"John Mulaney"

Hello, friends. Jason here.

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Smart.

Smart.

Smart. Smart.
Less. Smart.
Less. Smart.
Less. Listen, I just want to say this, Jay, because I haven't until now.
I think it's so brave for you to, with your eyewear to go Sally,

Jessie,

Raphael,

because I love the look.

For me,

I love it.

Sally,

Jessie would be a red.

Yeah,

this is a black.

But those do look like

the same shape.

The same shape.

Yeah,

they are the same shape.

Wait,

am I usually wearing

a different pair of glasses?

I don't know,

but for some reason,

for some reason today,

those look a little more

casting you in a different light

they're casting you in a different role

well maybe it's because I'm suffering

deeply from COVID, maybe that's

what you're seeing Will, you don't have it

why don't you have a little bit more sympathy for me because I'm

lousy with COVID, do you really have it?

yeah, but I didn't cancel

today, I'm gonna fight

through and I'm going to do a great session. Wait, do you feel like shit? No, I'm on day six.
So I'm still testing positive, but the symptoms are all but gone. I don't know if you can.
I still sound a little kind of 1993 Sunday morning, you know, a little backed up, a little schnitzy. Yeah.
So you've had to tough it out there at your house. It's not that tough.
I've been very old goo shack. I'm feeling.
Is that what we're calling it? The goose shack? The goo shack. The goo.
Oh, the goo. Oh, that's right.
Chronic masturbator, apparently. Okay, can I tell you that you want to hear a funny story?

Sorry, let me just close the COVID loop for one second.

Okay, yeah, go ahead.

And let me say thank you to all the geniuses that developed this vaccine.

Because I could tell that this is, I've had a pretty minor thing, you know,

but were it not for the vaccine, I could tell this would not just be a cold.

This would be, there's a little engine in this thing that the vaccine neutralizes pretty well. So thank you to the smart folks in the world, the scientists and whatnot.
So. You're welcome.
Well, yeah. Sean and I, from the bottom of both of our hearts, you're welcome.
Dark, cold hearts. What were you going to say, Will? So there's'm where i'm i currently am and i'm gonna let's just keep it anonymous because i don't want to but there's a there's a certain um chain department store um nearby here one of the people on our crew he tells me that there is a on a certain app on his phone that's used for uh mail hookups uh-oh that the that the bathroom and changing room at this place has

Gloria holes. What's the address?

What's the address?

Wait, was there an S on the end of

hole? Holes.

So

I want to, can we double back to the

multiple holes? Because I got questions

but go ahead. For sure.
And so as we're

working on this show, I have worked it into virtually every aspect of hosting this thing. People talking about their Lego and their build, and this thing has a hole on it.
I go, somebody did a cruise ship. I said, you know, the only cruising I do is in the men's department over at blah, blah, blah.
And the contestants have no idea what I'm talking about. And all the crew are dying because everybody now knows about this.
Wait, who told you this? A guy that I work with who's on one of these apps for hooking up with other dudes. And he goes, guess what? You'll never believe.
Like less than a mile from here is a full hookup thing. Glory, plural, holes.
Right. At this place.
And I said, why wouldn't it just be hookup?

Why is it glory holes?

Like, is that a real thing?

And he said, yes.

That's like leftover from the 80s.

I didn't know that existed anymore.

So first of all, the general concept of the glory hole

is you can go ahead and you can put yourself in there

and see what you get kind of thing.

Or is it for those?

