Surely, you’ve heard by now: Netflix’s Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney is the future of late-night television.
And yet the show’s own future is uncertain.
Though it was thought to have originally been picked up for two twelve-episode seasons, Mulaney has been noncommittal, deflecting questions about a second season.
That may seem unusual (and it is), but Everybody’s Live was already conspicuously different in almost every way from the standard late-night talk show. Odd/original is the show’s brand, and could fairly be called its charm.
One thing’s for sure: Mulaney and his show are deeply appreciated and admired by at least one executive at Netflix. Robbie Praw, the vice president of stand-up and comedy formats at that streaming service, is unabashed in his enthusiasm.
“Every Wednesday for the last 12 weeks has been my favorite Wednesday,” Praw tells LateNighter. “I think John is absolutely brilliant.”
Still, asked whether we can expect to see more Everybody’s Live, Praw says, “I have nothing to elaborate on at this time.”
As he points out, Mulaney is “an extremely, extremely busy man.” The father of two young children, the comic recently announced a massive stand-up tour, and a high-profile movie role in a David O. Russell film about the life of the famed NFL coach and later announcer John Madden alongside Nicholas Cage and Christian Bale is all but official.
That’s not the dance card of your traditional stand-up comedian-turned-late-night host.
But the comedy world is now a vastly different place, with different ambitions and opportunities. “It used to be that you would do stand-up to get your late-night show, to get your sitcom,” Praw says.
Now, as he points out, stand-ups fill giant arenas and make staggering paydays. The top stand-ups don’t really need to curtail that career for other projects. In fact, at least one top comic is curtailing her own late-night show to focus on stand-up.
So it’s not a sure thing that Mulaney will return to Everybody’s Live next year.
One reason that would be seriously disappointing is that watching Mulaney innovate as he went along this season was both entertaining and exciting, with the buzz around the show giving late night in general a much-needed shot in the arm.
“What’s incredible to me about John is how quickly we saw the evolution of the show,” Praw says. “To put on a program that feels that different from show one to show twelve? In the old world of late night, that would be what? Two and a half weeks? I can’t really envision who else could pull that off the way John did.”
Mulaney was butting up against what seems a natural, intractable impediment: taking on late night, with its three-quarters of a century predilection for topical, on-the-news comedy, in the decidedly un-topical medium of streaming programming.
Netflix itself recognized that challenge. Praw says: “I mean, we’re calling it late night, but it’s on streaming. So, it’s available all the time. So, it really, to me, seems like it’s a hybrid. It’s a talk show. Part of it feels like SNL-y. I mean, he wrestled 14-year-olds. That feels Andy Kaufman-y. He did the height bit the night Letterman was on. That felt Letterman-y.”
Certainly, one element felt very much like a late-night talk show: The opening monologue. But as Praw points out, Mulaney’s approach to that was different, too.
“The fact that he was doing these 10-to-12-minute, not-topical monologues, and that they are as strong as they are, is something most folks don’t understand, the level of difference and special-ness you have to have to achieve that.”
One reason for the show’s special-ness and its deviations from form is that it was Mulaney who came to Netflix with the format. Netflix wasn’t pursuing a specific idea for a late-night show. Nor was the idea of producing the show “live around the world” necessarily a strategy to differentiate the show, Praw says.
“To be honest, I don’t think it’s the thing that makes the show great, personally.” Praw says. “It’s certainly exciting that it’s live in that moment. But it really stands out as a great variety hour either way, and that’s how a lot of our members engage with it.”
If there is a silver lining to the possibility that this could be the end for Everybody’s Live, perhaps it’s that. Whether or not there’s more coming, at least the show’s existing twelve episodes have a shelf life longer than the traditional late-night talk show. Stay tuned.
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