One thing thats kind of interesting about all of this, and something I haven't seen anyone really talk about in this thread, is what my understanding of World Peace's cancellation. From what I had heard, from people much closer to the situation than anyone here, a huge element of that was Sam's fans (or MDE in general I suppose). Lazzo had been given free rein on handling the experimental projects for Adult Swim, but it was always under an understood there had to be a few stipulations. It had to be cheap, and couldn't cause problems with the rest of the network. Aside from some breakout hits, Cartoon Network always had this looming ability to just run syndicated shows like Family Guy which would invariably get steady viewership. So anything that caused a headache was a threat to the operation. When World Peace had its controversy, Sam responded by attacking his collogues, and executives were getting harassed by his fans and threats based on keeping the show on. As soon as that stuff leaves the Adult Swim bubble, executives don't want to have to deal with this programing studio basically running out of a broom closet (hyperbole). World Peace wasn't like Aqua Teen, where anyone would agree to ride out the storm, and other talent was having to deal with blowback and being threatend to answer to his fanbase.
For instance, Sam going after Tim Heidecker, when his big crime was basically not chastising Brett Gellman, for encouraging people to voice displeasure. Tim just said, "if you think its important to do it, I wont tell you not to. If you like it, then say that as well."
Lazzo just made the call that it wasn't worth dealing with this, or trying to reign in talent that should know better than to throw blame at other shows (like bringing up Eric Andre showing a swastika or whatever). Its better to have talent that appreciates an opportunity that's extremely rare in showbusiness, and have people like coming to work. Lazzo wasn't happy with Brett either, but Brett was just an actor on a show. Lazzo had a very hands off approach to who was working on a project, but the projects themselves he would green light or ax depending on if it stayed within the aforementioned parameters. Ultimately, Adult Swims original programing is always on shaky ground. From the networks perspective showing another Rick and Morty rerun in the place of a show causing drama is a no brainer, and Lazzo didn't want to deal with bullshit so he just axed the show. A reasonable decision for him, since he wants to keep his job.
People have this idea that shows like Tim and Eric or whatever brought in a ton of money to the network but its not really true, CN isn't selling that many local ads across the country, although they get some, its usually just the big nationwide commercials and the blocks they sell dont sell for as much as people think.
Anyways, you see the same thing happening here. MDE now attacks Harland for Sam's fumble, will probably attack comedians who point out how shitty he acted, which means Sam will again be stuck with podcasts like the Hodge tards. At some point I don't think Shane Gillis is even going to want to go for bat for someone who really can't remotely act professionally. Like it or not, the podcast circuit is important to success these days, and they'll all make a Lazzo style calculation on if its worth doing favors for Sam if this is a possible result. Nick has a loyalty to Sam but its not like anyone else is going tolerate this stuff. And Nick doesn't need Sam as much as he thinks. So yeah, its a lot like history repeating itself. Maybe Sam just has some self sabotaging impulse that can't be tamed, but he really is an anchor for Nick. Nick will either figure that out when its all too late, or he'll break off once he realizes half his job is running defense for the gorilla.