First of all, it depends on what side of it you're on. That's right.
I love that you guys are, you can ask me. Oh yeah, Sean, have you ever been to a glory hole? No.
But is the concept that you're too ashamed to have a face-to-face hookup and that you just want to put it in the mystery box? To be honest, I don't understand because the mystery box, you don't know what's on the other side. You don't know the age, the STD level of that person.
Then that was my next question. If you have multiple holes, and so I'm imagining that they vary in girth.
And so will that then tell you, A, where you sit in the whole scale of things, but also what you're hoping is on the other side? But see, I don't know if it's ever revealed. I don't think it's ever revealed.
It never gets revealed. Are we crafting a new reality show? We might be.
That there's a reveal on the other side of somebody? Will, aren't you just kind of... Oh, I want to go over there so bad.
Yeah, go over there with your iPhone and just photograph what these holes look like and maybe what sort of language there is on the wall. And then we're going to be like, we haven't heard from Will in two hours.
And the other thing is, I want to tell you, we drive by every morning. Like 7 a.m.
we drive every day. There's like a line in.
It's like the mayor, the local pastor, like all these people. They're all coming out of the shop.
Right, and they're all in there. And then the manager of the place is like, man, we got a line backed up here every day, but we do not move a lot of product as much.
But everybody, it just seems to everybody's all filled up before they come in here and they leave their empty. Or then they go, then they go in the dressing room and I guess nothing fits.
We got the wrong product. None of our product is fitting anybody.
That's hysterical. We haven't sold a shirt.
Can you imagine my delight when he told me this? Yes. When he told me that this was going on? By the way, does he frequent this place himself? No, he hasn't gone.
He hasn't gone, but that's what he says. That's what he says.
All right, well, you bring us back a video, would you? I will. I'll keep you guys posted.
Sorry, anyway. And then send it to me as well.
All right, so this is a perfect segue. Okay.
And to our guest. Okay.
Wow. I can best describe our guest today as that guy from that thing.
But truly, he's in everything. You may know him from SNL, which doesn't narrow it down much.
Although he's credited for co-creating Bill Hader's iconic character of Stefan. He's got not one, but three Netflix comedy specials.
He stars as a chipmunk in Chippendale Rescue Rangers on Disney+. Boy, does he make me laugh.
It's Mr. John Mulaney.
John Mulaney. Look at him.
Hey. John, what do you have to say about the whole glory hole thing before we wrap that up? Is it drywall? Good question.
Because I always thought it was the wall of a bathroom stall, which would be metal. Metal.
Right. Yeah, no, that's a separator.
That's for wide stance folks. It would have to be drywall, yeah.
Or plywood. Or plywood.
That's scarier. Yeah.
I've got to go check it out. I mean, obviously, I'm just obsessed with knowing the answer to all of this.
Sure. I just want to know what's written around it.
You know, like, usually somebody's really kind of really running their mouth there when they write shit on a separator, right? Between a stall. On a separator.
But you think maybe there'd be more grace and dignity to the glory hole where it's like,

there's no need to write crude things.

Some sort of encouraging line, you know?

The act itself is already.

No, because it's about love.

Yeah, and it's all love

and we're going to move through it with love.

Maybe it's a Washington Post thing.

Your truth dies in the darkness.

Go ahead and enter.

Something like that.

Yeah.

You don't need all the arrows and the innuendo

and the little limericks,

which are in poor taste. Yeah, let's not be childish.
We all know why we're here. It's a helmet on a helmet.
Do you think that there's like some ink hair, you know, like some drawing of some hair and stuff like that? Or is it just like a big smiley face? I'm sorry, Wes. Okay.
I could see if they have those screens you sometimes see in elevators that give you like the news. news.
You know, they give you, like, limited financial and entertainment news. In case you've got stamina.
Yeah, if you're standing there for a while, you want to know. What if it says something inspiring, like, you know, when the football players run through it, like Notre Dame, and there's something over the door.
If there's just something real inspiring over it. What would get you charged up, Will? What would you want to slap? Like, go, go, go? You know, I don't know.
Like, you know, go forth. Go get him? Yeah.
Go get him. Go get him.
You know, go bravely into the void or something. You know what I mean? Let me tell you something.
This is not the way we started our session with David Remnick. Okay? I can assure you that.
Mr. Mulaney, it is how you started

with Vivek Murthy,

I do believe.

It's almost the exact same banter,

which is a letter.

Very similar.

It's a major letter.

But that was more about

the dangers of a glory hole.

I know,

because he's got to be that guy.

He has to.

Mr. Mulaney,

thank you for being here today.

I'm very, very flattered

to be here.

I've listened to,

I think,

almost every episode

of this show.

