How does one bring something fresh to the late-night genre? According to John Mulaney, it seems the best way to go about it is to both embrace and ignore all that came before, but more importantly, to not get hung up on who you’re trying to appeal to today. In an industry that has become so beholden to algorithms, Mulaney believes the only way to cut through is to just not care about cutting through. Speaking in a recent interview with Vulture, the “Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney” host went into detail about what drives his creative process and his hopes for his wild, unwieldy talk show.
“Whether something’s good or people like it is so ephemeral,” said Mulaney. “If they could possibly predict it with data, they’d have more hits. I don’t mean Netflix. I mean everybody.”
And yet, considering that his show is on Netflix and they’re the ones who sign his paycheck and those of his entire staff, Mulaney does, at times, still have to deal with the normal bureaucracy of maintaining a weekly live show. While on air he may be able to cover for odd moments by “acting like we think it’s weird,” thereby cutting around any criticism he may receive later, he still doesn’t see doing a late night show in the way that Netflix always does. For instance, while Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert may try to adhere to a strict framing, Mulaney prefers a more meandering format between himself and announcer Richard Kind.
“I don’t see dead air enough. Everything’s so tight,” he said. “I just wanted Richard and I to have an exchange that is neither electric nor has a conclusion and sit in it.”
Unlike the hope for most late-night fare, Mulaney told Vulture “Everybody’s Live” isn’t trying to “stay on for 30 years.” This hasn’t exactly been welcome news to Netflix, whose notes on the show point to them not comprehending the purpose behind such a purposeless show. At one point, Mulaney had to explain to his writers room how executives were not on board with some of the choices they were making.
“‘This is not the show we sold,’” Mulaney said one of them told him. “It was great to see someone kind of apoplectic — like, Oh honey, do you know what you bought? And then they go, ‘We don’t even understand what this rundown means!’ I’m like, Yeah, you think you’ll feel better when I explain ‘telescope murder’? If I walk you through that it’s a ‘Body Double’ parody, you’ll feel better about the spend?”
One exec even incorrectly referred to one of the show’s first guests, the legendary Joan Baez, as Jo Ann Baez, signaling to Mulaney that when it comes to popular culture, these people may have even less of an understanding than he does.
“The show’s not good, guys,” Mulaney said he ultimately told Netflix. “That’s the thing about the show, is it’s not like, Oh, this is awesome! It’s great, but it’s not good.”
“Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney” stream live every Wednesday at 7pm PT on Netflix.
