Everybody’s Bored
Our family loves John Mulaney’s comedy. We quote him regularly, and middle child actually does a pretty solid impersonation. We’ve seen him live. And we got a real kick out of the week-long Everybody’s in L.A. series on Netflix. A lot of people did—so many that Netflix returned to that well and created a weekly live talk show in the same format.
We’re what? Three weeks into Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney. And… it’s a mess.
The fundamental problem is that it is trying to do too much in too little time. Mulaney has about four guests per episode (three celebrities and an expert that barely gets any attention or input), plus a guest band (or two), plus he’s got Richard Kind (who is a treasure) to feed and care for. And then there are pre-taped segments. And then there are conversations with callers. And he’s supposed to manage all this in a scant hour.
- We get a long title sequence set to Wang Chung
- Richard Kind introduces John Mulaney
- Mulaney does a sort of monologue intro
- A filmed segment
- Two guests appear but there’s only a little bit of banter before we jump into calls
- Two more guests appear but there’s even less banter before we continue with calls
- Saymo brings drinks to everyone
- More filmed content
- More calls
- A band
Or something like that.
The weakest link are the calls. They’re sometimes hard to decipher, they go on too long, and I’d much rather hear from the guests, who overall often have almost no chance to say anything. Mulaney doesn’t seem to know how to host the kind of panel that gives everyone a chance for input. He seems even less sure of what to do with the experts, who generally just sit there (in the farthest chair) and end up listening rather than saying much.
I’m sure the show is getting great ratings regardless, but it’s pretty flat in my opinion. The pre-taped segments aren’t as funny as whoever planned them thinks they are. Instead of live calls, a chat might be better—like the ones on YouTube, where a PA can push the most interesting comments to the host for remarks. Then, instead of trying to dial, viewers can at least interact that way. They’d be able to ask questions that might be chosen for the host and/or guests to answer.
Mulaney is still funny, but this setting doesn’t showcase his best facets. Richard Kind seems more comfortable with it than does Mulaney. That might be about experience, but I think, too, the ratios of content for this live talk show are off. Like one of those salad shakers… Remember those? This show needs a good shake (and maybe a slight change of ingredients).