John Mulaney Baby J is the latest and third Netflix comedy special from the actor & comedian, released on 25th April 2023. His previous specials were massive hits and among them, Kid Gorgeous (2018) even won him an Emmy award for outstanding writing for a variety special. Hoping to continue the same streak, Mulaney decides to share all about his recent life developments with a packed audience at Boston’s Symphony Hall.
It is directed by Alex Timbers, who also directed and executive produced the 2018 standup and the music is given by singer and songwriter David Byrne, who even appeared in The Sack Lunch Bunch. It has a runtime of about 1 hour and 20 minutes.
5 Funniest Moments From John Mulaney Baby J
Things John Mulaney Did For Attention as a Kid
The comedian started his set with some stories from his childhood, how his elder siblings told him that he was adopted & his real mother was actually killed by Miss America. But that’s not the funny bit, Mulaney as a kid thought that the Statue of Liberty was actually Miss America and would gasp whenever anyone mentioned it. Along with it, he shared how he was an attention seeker and that made him think of many things that shouldn’t be going on in a kid’s mind.
His bit about feeling jealous of his classmate whose grandparents just died is hesitantly hilarious but soon takes a dark turn, when he expresses how he wished one of his grandparents to die as well, so he could get the sympathy & attention. To top it all, to decide which one to kill is like treading on a very fine line but he takes the challenge & wraps it up brilliantly.
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Song About Recent Turbulent Years
After sharing his dark childhood thoughts, the comedian comes back to the present and breaks into a song which starts normally, but soon addresses the things one might have been looking forward to hearing. At first, he asks the audience to smile and lower the mask, sounding like an old commercial then it goes like this – We all quarantined, we all went to rehab and we all got divorced, and now our reputation is different; No one knows what to think!
For all that matters, he addresses the elephant in the room without whining or putting the blame on the other & audience seems to like it as well.
Star-Studded Drug Intervention
The drug intervention held by Mulaney’s friends like Seth Myers, Nick Kroll and many others over the Zoom call and person, forms the major chunk of the whole show. He points out how it was the best comedian line-up yet nobody cracked one joke. In fact, the buildup till he even reached his secret intervention was full of ups & down that make you wonder, how did he reach the supposed ‘dinner’ in one piece.
He shares how he reached 2 hours late and decided to run all the errands like getting a haircut at SNL’s hair department, just before that. But I would say the decision to get a haircut was a good idea, considering he was looking the best in the room full of stars, in the midst of the pandemic. Also, how he was admitted to the rehab the same day. Later in the set, he funnily reveals that he anticipated people to recognise him & talk about him but safe to say, nobody recognised him, which might have hurt the comedian’s attention-seeking self.
Call With Pete Davidson From Rehab
While people at the rehab might not have recognised him, he did give some fodder for gossip to the nurses there. After being put down to sleep with much struggle, Mulaney was jerked out of his slumber because apparently ‘Al Pacino’ was calling him constantly. Revealing the back story behind it, he says that Pete Davidson was also supposed to be at his intervention but being out of town, he called him up as soon as he came back.
However, it’s known that Davidson changes his phone number after every few months & after saving endless Pete’s, John decided to save his number with big celebrity names for his own fun, thus ‘Al Pacino’. However, the nurse believed that he was talking to the Oscar-winning actor who seem to blame himself for John’s drug problem. Well, all the misunderstandings will now be cleared.
GQ Interview He Had No Recollection Of
Towards the end of the show, the comedian brought out his own interview with GQ magazine, which was given just two days before his admission to rehab. If you haven’t already read the interview then his answers that he iterates on stage might make you wonder if it actually happened. It clearly shows how Mulaney was so out of touch with reality and the intervention really did save his life. And now it makes for a good hilarious story to tell.
John Mulaney: Baby J is currently streaming on Netflix.
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