TMC
03-14-2025, 11:56 PM
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5324637/john-mulaney-netflix-late-night-everybodys-live-with-john-mulaney
"There were lots of moments when it seemed like Mulaney was trying hard to deconstruct all the tropes we have come to expect from traditional talk shows – from the chummy announcer/sidekick to calls from viewers, just like the phone-ins venerated CNN host Larry King featured," says Eric Deggans of Mulaney's new weekly Netflix variety series. "But the offhand, randomly eccentric vibe distilled in Mulaney's debut Wednesday didn't feel so much like a bold reinvention of talk shows as an uncomfortable middle ground between parody and mimicry. And instead of lending an air of danger or anything-can-happen excitement, the show's live element just added an overarching pressure which seemed to stifle the proceedings rather than elevate them. A lot of the show's vibe was first revealed in Netflix's six-night experiment last year, John Mulaney Presents: Everybody's in L.A.: the roomy set with ornate doors for guests, announcer/onstage foil Richard Kind, appearances by the autonomous delivery drone Saymo and the spot-on choice of theme music, Wang Chung's 1985 hit To Live and Die in L.A. But while last year's debut was an entertaining jumble of esoteric ideas – kicked off with a masterful monologue on the absurdity of Los Angeles – the first episode of Everybody's Live on Wednesday felt a bit more aimless."
ALSO:
Thankfully, Everybody's Live didn't stray too much from Everybody's in L.A. (https://variety.com/2025/tv/reviews/john-mulaney-netflix-review-everybodys-live-1236335973/): "The ‘70s-inspired set on a Hollywood soundstage proved a metaphor for the transition from one-off experiment to a three-month run of a dozen weekly episodes: mostly the same, with minor tweaks only apparent to a small subset of nerdy aficionados," says Alison Herman. "That’s great news for fans like myself, having named Everybody’s in LA one of the best shows of last year in my annual roundup. It’s nonetheless surprising how non-expository Wednesday’s technical debut was. The presence of Saymo the delivery robot, for example, went unexplained. Mulaney’s four-wheeled friend needed no introduction for those who watched the bug-eyed apparatus develop into a full-fledged character last spring, but neophytes dropping in on a major launch from a worldwide streamer may have been left scratching their heads. Mulaney may have cracked that the name change came after focus groups showed audiences didn’t like LA, but nothing else about the show felt focus-grouped or planned with mass appeal in mind."
Everybody's Live's first episode was marred by subpar execution (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/everybodys-live-with-john-mulaney-needs-some-work): "The first show was a bit of an awkward mess—not that he seemed too concerned about it," says Chris Murphy. "Wearing a maroon blazer and shirt, Mulaney came out to deliver the monologue while inexplicably holding a clipboard. As the show went on, it became clear that he was crossing things off along the way—suggesting that the clipboard provided some type of road map for the show." Murphy adds: "Though his attitude was decidedly laissez-faire, Mulaney really did seem to be opening up, letting us into his life and his (pretend) home. The show’s warm and comfortable set—modeled after a Los Angeles living room with a grand piano, a telescope, and a view of the city—contained framed photos of Mulaney and his wife, actor Olivia Munn. Rather than going for topical humor in the monologue (though he made one solid Luigi Mangione joke), he veered toward the personal....Thankfully, opening up about his personal life didn’t stop Mulaney from doing what he does best: telling jokes, and edgy ones at that."
Everybody's Live picks up where Everybody's in L.A. left off (https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/john-mulaney/chaos-reigns-on-everybodys-live-with-john-mulaney): "Everybody’s Live’s spark comes from the tension between that warm, welcoming atmosphere and the barely-constrained chaos of its production," says Garrett Martin. "Guests don’t always gel, the celebrities don’t always have anything interesting to say about the night’s topic, the expert tries to relay facts while the famous people around them barely pay attention, comedians try to get their jokes in, and Mulaney intentionally keeps everybody off-balance, routinely jumping from guest to guest with unexpected questions, abruptly cutting to pretaped segments, or patching in live callers who nominally have something to say on the topic. (The live calls would be the first thing dropped from the show if it had any other host and aired on any other network.) In last night’s monologue Mulaney joked that a show like this is the only way to get his heart rate up now that he’s famously clean and sober, and he takes palpable delight in a format that bucks the tightly regimented structure usually enforced by the TV industry."
