Everybody’s in LA Team’s Favorite Segment Got Cut By Legal 

Did lawyers rob viewers of what might have been Everybody’s in LA’s best segment?

At a recent FYC event for the Netflix series, John Mulaney and the creative team behind the limited-run talk show recounted one segment that was left on the cutting room floor.

Asked by host Nick Kroll what their favorite pieces from the show were, writer Langston Kerman revealed that they had shot a tribute to L.A.’s many Kobe Bryant murals.

“My honest favorite piece didn’t make the cut,” he said. “[Writer] Fran [Gillespie] made it; it’s the most beautiful thing that I think I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“It’s a tribute to all of the Kobe murals around L.A.,” Mulaney explained. “There are 400… of varying quality.”

“It was a celebration of outsider art,” Gillespie added.

The highlight of the piece, according to Mulaney, is what the music would have been: an original song and music video by “Chocolate Rain” singer Tay Zonday titled “Glory in Murals, Champions Rise.”

Alas, the tribute couldn’t be cleared by the show’s legal team. “You can’t show [an outdoor mural] legally without compensating the muralist,” Mulaney explained. “We filmed, like, 100 murals. We just thought, ‘They’re on walls.’”

“They’ll let you do it as long as you make commentary,” co-executive producer David Ferguson clarified.

The team had envisioned the segment as more of a direct—but sensitive—parody of the lower-quality murals, which would have qualified as commentary. But the tone of the segment changed when they heard Zonday’s song.

“It was just sort of gorgeous,” Gillespie said. “And then we were like, ‘[The piece is] celebratory. It’s about how gorgeous the murals are.’”

According to the lawyers, that made the piece “no longer a parody,” opening the team up to potential lawsuits.

Mulaney also mentioned one argument that didn’t pass muster with the lawyers. “When [the muralists] put their name in the corner, you can’t go, ‘We had no idea who did it,’” he joked. “What did our lawyers call it? Due diligence.”

Thanks to those lawyers, the only thing fans can enjoy from the segment is a snippet of Zonday’s lyrics, as recited by Mulaney: “Glory in murals / champions rise / coming together / having good times.”