John Mulaney returns to Netflix tonight with what can legitimately be called a next generation late-night show.
For starters, his show is being streamed not just nationally but globally, and it can be seen live everywhere someone has plunked down coin to subscribe to Netflix.
That means 10pm in New York, 7pm where it’s being performed in L.A., and 5am in Mogadishu, if any Netflix subscribers are resident there. (Only $7.99 a month in Somalia, a bargain.)
For those who keep to the strict TV time period definition of “late night,” the show starts at 11pm in Bermuda.
The first season of Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney is set for a 12-week run on Wednesday nights, and is expected to substantially resemble Everybody’s in L.A., the weeklong “pop-up” talk show Mulaney brought to Netflix last May.
That run qualified as experimental, as well as experiential, because it hued to only a few of the basic late-night structures.
It did have a monologue of sorts, depending on whether Mulaney had one prepared. It had couch-and-chair seating for its host and his guests, but a coffee table in lieu of desk.
It had pre-taped segments, some funny, some not-so-much. It had celebrity guests, all of whom seemed game even if at times they also seemed utterly confused. And it had an announcer/sidekick, Richard Kind, who came off as having a genuine rapport with the host (not always a given).
Beyond that, it was shaggy, shambolic, and, in the eyes of many viewers and critics, pretty shabulous.
There was a message in that reaction that Netflix was wise enough not to ignore: If you are going to try to enter the late-night field in this many-splintered era of television and American culture, shambolic is pretty original.
Mulaney and his producers have clearly embraced a number of adjectives that described that first series: unconventional, unexpected, a little unprepared.
In the first trailer for the new series (below), Mulaney is seen standing in a parking lot, next to a nondescript vintage sedan with driver’s door open, being zoomed into from what looks like the rooftop next door and asking if he’s going to be cued when the shot is tight enough for him to say, “Everybody’s Live is on Wednesday’s live.”
And then breaking down the mechanics of what they just shot, as though no longer on camera. As a viewer, we’re left to wonder: was it planned that way or not?
In some ways, the approach resembles the misdirection toward incompetence that was always a feature of Conan O’Brien in late night. But there was usually some overt gag involved then.
Here the gaglessness is the gag. It is less the “conceptual humor” pioneered by David Letterman and O’Brien than it is just “conceptual” all by itself. A bit like a New Yorker cartoon which one looks at for a while before showing it to a friend and asking, “Do you get this?”
Mulaney can attempt this because his fans get him in a big way. He began making a name for himself as a hot writer on Saturday Night Live before becoming a nova-hot stand-up himself. Subsequent hosting gigs at SNL cemented his status as an original comic voice, confidently coming at you from several degrees east or west of center.
His SNL musical sketches—Lobster Diner, especially—have attained iconic status, validated by an original rendition on the show’s 50th anniversary special last month.
In the network-centric era of television, Mulaney’s name would have been bruited about relentlessly as a potential future late-night host, not just for his comedy chops but also his facial chops. He has the puckish, boyish look and demeanor that used to make network executives imagine new in-Carson-ations of Johnny, the King.
Seems likely Mulaney could still pull that off if he wanted to try.
Instead, he seems more interested in reaching for what might be on the other side of late-night moon.
In his own official mission-statement, Mulaney says Everybody‘s Live will never be relevant, nor a source for news.
And yet, in the show’s week-long run last year I learned a few things about palm trees and coyotes.
Based on the guests joining Mulaney for tonight’s premiere, it seems we can expect more of the same. Yes, Michael Keaton, Joan Baez, and Fred Armisen will be there. And yes, Cypress Hill will perform. But joining them will also be Jessica Roy, personal finance columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle Isn’t there a chance she may say something relevant?
That was one feature of the original run, having an “expert” on to discuss some matter of substance.
And why not? The show wants to be the free-verse edition of late night.
What really feels most original about the show, even more than the atmosphere of getting lost in the forest, is completely a throwback: the show is live, honestly live.
Among the current polished, and still quality, entrants in the late-night field, this feels new, even though Steve Allen was doing it seventy years ago. (Check out the first Tonight show sometime. Allen is literally reading what he’s going to do next off a yellow legal pad.)
Somehow that has evolved into shows that often stop mid-tape for re-dos of mistakes, or even tape interview segments nights (and sometimes weeks) before and then introduce the guests as though they are appearing the same night as the topical monologue.
Still entertaining, just not so… je ne sais quoi? Energized? Unpredictable? Dangerous?
Everybody’s Live is wearing its ethos in its title.
The message: Here’s a big new meal being served up in late night. It may get a little sloppy sometimes.
Bring a napkin.
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