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“Mulaney” isn't super-coarse by 2014 sitcom standards, but both the “Problem Bitch” running gag and another one in the pilot about John getting a proctology exam tend to lean on the easiest variations of the dirty jokes provided by their respective contexts.Īnd whatever confidence and professional ease Mulaney has in the stand-up segments unfortunately vanishes the second he's placed in a scene with his co-stars. I love it as much as the next guy when Susie on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” starts swearing a blue streak, or when “New Girl” gets as filthy as it gets, but I try to imagine what an episode like “The Contest” would have been like if Larry David had been allowed to use the word “masturbate,” and I suspect it wouldn't have been as much fun. (**) This is a more general thought on modern sitcoms than on “Mulaney” itself, but one of the things we've lost as content restrictions have eased is the creative approach older comedies so often had to take to deal with raunchier subjects. I haven't seen that pilot and can't speak to its quality, but the finished result is a lot like what NBC did to “Bad Judge”: it takes away a clear core idea that some executives may have been nervous about, and adds nothing in its place. (*) The NBC version of “Mulaney” actually had a premise: John wakes up after his latest alcoholic blackout and decides to give up drinking and become a better man. It goes through various moves because that's what's expected of it, fumbling around for a point in much the same way that Motif spends the pilot episode struggling to craft a joke to justify the punchline “Problem Bitch,” about which he has already begun to sell tie-in t-shirts(**). It's a show about nothing, with nothing to say about that(*). Though Mulaney the stand-up has a clear point of view, “Mulaney” the sitcom does not. “Seinfeld” famously described itself as “a show about nothing,” but it had a very specific and funny point of view about the minutiae of life, and in time developed a classic structure where the episode's various storylines would converge to make the whole stronger than the sum of its parts. The rest of the ensemble includes Elliott Gould (a classic host of a very different era of “SNL”) as flamboyant neighbor Oscar, and – because it is mandatory for every new sitcom this season to feature an obnoxious bearded friend character who is often large and/or ginger – Zack Pearlman as Mulaney's weed dealer Andre. The sitcom version of Mulaney lives with fellow comedian Motif (Seaton Smith) and longtime friend Jane (fellow “SNL” alum Nasim Pedrad), and supplements his income by working for egomaniacal game show host Lou Cannon (Martin Short, who himself spent a season at Studio 8H). These monologues – shot on the show's darkened main apartment set, not even bothering with the pretense that he's doing it at a club – are by far the highlight of each episode, demonstrating an agile comic mind and a level of on-camera comfort that's unfortunately not present for so much of the show that follows them. It's an unfortunate reminder that the multi-cam format is an unforgiving beast that can swallow you whole if you aren't constantly feeding it jokes – no matter how good or bad those jokes may be, and the jokes on “Mulaney” almost all fall into the latter category.Īs in “Seinfeld,” Mulaney plays a less successful version of himself, and each episode opens with him performing a stand-up routine that will then inform the story that follows. In practice, though, “Mulaney” (it debuts Sunday at 9:30 p.m.) is fairly dire.
It makes all the sense in the world on paper. For many of the same reasons, I was rooting for the show during its long journey from development at NBC to redevelopment at FOX.
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A lot of very smart and funny people who work in the TV comedy business are rooting for FOX's “Mulaney” to succeed for two reasons:ġ)Star and creator John Mulaney is both a terrific stand-up comic and writer (at “SNL,” he was responsible for making Bill Hader crack up at least once during every Stefon appearance) andĢ)This gifted comedian and writer is concentrating his energy on making a traditional multi-camera sitcom, shot on a stage in front of a live audience – a format no one but CBS succeeds with anymore, even though many of us still have fond memories of “Cheers,” “The Cosby Show,” “Friends” and, yes, “Seinfeld,” which is the inescapable structural model for “Mulaney.”Ĭomedy people want John Mulaney to succeed, and they want “Mulaney” to prove that someone other than Chuck Lorre can still make a good and popular multi-cam show.
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