I haven't seen this yet, so if it turns out to suck, well.....tough poopie!!!




 

John Mulaney is in the Netflix spotlight at the moment.  He's doing some kind of experimental talk show - Everybody's in LA - which will only run for a week (through to this Friday), but is packed with celebrity guests and little weird moments like a coyote lookout, celebrating the late-night automated beverage robots being literally rolled out in the city, Ray J looking frightened that Mulaney might mention the Kim Kardasian tape at any moment, George Wallace discovering a lemon tree, and Will Ferrell playing Lou Adler offering to knock Mulaney off the wagon, "I can get you pills".  Not bad for an hour's entertainment.  Mulaney also offers a segment on LA geography, which I found helpful.  LA has always been too sprawling for me to get more than a passing grasp on its intricate layout beyond the very basics - the Valley, the Beach, the Hills, etc.  And although Mulaney looks uninterested in making such a show his main gig, he here displays an easy and charming affectation ("arguably handsome") that would be a welcome alternative to the more effusive (ie, "phony") affections of the Fallon/Corden types of late.  It'd be nice to see a wryness return to late night comedy.

Tying into a beef from my review of Unfrosted, it is a shame that some critics are trying to knock the first episode simply because the first guest was Jerry Seinfeld, the latest persona non grata in our totally not a cancel culture.  Seinfeld himself also made fun of his recent media oversaturation, promoting his new film, while appearing on SNL, where he also attracted critical scorn for showing up at all.  (As if he's so toxic people stopped paying attention to Dua Lipa's leather and thighs?  Not bloody likely!)

John Mulaney also sat down for a stand-alone episode of David Letterman's intermittent talk show on Netflix, which is also quite entertaining, with Mulaney frightening Dave with his LSD tales.  More promising is we learn that Mulaney is already deep at work crafting his next hour of stand-up material.
 

Jinnistan wrote:

John Mulaney is in the Netflix spotlight at the moment.  He's doing some kind of experimental talk show - Everybody's in LA - which will only run for a week (through to this Friday), but is packed with celebrity guests and little weird moments like a coyote lookout, celebrating the late-night automated beverage robots being literally rolled out in the city, Ray J looking frightened that Mulaney might mention the Kim Kardasian tape at any moment, George Wallace discovering a lemon tree, and Will Ferrell playing Lou Adler offering to knock Mulaney off the wagon, "I can get you pills".  Not bad for an hour's entertainment.  Mulaney also offers a segment on LA geography, which I found helpful.  LA has always been too sprawling for me to get more than a passing grasp on its intricate layout beyond the very basics - the Valley, the Beach, the Hills, etc.  And although Mulaney looks uninterested in making such a show his main gig, he here displays an easy and charming affectation ("arguably handsome") that would be a welcome alternative to the more effusive (ie, "phony") affections of the Fallon/Corden types of late.  It'd be nice to see a wryness return to late night comedy.

Tying into a beef from my review of Unfrosted, it is a shame that some critics are trying to knock the first episode simply because the first guest was Jerry Seinfeld, the latest persona non grata in our totally not a cancel culture.  Seinfeld himself also made fun of his recent media oversaturation, promoting his new film, while appearing on SNL, where he also attracted critical scorn for showing up at all.  (As if he's so toxic people stopped paying attention to Dua Lipa's leather and thighs?  Not bloody likely!)

John Mulaney also sat down for a stand-alone episode of David Letterman's intermittent talk show on Netflix, which is also quite entertaining, with Mulaney frightening Dave with his LSD tales.  More promising is we learn that Mulaney is already deep at work crafting his next hour of stand-up material.
 

The guy has really rocketed near or actually to the top of my favorite current favorite stand ups. It's probably either him or Birbiglia. Maybe Burr.

Mulaney though is the kind of guy who seems like he could do just about anything. He's both an epic levelled craftsman, somehow blended with the unique perspective and idiosyncracies of a top shelf artist.

And he's just so irritatingly likeable.

They should give him all the shows.

I don't know what these critics are thinking.  I'm finding these John Mulaney episodes more delightful the weirder they get.  Sure, the "paranormal" show was technically a shitshow, but it was a lot more fun than Late Night With the Devil for example.  The only problem is with the occasional guest who brings nothing to the show - Tom Segura or Pete Davidson.  I like the baffled "real" guests.  I like the field pieces, more pointless the better.  It's all such an arbitrarily strange LA vibe. 

Hopefully the show will stick still be available to stream on Netflix after next week.  It's destined for cult classic status.
 

Bill Burr is almost always at his best when the reek of bullshit gets his ire up.

He's a fucking assassin. Even though at this point, all Bill Maher probably needs to knock him flat on his ass is any stupid fuck on Twitter. I'm seriously trying to think of anyone on earth who has a greater gap between their assumed and actual intelligence.
 

