Don’t Tell Comedy Strikes First-Look Deal With Elan Gale’s TheYearOfElan As Live Stand-Up Producer Looks To Enter Content Business

EXCLUSIVE: After announcing its first comedy special for Netflix — a current events-themed talk show format, hosted by Tim Dillon — Elan Gale‘s TheYearOfElan Productions has struck a first-look deal with the world’s largest independent producer of live stand-up shows, Don’t Tell Comedy.

A go-to platform for emerging comedians, Don’t Tell will collaborate with the company to develop and produce a range of unscripted content. Along with Head of Creative and Development Bill Dixon, Gale will shepherd the new partnership, working directly with Don’t Tell Comedy’s executive team, including CEO Kyle Kazanjian-Amory, COO Brett Kushner and Vice President of Production Marissa Gallant. Another partner on projects emerging from the deal will be ITV America, which set an overall deal with TheYearOfElan last year.

In a statement on the deal, TheYearOfElan’s Dixon said, “We’ve been following the growth of Don’t Tell Comedy for years, as fans, and couldn’t be more excited to bring their distinct taste and savvy comedy minds to television.”

Gale joked that while “the first rule of Don’t Tell Comedy is ‘you don’t talk about Don’t Tell Comedy’…unfortunately, we have just broken that rule.”

Added the comedy org’s CEO, Kazanjian-Amory, “At Don’t Tell Comedy, our mission is to cultivate the most trusted brand in stand-up among both audiences and comedians. We’ve been able to help launch the careers of some of the funniest humans on the planet, and we’re thrilled to partner with Bill, Elan and ITV America to create even more opportunities to elevate the best up-and-coming talent.”

Focused on character-driven storytelling and hybridized formats, TheYearOfElan is perhaps best known for creating Max’s splashy reality dating series FBoy Island, hosted by Nikki Glaser, which moved to The CW following its second season and has spurred numerous international adaptations. A longtime producer of The Bachelor, who has collaborated with horror maestro Mike Flanagan on his series The Midnight Club and Midnight Mass, Gale is also an EP on Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation The Life of Chuck, which is set to world premiere at TIFF.

Founded in 2017, Don’t Tell Comedy is known for its secret shows, where audience members buy tickets before getting details on the venue and lineup of comedians. Producing more than 3,000 shows a year across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia, which have so far attracted hundreds of thousands of attendees, the company has more than seven million followers on social media, including 1.6M on YouTube alone. Its channel there has garnered over one billion views in the last year.