No, no. Don't buy it.
Will you listen to your own? Absolutely, yeah. All right, good.
John Mulaney, I'm such a, and I think we all are such big fans. Your last Saturday Night Live was so, they're all great, but that last one was so fucking funny.
Your monologue was genius. I was like, it was so funny.
How do you find such comfort and such ease? Is it because you've been there so long? It is like home, right? It is a little bit like, yeah, it's like going back to school in a way. Because you fall right back into the same, like, fall back into the same insecurities and securities.
Right. And in terms of doing the monologue, it's so scary and it's so many people that it's laughable.
I think I get relaxed because if something went wrong, it would go so wrong. Right.
And there'd be no way around. No one could talk me down and go, it's okay that you accidentally.
And you can't blame anyone else because you're writing your own monologue, right? Yes. And it's you right into the...
Not right into the lens, but basically. Basically into the lens.
Mullaney, the first... So you first got hired at SNL as a writer.
Yes. Correct? Yeah, but...
Will, sorry to interrupt. Yeah, just interrupt, Sean.
Don't interrupt. Go ahead and just...
So then... No, no, let me say something.
Let me say something. Good, good, good.
You're right. I was hired as a writer.
There you go. Okay.
Fucking. Got it, Sean.
And then you. So wait, listen, John.
Wait, Sean, we haven't moved on yet. Wait, this has got to be a great question.
Hold on, everybody. Get it, Sean.
No, I was going to say, before SNL, you were discovered from the Conan, from Late Night with Conan. Is that true? And how did how did that go down like somebody who saw you on that and what was that like the talent department at SNL saw me on um Conan um hang on what's a talent department at SNL what does that mean it's the most it's just a room of the most talented people in the world we call them the talent um let me see but you, they saw me on Conan O'Brien, but I was doing ASCAP monologues

that same summer.

And I, when Amy

and Seth were doing ASCAP

a lot. So Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers,

were doing ASCAP, which is an improv thing,

at Upright Citizens Brigade.

Which at that time was at 26th

and 8th under Gristides.

And they might have, you know, I haven't, I think they kind of floated my name there as well. That seems familiar.
Yeah. Because I knew some folks that were working there.
And the desire was to be a writer or performer or both? No, I auditioned as a performer, but it's so, I don't know, there's so much, it's so fluid between the two. So you're doing monologues at ASCAD.

How did you know Amy and Seth to do that?

You weren't on an improv team at UCB or anything?

No, I'd been an intern at UCB,

and I was taking classes there.

When I first moved to New York in 2004,

I was taking classes there, and I was an intern there,

which meant I was taping garbage bags to the ceiling so that McDonald's water could leak down into the theater without flashing on the good folks. Did you start at 26th and 8th at that theater? Yeah, I started at 26th and 8th.
I'd been to the old, the first theater a couple times in college. And this was the second less fire hazard of the theaters.
And I, yeah, so I was an intern, I was a janitor there on Saturday nights for, let's see, Respecto? Were they that night? Respecto Montalban. Respecto Montalban.
What was that? For a while, the NYU Hammercats had a slot there. These are all improv teams.
Okay, got it. And I would watch them as I taped the garbage bags to the ceiling because water was actively...
Wait, Mulaney, remind our audience who was in Respecto over the years. Let's see, Rob Hubel, Owen Burke, and the rest.
And all of them were in it. Will, Willie, didn't you...
I did a monologue, didn't I, at ASCAT? You sure did, a couple times. Remind me how that, I just remember that.
You had the sniffles that night, I remember. Did I really? You had the Saturday night sniffles, I think.
Was I still enjoying? I don't know. But I remember it being very nerve-wracking.
Yeah, you did it a couple times at 26th and 8th. Now, how did that go, remind me? I was in a blackout.
It's a herald. We'll have Mulaney remind you how it goes.
John, you stand there and then don't you get sent one word from the audience and then you've got to do a whole, literally just do an improvise, a whole monologue about that one word. You're sent it in that they say it.
You ask, yes. But you get, people yell out multiple words and I would say you pick the one closest to something you might have anything to say about.
And then you just freestyle a story, but it has to last like five or 10 minutes, right? I think it's- Five minutes and it's supposed to be true. Yes.
Oh, really? It's supposed to be a true story. Yeah, why? Did you make your shit up? I don't remember.
I honestly don't. How long ago was that? Wasn't that like 20 years ago? That was like 2003.
I mean, would it be fair to say, Will, that like it could be a full story with an arc, but almost if you just gave details of anything, even you just walked us through a procedure. Yeah, yeah.
I would never. Once you do it more and more, because really what you're there to do is you're in service of the improvisers who are standing on the stage behind you.
And you're trying to give them as many ideas to inspire them to create sketches, improvise sketches based on that. Do you want to know my story? Hey, Sean.
Not really. Sean, what is with you today? Fucking, I know you're the star of Goodnight Oscar, but here there are other people, okay? So maybe in Chicago, armed with your fucking stellar reviews, you can just boss your way through shit.
But here, there are other people. Anyway, John, so sorry.
But that was the thing, right, John? You're just trying to give them ideas? Yeah, you're just trying to give, like, texture and details. I mean, they're not going to perform your story front to back.

