2024-09-08 21:58:09
Luke Mockridge was heavily criticized for making fun of the Paralympic athletes, even though the joke may not even have come from him.
In an episode of the “Die Deutschen” podcast, comedian Luke Mockridge talks about the Paralympic Games and mocks the athletes. The clip went viral and provoked severe criticism from many sides. Luke Mockridge has since apologized. Now there are suspicions that he copied part of the joke.
In the podcast, Luke Mockridge talked about how the Paralympic Games came about: “It’s amazing: the first person to call another country and say: ‘Hey, you know the Olympic Games. I have a similar idea. You also have disabled people in your country. Should we see who’s faster?'”
The gag seemed familiar to some people. “One of the jokes is stolen 1:1 from Shane Gillis. Pathetic,” commented one user on X. Another person wrote: “He saw Shane Gillis and wanted to do it too. Just in a Luke way, not funny. The ‘similarity’ of the attempted set is minimally noticeable.”
In fact, US comedian Shane Gillis made a similar joke during a performance in Austin in 2021. In it, he addressed the Special Olympics, where he was a coach for a time. “We all agree that the Special Olympics is a good program. But I think the guy who came up with the idea took a real risk,” the now 36-year-old said at the time. “It’s wild to propose something like this for the first time. A guy in a board meeting says, ‘I have an idea. The people from the next town say theirs is faster. We should let these motherfuckers compete against each other.'”
Both comedians called the development phase of the sporting events “wild”. In contrast to Luke Mockridge, however, Shane Gillis emphasized: “I don’t make jokes about the athletes. The concept is wild.”