How 800 Pound Gorilla became the biggest indie animal in the comedy content jungle

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Set us as preferred 800 Pound Gorilla started its comedy company 10 years ago with the same goal as any successful stand-up: to become undeniable.That mission demanded that it tap into its very heavy spirit animal to find not only the best comics to work with but also the right ways to deliver them to comedy superfans around the world.

Looking back on 800 Pound Gorilla’s decade of evolving from producing comedy albums to one-hour specials to the recent launch of its own streaming platform, Gorilla Comedy +, some fans might get the impression that this trajectory to becoming the biggest independent hub for comedy has all been very well thought out.They would be wrong.“We definitely didn’t even know we had a business when we first started, and we didn’t even know that we’d be around for 10 months, let alone 10 years,” said Damion Greiman, leaning back in his chair in a glass-paneled conference room inside 800 PG’s Nashville headquarters.

Over Zoom, he and general manager Tony Grotticelli talk about the motives that still drive the company to continue being a major player in the comedy world while maintaining flexibility to serve audiences what they want as the comedy content world continues to change.At one point the conversation turns to a recent special they produced entirely with spliced-together cellphone footage shot by people in the audience.“The comedian came in and gave the audience an app to download, and all of them shot it from different angles.

Then the community got that, and then had an editor cut it from all the different perspectives,” Grotticelli says with an excited grin on his bearded face.“We are in a constant state of conversation with comedians, or managers, or producers, or agents about new formats we’re trying, or new shows we’re trying.”Founded in 2016 by Greiman and Rya...