Right, and your story doesn't, yeah, front to back,

that is the way to do it, right?

Sean, do you have something you want to say, Sean?

My story's pretty good for my ASCAP.

Here we go.

It's really short.

So Armani, the Armani, Giorgio Armani, invited me,

this is so long ago, invited me to Italy. We don't need the Armani, okay? The Armani.
And Armani. Yeah.
Somebody in the extended family. Like the puppy.
Do you see how funny this is? So we go to, he invited me to go to some fashion show in Milan. So I go there.
Who? Who did? Giorgio Armani. At the real Giorgio Armani.
At the original. At the original.
Not to be confused with Giorgio Armani, who lives in the North Valley here. Go ahead.
So I go there. I go there.
I watch the thing. And then he invites.
There's this party at his house afterwards. And so I get one of the guys that works there.
Wait, how is this related to ASCAT? This is the story I told for ASCAT. Well, no, it was a gathering.
ASCAT's a gathering of people, and it sounds like this is too. Uh-huh, for sure.
Wait, so you told the story of going to Armani's house? Yes, and then I went to the house, and I grabbed the guy who worked at the party, and I said, I want to see the rest of his house. He's like, he really doesn't allow that.
I'm like, please, please, please. So I go up to his, he gets in this elevator.
I go up to his, the bedroom floor, right? And I go into his closet because I wanted to see what clothes he wore. And in his closet is all in a line, like 50 Navy shirts and 50 pairs of jeans below it.
All the exact same lined up. Exactly.
And it's all Tommy Hilfiger? And it's all Tommy Hilfiger.

Were you caught? It's all from

the gap. I wasn't.
I hightailed it out there

because I thought I was going to get shot or something.

Did you steal anything?

No. No, no,

no, I didn't steal anything. Great story.

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All right, back to the show.

Anyway, listen, John, so you're from Chicago.

I didn't know you're from Chicago.

And you went, how long did you live here?

And you grew up here?

Zero to 18, yeah.

