Anyone watch Fox's Mulaney starring John Mulaney?

Cafe Society
1

I like John Mulaney’s standup act so wen I heard he was doing a sitcom I was excited to see it.

I’ve watched a handful of episodes and I’m disappointed. I like the cast (Mulaney, Nasim Pedrad, Seaton Smith, Elliot Gould, Martin Short!), and there’s occasionally a decent premise (the black guy who had never heard of Friends before gets obsessed with it), but it almost feels like a parody of Seinfeld—actually it seems a bit like Jerry, Seinfeld’s show-within-a show.

Are they acting badly on purpose?

Anone else watch this?

2

I tried watching an episode just to see if it was as bad as everyone was saying. It was.

I’ve seen Mulaney live and he’s a top-notch stand-up. No reason why that should translate into being an actor. Someone should give him a talk show.

3

I do like his stand up work but I haven’t seen the show. sounds like it’s something to avoid. My sister got a kick out of his bit about Ice-T on Law & Order:SVU.

to quote the late Mitch Hedberg:

“When you’re in Hollywood and you’re a comedian, everybody wants you to do things besides comedy. They say, ‘OK, you’re a stand-up comedian – can you act? Can you write? Write us a script?’… It’s as though if I were a cook and I worked my ass off to become a good cook, they said, ‘All right, you’re a cook – can you farm?’”

4

I’ve watched parts of a couple of episodes, and found it completely unfunny. It wasn’t the bad acting so much as the horrible writing.

I also found it hard to get past the aging queen in purple across the hall. I thought culturally we were sort of beyond that kind of stereotype, but maybe I’m just hyper-sensitive.

5

Not always “Hollywood’s” fault. Seems like there are comedians (e.g., Steve Martin) who are determine to be Taken Seriously. Usually crap results.

6

You’re not the only one. He is horrifying.

Martin Short’s character isn’t terrible, but he’s not straying too terribly far from the typical Martin Short character, so I think we can credit Short for that.

I’ve never seen Mulaney’s standup, beyond the bits from the promos and the two or three episodes of the show I actually sat through, so I’m surprised at people saying he’s good. He managed to get a chuckle from me once in those bits. What quality exists in his regular standup that’s disappearing from the show? Are they using his sub-par material? Does the format screw up his stage presence?

7

I watched about 30 seconds of the premiere episode, and that was all it took for me to make a decision to deliberately avoid watching any more of this show ever.

8

They use some of the same jokes from his most famous standup special, but they just don’t work in the context of the show, as Seinfeld-like bumpers to the sitcom.

His standup personality really is engaging, and I can listen to him talking for an hour or two, but it doesn’t translate into sitcom form.

I think a lot about standup—especially modern standup—is that it isn’t just a series of jokes that you can chop up into individual bits and use them out of context. You have to let the comedian work up to the jokes.

To me, standup is like hanging out with a clever friend, so that’s the context in which it works.