of catch-phrase comedy. As career prospects have narrowed, Schneider became increasingly politicized. He has emerged as a prominent voice in the anti-vaccine movement(well before COVID). He was a Democrat, then an independent, then a full-throated Republican and Trump Guy. On social media, he’s clamoured for attention by claiming there were no children’s hospitals when he was a kid (there of course were), accusing trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney of “gender appropriation,” decrying the 2024 Paris Olympics as blasphemous, and, more recently, calling for the reinstatement of the mandatory military draft. Just a tip for any celebrity: if the “Political views and positions” part of your Wikipedia is twice as long as the “Career” part, you’re probably on a weird trajectory, both politically, and career-wise.
Schneider just got back from Hungary, where he travelled to campaign for Viktor Orbán, who was subsequently drubbed in the election. Then he bombed badly at CPAC. Like a lot of ostensible celebrities in Trumpland, Schneider has become more valuable for his political alignment than for anything to do with his work. He’s like if Kid Rock was funny. Except he’s also not really all that funny. You get the feeling that people pretend to like the material because they align with the guy, ideologically. So it makes sense that Rob Schneider comedy concert would also feel like more of a political event than a cultural one.
Rivers Casino in Philadelphia is pretty close to my house. Were it much further away, I might have hesitated to go see Schneider perform. But my wife was out of town, and I had accrued enough of the casino’s “Rush Rewards” points to earn a free slice of pizza and a bottle of beer. So, what the hell?
The gig drew a mostly white, mostly male, mostly middle-aged crowd (myself included). Lots of guys wearing golf polos woven in a range of moisture-wicking synthetics. One man sported the rare double wallet chain. And more than a few with hair gel spiking up the last wisps of graying hair clinging to the front of their domes, wearing sunglasses wrapped around the back of their heads, in case it suddenly gets super sunny at 8:00 p.m., in April, in Philadelphia, indoors. It was like walking through a suburban boat show. All these rich, variegated specimens had paid good money (tickets were about $70) on a Friday night to celebrate what Schneider called, taking the stage in a black fedora and shimmering olive green suit, “the freest country in the world,” i.e. the United States of America.
Freedom, in this case, was expressed with a battery of half-formed riffs touching on stock stereotypes (Asians are intelligent, women are emotional) and some fresh racial prejudices. There was a piece about how black men shouldn’t work as nurses because their hands are too big and they can’t be trusted to draw blood. Never heard that one before. Fans of voice-comedy were treated to all the hits: Mexican voice, old black lady voice, Japanese man voice, Vietnamese manicurist voice, southeast Asian (or “East Indian”) voice, and of course, everybody’s favorite, gay guy voice.
There was a bit about how white pilots make the best pilots. And a joke about the late Renee Good, who, Schneider said, had been “manipulated into being a lesbian.” (That’s another new one.) There was another part where Schneider suggested repealing the 19th Amendment, and then accused the women in the audience of not knowing what the 19th Amendment is. There were r-slurs, and f-slurs, and dusty jokes about tipping. There was nothing about Alberta separatism, weirdly. The worst Obama impression I’ve ever heard was followed in turn by the worst Trump impression I’ve ever heard. Greg Gutfeld’s name raised cheers. Robert De Niro’s drew boos. Any mention of Trump was met with rapturous applause. I hadn’t seen an audience so primed and pumped to enjoy a thing since I went to a Jersey suburb to see the Melania movie.
Freedom was also on offer at the merch table, in the form of a T-shirt inscribed with the word “FREEDOM” along with the following quote:
Free speech is all speech!
The nice stuff doesn’t
need protection
It’s the speech you DON’T
like that does!–Rob Schneider
The idea of Schneider taking credit for this extremely basic sentiment, enshrined in the very first amendment of the U.S. Constitution, is pretty funny: like that “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.—Wayne Gretzky—MICHAEL SCOTT” whiteboard from The Office. Also funny is the idea of Schneider casting himself as some Lenny Bruce-like First Amendment crusader.
Becoming a Free Speech Guy is sort of the last refuge for the hack comedian. Not because freedom of expression isn’t important. It is tremendously important. But because insisting upon it always feels a little desperate. Disagree with the comedian? That’s censorious. Hate his stupid, bad, unfunny jokes? You’re just triggered. But while I didn’t enjoy my time at the Rob Schneider concert—indeed, it would be fair to say that I “hated it”—I was no more “offended” by it then I would be a bad meal at a restaurant. It’s not like it galled me on some deep, moral level. It just sucked.
“If you’re a Democrat,” Schneider warned early on, “this is gonna be a looooong show.” I’m not. But I still found the experience pretty interminable. Schneider meandered, interrupted himself, wandered around in little circles on stage muttering non-sequiturs like “Yeah, man…things are crazy…” and “…fuckin’…crazy-ass shit…” He did a bunch of marriage jokes, which felt strange because Schneider’s third wife recently sued him for divorce. I mean, I get the idea of “the wife” as an abstract figure in the broader joke-cosmos of stand-up comedy. But I feel like any comedian’s wife should be able to reclaim jokes about them in the split.
Shifting in my chair, bored and weary, my brain had plenty of time to ponder the politicized rebrand of Rob Schneider, and the whole wider arena of ideological conditioned, pro-Trump entertainment. It is a very weird arena. Trump—as Schneider pointed out repeatedly, to applause—won. DEI is dead, and wokeness with it. Trans people are on the back foot. Immigrants are being shipped to gulags. All the ideas and positions being expressed are mainstream currents in American political and cultural life. And yet you have to act like they’re still somehow super-controversial, or even verboten. I’m saying the things that can’t be said! the truth-teller promises. But of course they can be said. They’re said all the time. You’re literally saying them.
I did laugh precisely twice. Once at a joke about single-use straws, which Schneider pointed out are not actually “single use”: You can drink from them and they can choke a turtle to death. And a second time when a long, boring bit about self-service Korean BBQ restaurants paid off with a punchline about a “Korean whorehouse” (his words) where the clientele are invited to suck and fuck themselves. Still, a pair of chuckles is a pretty pitiable hit rate for a show that stretched to an eternity-like 90 minutes, as some in the audience petered out, others carried on full-volume conversations, and some seemed to actually nod off. (I too was yawning like crazy down the home stretch.)
The show finally wound to an end with an extended bit about how God often chooses imperfect vessels to enact his divine plans (Schneider cites both Moses and King David as examples) and how Donald Trump is such a flawed, but nonetheless wholly divine, instrument of God. Schneider closed with a punchline making fun of Rosie O’Donnell, and then waved and yelled some classic catchphrases—including “That’s a huuuuge bitch!” which is not even one of his lines in Deuce Bigelow.
Technically a memorable evening, I guess, full of racism, sexism, and transphobia, occasionally rising to the level of recognizable jokes. I considered buying one of the “Freedom” T-shirts, I guess to wear ironically. But there was nobody manning the merch table as the crowd filed out, to take their places among the blackjack tables and Willy Wonka slot machines. Oh well.
Not exactly the kind of thing I’d ever do again, nor ringingly endorse. But that’s not to say I think Schneider or his fans should be imprisoned for the things they joke, and laugh, about. If they need a little safe space to get their jollies yucking it up about trans athletes and Jimmy Kimmel, and how gay pride month is too long, well, a half-empty casino event center that looks like a conference room is probably a good place for that. It would just be nice if it was funnier. Because as the old saying goes:
Freedom of speech is good!
But if you are a comedian
You should try to be
funny!
Or else you risk being remembered
As a political hack
And also a bitter LOSER,
too!–John Semley