I grew up in Lincoln Park. Wow, I didn't know that.
Yeah, you're from Chicago. I grew up in the burbs.
Sean's in Chicago right now. I know.
I can tell from his hat and the view and the fact that I know he's there. Sean.
Is that, so I've always wondered what that, so listener, Sean has on a hat with the four stars and the blue stripe across the top and a blue stripe across the bottom. That's a Chicago flag or an Illinois flag? Chicago.
So the city of Chicago has its own flag? Is that the only city? LA doesn't have a city flag, does it? I'm sure it does. Guaranteed it does.
Huh? I'm sure it does. I'm doing a Google search, right? New York City does.
Wait, wait, wait. Melinda, you'll be happy to know that when we were in Chicago doing our shows live, that Sean's generous friend came by and brought us Chicago hats.
Yeah. 20 different Chicago hats.
Chicago, like literally 20. Steve Horvath, yeah.
Steve Horvath, very kind of him. But I was like, how would we need to know? It was very generous.
Sounds like it was a lot. It was a lot.
It sounds like it was too many hats. No.
The way you're describing it, it's not, I'm not getting just a generosity vibe. It's a lot of hats.
Yeah, the amount was surprising. Loved it.
I will say this. And you probably had, like, carry-ons for the tour, you know, and you didn't want— We had carry-ons.
You had to now carry 20 hats in a laundry bag from the Four Seasons or something. Do you have merch at your shows, John? Yes, thank you for mentioning that.
That's short for merchandise. Sorry, John.
What is your merchandise, John? Wow, I get to plug the merch. I have a T-shirt that says, I saw him just after he got out of rehab that would be the best seller right now no way yes it says that and has the tour so john so malena you grew up you grew up in chicago when did you start did you start doing stand-up or did you start doing a sketch what was your trajectory uh like outside of a high school environment i started doing i did stand-up at a couple, not even open mics, just like weird variety nights at places, like The Note near Wicker Park.
But that's ballsy, though. To just start to do stand-up, were you scared? I had weirdly high self-esteem when it came to that.
Not really about any other part of life, but I was like, yeah, no, I'm a headliner. I'm going to do this.
It's going to be great. People are going to be talking about this.
And then I did improv in college. I auditioned for the improv group my fourth day of college, and the director was a young man named Nick Kroll.
Sure. He cast me.
Yeah, he was a senior. I was a freshman, and he cast me in the improv group.
Very much changed my life. That's amazing.
Wait, where was this? What college was this? This was Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Right, where you studied theology as well? Yeah, English and theology.
Why? Oh, I thought— Want to be a priest? No, I mainly studied Jewish theology. There were a couple of very good Jewish studies professors at Georgetown, and I just found it much more interesting theology because it's a lot more like, what the hell do we know? Yeah, what do we know from anything? Yeah, Catholics was a lot more like, do this, and you'll spend this many days in fire, but then you can get out if someone prays for you.
There were too many rules, too much structure. Judaism was a lot of like, who the hell are you to ask? You know, like, is there a God? Like, who the hell are you? Sounds like shorter chapters, which is probably smart.
Excuse me? Who the hell are you to ask that? Why is there water? Get out of here. Get out of here.
Now, were you a Weisenheimer in school when you were a little kid and that's when you thought maybe there might be a way to make a living here? I remember in third grade, a teacher gave me an article like Xeroxed from Esquire. Like it wasn't for kids.
It was an article and it was about this guy, Henry Beard, who wrote for the Harvard Lampoon and the National Lampoon. And the name of the article was The Original Smartass White Guy.
And she slipped it to me, Miss Kowal. And she said, you'd be into this guy and this type of thing.
That's cool. And yeah, it was cool.
But I don't recall being like a troublemaker. But you knew that you had skills.
You were making kids laugh. That felt good.
Yeah, and you wanted more. And I was kind of a writer-performer in that I would tell more poorly behaved children what might be a funny thing to do.
Right. What if someone threw that out the window right now? And they would take the bait and you would watch.
Yeah, that'd be pretty crazy if someone just threw their potato battery out the, you know? Right. Can you imagine how that'd be crazy? I know you're pretty unstable.
God, you would have been, you've got a lot going on at home. Maybe, maybe you'd be like a king for a day if you did that.
You know, I'd really be great in a cult. Do you know that you'd be great if you worked in a cult? I think I'd be pretty susceptible.
I don't have a lot of cult confidence. I don't know how, I don't know if I'd be the leader.
I think I'd be a member, and it'd take me a while. It'd take me a while to see the light.
Are you saying there wasn't a lot of bad behavior when you were a little kid? Because I'm just going through—as soon as you said battery, I had this horrible memory of me and my friends throwing batteries at stuff. And there's more detail to that.
I remember we got caught tagging up a garage. Yeah, we were always, we were really- You were in a tag crew? Yeah, and my tag- Was hat sideways? Tell me the hat was sideways.
No. Just a little askew.
We wrote, we are the fuckers. Sure.
And did you spell fuckers all weird, like? No, I spelled it normally. Like scary weird? F-U-K.
To me, it was just the declaration. We are the fuckers.
Of what? We have an 11-year-old. Of what? Of everything, man.
Of anything, especially a garage door. You guys were hardcore.
So you could have gotten in trouble you if you'd gotten caught you could have gotten trouble for uh for for a few dozen things when you were a kid or or not yeah and we i had a real i didn't have a pyromania phase but my good friend did and i would supervise i kind of supervised that a little you weren't mean to cats or anything not at all no Not at all, no. Not at all.
Love was allergic to cats, so we had kind of agree to disagree, relationship cats and I. Would you put like food coloring in beverages and things like that, John? No, but we would do a lot of like, what could we put a bottle rocket in? What do you think, he was in a church group? He's studying theology and being a real hellcat.
Wait, no, but you're like the foreman of trouble. Like you just got everybody else creating trouble for you.
The George Foreman of trouble? Yeah, you're like the foreman's grill of trouble. Yeah, I was.
I was healthy, lean. Wait, so John, so you go to, you go to, uh, um, Georgetown, Georgetown.
And, uh, you're the guy running the, the, the improv team group, whatever. Well, now hold on a second.
I got to stop you there. Uh, I see John's got a Zevia beverage in his hand.
Now that is. What's that? It is a Stevia based soda.
And I can safely recommend every single flavor. Hang on, John.
You're not getting any freebies out of this. You're a guest.
I don't need freebies. The hosts get the freebies.
I have two recurring Amazon orders that I, one I don't know how to cancel and one I can't find it. See, that's why I've never signed up for the automatic.
What is the one you don't know how to cancel? It's so much cream soda, but I'm fine with it, but it's stacking up.