Whatever Everybody's Live sacrificed in looking a skosh more coherently produced, it gained in looking more comfortable with its quirks (https://latenighter.com/features/mulaney-meets-the-moment-on-netflixs-everybodys-live/): "It didn’t look like it was straining to re-invent the format; it mostly looked like a rearrangement of the atoms," says Bill Carter. "A little Letterman here, a little Conan there, a notable strain of SNL, mixed with Donahue taking live calls and Suze Orman telling you how to spend your money. The genre familiarity worked to ease a viewer through the slightly bent, consistently appealing style. Mulaney possesses every element needed for a strong late-night host: charm, charisma, playfulness. Most importantly, he can be counted on to be funny."
Everybody's Live is eerily similar to Everybody's in L.A. (https://www.thewrap.com/everybodys-live-with-john-mulaney-review-netflix/): "Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney is an odd duck of an interview show that could either redefine the way viewers consume late night television or just another of Netflix’s iffy experiments to bring live content to subscribers," says Matthew Creith. "Mulaney leans heavily on his relationships with former Saturday Night Live colleagues like (Fred) Armisen and Tracy Morgan, the latter appearing on tonight’s episode as a fictional African leader named King Latifah. Like Graham Norton, Mulaney delights in bringing on a mixture of guests to regale his audience with humorous stories from their past, but the other segments simply don’t land as much as the host wishes they would. Much like Everybody’s in L.A., the whacky approach that Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney takes is an acquired taste that ignores its studio audience by relishing in its own absurdity."
It's okay that John Mulaney dialed down the weirdness of Everybody's in L.A. (https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/john-mulaney-live-netflix-show-review-1235103317/): "Having a loose housing for Mulaney’s eccentric ideas served Everybody’s in L.A. quite well, and losing the city as a centerpiece for Everybody’s Live suggested the new series could be broadening out," says Ben Travers. "After all, this isn’t a limited week-long run anymore. This is a 12-episode order. A full season. A new series. And with an extremely popular comedian at the helm, Netflix executives undoubtedly see an opportunity to attract a wide audience — one more shot at reinventing the late-night talk show for the streaming age, a la Chelsea, The Break with Michele Wolf, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, and others. So if dialing back the weird a little means dialing up the viewership (and keeping Mulaney around, season after season), why not give it a go?"
John Mulaney brought back his entire Everybody's in L.A. writing staff and added two more writers for Everybody's Live (https://latenighter.com/news/everybodys-live-ups-two-writers-adds-two-others/)
Joan Baez derailed Everybody's Live's first show by attacking President Trump (https://www.cracked.com/article_45844_joan-baez-delightfully-derails-first-night-of-everybodys-live-with-john-mulaney.html)
"There were lots of moments when it seemed like Mulaney was trying hard to deconstruct all the tropes we have come to expect from traditional talk shows – from the chummy announcer/sidekick to calls from viewers, just like the phone-ins venerated CNN host Larry King featured," says Eric Deggans of Mulaney's new weekly Netflix variety series. "But the offhand, randomly eccentric vibe distilled in Mulaney's debut Wednesday didn't feel so much like a bold reinvention of talk shows as an uncomfortable middle ground between parody and mimicry. And instead of lending an air of danger or anything-can-happen excitement, the show's live element just added an overarching pressure which seemed to stifle the proceedings rather than elevate them. A lot of the show's vibe was first revealed in Netflix's six-night experiment last year, John Mulaney Presents: Everybody's in L.A.: the roomy set with ornate doors for guests, announcer/onstage foil Richard Kind, appearances by the autonomous delivery drone Saymo and the spot-on choice of theme music, Wang Chung's 1985 hit To Live and Die in L.A. But while last year's debut was an entertaining jumble of esoteric ideas – kicked off with a masterful monologue on the absurdity of Los Angeles – the first episode of Everybody's Live on Wednesday felt a bit more aimless."
ALSO:
Thankfully, Everybody's Live didn't stray too much from Everybody's in L.A. (https://variety.com/2025/tv/reviews/john-mulaney-netflix-review-everybodys-live-1236335973/): "The ‘70s-inspired set on a Hollywood soundstage proved a metaphor for the transition from one-off experiment to a three-month run of a dozen weekly episodes: mostly the same, with minor tweaks only apparent to a small subset of nerdy aficionados," says Alison Herman. "That’s great news for fans like myself, having named Everybody’s in LA one of the best shows of last year in my annual roundup. It’s nonetheless surprising how non-expository Wednesday’s technical debut was. The presence of Saymo the delivery robot, for example, went unexplained. Mulaney’s four-wheeled friend needed no introduction for those who watched the bug-eyed apparatus develop into a full-fledged character last spring, but neophytes dropping in on a major launch from a worldwide streamer may have been left scratching their heads. Mulaney may have cracked that the name change came after focus groups showed audiences didn’t like LA, but nothing else about the show felt focus-grouped or planned with mass appeal in mind."