Strong stomachs. I couldn't take five minutes of it. I've always found Maher intolerable, but I never knew he was so inarticulate when he doesn't have a script. Burr seems to just be enduring Maher's claptrap. The prospect of sitting through over three hours of this aimlessness waiting for Burr's takedowns was too dreadful for me to bear. I assume Burr was compensated for the appearance, so I guess he was just kicking back, satisfied in the knowledge that he's getting paid to smoke a cigar in a comfortable chair fora few hours while putting up with only annoying halfwit. That must be a walk in the park compared to what he normally does for a living.

Jinnistan wrote:

Rampop II wrote:

The prospect of sitting through over three hours of this....

???  It's 98 minutes total.

Oh yeah, so it is. Damn my eyes.
"Ohh, what you must think of me." 
All the same, 98 minutes of Bill Mahr is still about 97 minutes too many for me. Sure, lots of that is Bill Burr, but I can see Bill Burr without having to marinate in Bill Mahr. Then I don't have to pretend to not taste the mayonnaise in my sandwich after scraping most of it off.
So, I skipped to the 1:06 mark. I'm not trying to be a buzzkill. By all means, enjoy it. Maybe I can enjoy it more if I take some Dramamine to stifle my convulsions before Mahr opens his mouth and all that pig shit starts spurting from it. Or maybe nitrous oxide... maybe my sense of humor is impaired. Mahr infuriates me. That shit he said at 1:06 infuriates me. I could move back to the South and socialize with ignorant racist rabble at any number of suitable places if I wanted to spend my hours listening to idiots spew evil shit like that. Seeing some star being adored for broadcasting lethal ignorance to the world just renders me hamstrung with bitterness, but hey, don't let me spoil the fun. I can join in with this much: Fuck Bill Mahr. We'd be better off without that gormless little ventriloquist dummy.

Jinnistan wrote:

Rampop II wrote:

I can see Bill Burr without having to marinate in Bill Mahr.

Go back a page and watch Burr's interview with Neil Brennan.

Rampop II wrote:

Seeing some star being adored for broadcasting lethal ignorance to the world just renders me hamstrung with bitterness, but hey, don't let me spoil the fun.

No one is adoring Maher here, least of all Burr.  The "fun" is watching Burr reveal Maher's ignorance, pettiness and superficiality directly to his face, and doing it casually enough that Maher doesn't appear to notice the insult.

Yes, but his fans adore him. He's a star. A dwarf, maybe, but a star nonetheless.
Burr looks exasperated. He's like the bored designated driver, rolling his eyes, babysitting the sot out of a sense of duty, hiding the keys and distracting him from trying to play grab–ass with the wait staff. "Stop talking like a general, Bill." 
Maher comes across like he has something pathologically wrong with him. It's as if there's nobody home. One of those "empty shell" personalities, having no true sense of self while remaining paradoxically self–absorbed nonetheless. He literally doesn't seem real. That's why I call him a ventriloquist dummy. As you say, he doesn't seem to notice the insult, which is subtly delivered in the form of insult comedy, giving Maher the option to grin it off, and I wonder if Maher would even notice more explicit insults. Narcissism knows no valid criticism. I've seen dog owners rub a dog's nose in their own feces in hopes of dissuading the dog from shitting in the house, but I'm not aware of it ever working. They don't seem to make the connection. Burr doesn't even push back that hard on Maher's "facts"; it's as if he knows there's no point trying to persuade a talking head on autopilot. One might as well argue with a tape loop. Burr's known enough of these assholes. He knows that when you argue with a lunatic, it makes two of you, and it's a safe bet that Maher's fans wouldn't be swayed either because most are either ready to go down with him hook-line-and-sinker, or they already know what a jackass he is. So Burr just rolls his eyes dismissively and smokes his cigar. Maher's body language is so desperate for Burr's validation. Burr's like, "That's a nice ashtray."
I made a typo in my earlier post when I wrote that Burr was "putting up with only annoying halfwit." I meant to write "only one annoying halfwit," because Burr interacts with throngs of drunken idiots on a regular basis when he's on tour. 
Anyway that's why I call Maher a ventriloquist dummy. Or a marionette. Nothing authentic comes out of his mouth, and he does look like a puppet. Maybe it's those little limbs and oversized head of his. 

One of the funnier unintentional laughs here is that watching these will likely cause your feed to get flooded with Robin DiAngelo lectures.






 

In case you haven't been following, Jon Stewart has been supplimenting his once-a-week Daily Show appearances with an hourly Weekly podcast, which mostly forgoes the comedy but goes more in-depth.

This week has an interesting revelation, as Jon opens by explaining that NBC has been barring their reporters from appearing on Stewart's show.  At best, perhaps, one could assume that this is merely about corporate propriety, trying to keep their "content" as in-house on Peacock as possible, but it wouldn't explain how I've seen Ari Melber, for example, on Bill Maher's non-NBC/Universal show recently.  Instead, it might more probably be about NBC not wanting to appear to co-sign on the kinds of subjects that Stewart is skewering.  Maybe Jon will have on the recently fired NBC reporter, Mehdi Hasan, and we can call it even.