There's baby formula diapers and so much cream soda Zevia.

And they're tall boys, too, because I just— Oh, I do like that.

The tall ones are nice.

They can make tall ones, yeah.

Yeah.

Now, that gets us into—you seem like a guy who watches what they put in their body.

We're going to double back to Georgetown.

Sorry, are we back to the glory holes?

Oh, no.

No.

Wow.

We went all the way back.

So is there no sugar goes into that body, John?

No, sugar goes into this body.

Yeah.

I am recently sober, and so I'm allowing myself a lot of—

Sugar.

Sugar and indulgences.

Yeah.

I'm trying myself a lot of sugar and indulgences. Yeah.
I'm trying to cut back, but I haven't yet. And I won't today.
And I won't tomorrow. Watch out for the man with no vices.
Go ahead and keep one or two. Yeah, sugar's just fine.
Work. I quit smoking cigarettes in November, too.
Oh, bud. How's that showing off? Stop showing off.
I went to a hypnotist. He was a UCLA paranormal professor who now hypnotizes people in his garage in Santa Monica.
Do you see spaceships when he's done? Honestly, none of this seems problematic to me. Remember how I said I'm susceptible to cults?

Well, I go to this guy's garage.

I've spent eight hours in the garage.

So you're telling me the guy with the crystal ball,

he moved his operation into the garage and now he's getting people off butts?

Well, if he's so fake,

how come he has some headshots thanking him for his work?

Some.

Some. Yeah, some sun-faded headshots thanking him for his work.
So bad. Some.
Yeah, some sun-faded headshots thanking him for getting them off cigarettes. Entertainers who I recognize vaguely.
Wait, so did it work? I mean, are you craving cigarettes? No, it actually did work. I mean, I smoked from age 13 to 39 and stopped in November after the second session.
Cold turkey. No weaning whatsoever.
First hypnotism session, you get to keep smoking for that week, which is a big reason I did it. I love smoking.
So second session, walked out, never had another. Third session, I actually don't remember.
I really did go somewhere else. That's nice.
That's great. So, John Mulaney, I want to talk to you about, Marty Short is a good friend of mine, good friend of ours.
The greatest. And I loved your sitcom called Mulaney with Marty.
Thank you. I did.
I loved it. I watched every episode.
Thank you very much. Mulaney, I used to watch on the tap over at Radford Studios.

I would see you guys rehearsing all the time.

It was so fun.

It was one of the most fun experiences making the show.

He speaks so highly of you, just so you know.

I love him very much.

Yeah, it's mutual.

I want to see that, damn it.

I apologize.

2014, Fox.

Until?