Everybody's Live's first episode was marred by subpar execution (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/everybodys-live-with-john-mulaney-needs-some-work): "The first show was a bit of an awkward mess—not that he seemed too concerned about it," says Chris Murphy. "Wearing a maroon blazer and shirt, Mulaney came out to deliver the monologue while inexplicably holding a clipboard. As the show went on, it became clear that he was crossing things off along the way—suggesting that the clipboard provided some type of road map for the show." Murphy adds: "Though his attitude was decidedly laissez-faire, Mulaney really did seem to be opening up, letting us into his life and his (pretend) home. The show’s warm and comfortable set—modeled after a Los Angeles living room with a grand piano, a telescope, and a view of the city—contained framed photos of Mulaney and his wife, actor Olivia Munn. Rather than going for topical humor in the monologue (though he made one solid Luigi Mangione joke), he veered toward the personal....Thankfully, opening up about his personal life didn’t stop Mulaney from doing what he does best: telling jokes, and edgy ones at that."
Everybody's Live picks up where Everybody's in L.A. left off (https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/john-mulaney/chaos-reigns-on-everybodys-live-with-john-mulaney): "Everybody’s Live’s spark comes from the tension between that warm, welcoming atmosphere and the barely-constrained chaos of its production," says Garrett Martin. "Guests don’t always gel, the celebrities don’t always have anything interesting to say about the night’s topic, the expert tries to relay facts while the famous people around them barely pay attention, comedians try to get their jokes in, and Mulaney intentionally keeps everybody off-balance, routinely jumping from guest to guest with unexpected questions, abruptly cutting to pretaped segments, or patching in live callers who nominally have something to say on the topic. (The live calls would be the first thing dropped from the show if it had any other host and aired on any other network.) In last night’s monologue Mulaney joked that a show like this is the only way to get his heart rate up now that he’s famously clean and sober, and he takes palpable delight in a format that bucks the tightly regimented structure usually enforced by the TV industry."
Whatever Everybody's Live sacrificed in looking a skosh more coherently produced, it gained in looking more comfortable with its quirks (https://latenighter.com/features/mulaney-meets-the-moment-on-netflixs-everybodys-live/): "It didn’t look like it was straining to re-invent the format; it mostly looked like a rearrangement of the atoms," says Bill Carter. "A little Letterman here, a little Conan there, a notable strain of SNL, mixed with Donahue taking live calls and Suze Orman telling you how to spend your money. The genre familiarity worked to ease a viewer through the slightly bent, consistently appealing style. Mulaney possesses every element needed for a strong late-night host: charm, charisma, playfulness. Most importantly, he can be counted on to be funny."
Everybody's Live is eerily similar to Everybody's in L.A. (https://www.thewrap.com/everybodys-live-with-john-mulaney-review-netflix/): "Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney is an odd duck of an interview show that could either redefine the way viewers consume late night television or just another of Netflix’s iffy experiments to bring live content to subscribers," says Matthew Creith. "Mulaney leans heavily on his relationships with former Saturday Night Live colleagues like (Fred) Armisen and Tracy Morgan, the latter appearing on tonight’s episode as a fictional African leader named King Latifah. Like Graham Norton, Mulaney delights in bringing on a mixture of guests to regale his audience with humorous stories from their past, but the other segments simply don’t land as much as the host wishes they would. Much like Everybody’s in L.A., the whacky approach that Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney takes is an acquired taste that ignores its studio audience by relishing in its own absurdity."
It's okay that John Mulaney dialed down the weirdness of Everybody's in L.A. (https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/john-mulaney-live-netflix-show-review-1235103317/): "Having a loose housing for Mulaney’s eccentric ideas served Everybody’s in L.A. quite well, and losing the city as a centerpiece for Everybody’s Live suggested the new series could be broadening out," says Ben Travers. "After all, this isn’t a limited week-long run anymore. This is a 12-episode order. A full season. A new series. And with an extremely popular comedian at the helm, Netflix executives undoubtedly see an opportunity to attract a wide audience — one more shot at reinventing the late-night talk show for the streaming age, a la Chelsea, The Break with Michele Wolf, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, and others. So if dialing back the weird a little means dialing up the viewership (and keeping Mulaney around, season after season), why not give it a go?"
John Mulaney brought back his entire Everybody's in L.A. writing staff and added two more writers for Everybody's Live (https://latenighter.com/news/everybodys-live-ups-two-writers-adds-two-others/)
Joan Baez derailed Everybody's Live's first show by attacking President Trump (https://www.cracked.com/article_45844_joan-baez-delightfully-derails-first-night-of-everybodys-live-with-john-mulaney.html)