From August to November of 2014. That's right.
So it was a tight 13? I think they did air all 13. Our final episode aired against the SNL 40th, which I was working on.
And we ended up losing to that, the ratings that night. That's like the, Will, didn't they air the very final episodes of arrested development against the winter olympics opening of the olympics they burned all four in a row they were just and they didn't tell anybody they're like get these off our salt lake city was it but john was that was that sitcom sorry sorry sean no that's okay was that something you always wanted to do? You're passionate about it? I was.
I was passionate about, I was and am passionate about multicam. I really like you and me both.
So do we. Yep.
And I mean, I grew up on them, but also I just find it, and maybe it's also the Saturday Night Live in me and the stand-up in in me i just like three to four cameras and yelling jokes to the back of the room and an audience a live audience and a live audience yeah and the six-hour day oh my god i mean i as as the ep and writer and everything i didn't have that but watching elliot gould and marty short and nassim pedrad leave at three i just just thought, oof, that's the life of King. Would you do another one? I would, yeah.
Yeah? You should. You'd be pretty late.
We need to crack that. I'm calling you after this session.
Who directed most of those episodes, do you remember? I just, when they're good, they're so great. Andy Ackerman, wonderful.
Of course. Oh, yeah.
Seinfeld, yeah. Yeah, of course.
Seinf yeah of course um many other great things and then let me ask you this because i've always wanted to know i've always wondered about like a plus stand-ups like yourself who do all these specials and you tour and you're constantly writing by the time we see your special on netflix or wherever it is how many times have you tried out that material or and how many rerites do you go through before we see it? Or are we seeing stuff that you trusted or know will work from the moment you wrote it? Oh, those seem like two questions. Yeah, it's a problem with Sean.
Okay, the first part is, it depends on how much I toured before the special. Yeah.
So I did that sitcom. Production was shut down in October.
I went on the road the next week, and then I taped a special that May called The Comeback Kid for Netflix. That was a pretty short tour.
The last special I did, there was about a year of touring before it. This one will be like, this one will be close to a year, maybe over.
I'm on the road steadily right now. How do you like that road stuff, that touring stuff, that staying in a hotel every night? I love it.
Really? I like hotel living. Wow.
I really like tour bus living. You take your own slippers with you when you go to all those hotels? I bring my own pillow but I take their pillowcase What does that mean? Jason won't walk on the floors of a hotel He will not walk on the floors of a hotel without a barrier Do you put the remote in a Ziploc bag before you use it? I put it in a pot of boiling water and then then if it still works, we're on it.
But if it doesn't work, then there's no TV. So you take the pillowcase.
Jason basically lives like Howard Hughes. He has, like, at all times.
Don't show him your fingernails. And he's got, like, 12 layers of Kleenex between himself and anything that he touches.
It's disgusting. You're using the...
You're bringing your own pillow, but you're using their pillowcase because you want to make... Well, Lenny, watch this.
Well, no, what happened, it's worse than that. I took one pillowcase from the first hotel on this tour.
Where did it start? We started in Portland, Maine, maybe. Sure.
I took a pillowcase and it's still on. Because you liked the thread count on that one.
You're like, oh, we're going to keep this. I liked that it was long and my special foam pillow is longer than a regular pillow too.
So it was cool. It was a nice fit.
You sleep with the pillow between your knees? I got one of those at an As Seen On TV store at Foxwoods recently. Oh, is it like a body pillow? No, it's like a little, it looks like a yoga block,

except it has a skate ramp in it.

And you put it right between those knees.

And if you guys are at anyone near the As Seen On TV store

at the mall in Foxwoods, the casino, they have them there.

And again, that's at the Foxwoods Casino.

They're at outlet malls and there's an As Seen On TV.

Not too quickly.

Sean's a slow writer, so not too fast.

Wait a second.

Is there really a store called As Seed on TV?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You've never been in one?

You've never seen that?

Come on.

Oh, it's the greatest.

Truly.

It looks like a storage unit.

Can I ask you what they sell in there?

I mean, the one thing I was really intrigued by this time

was something called Battery Daddy,

which was, it looked like a seedy tower, looked like a compact disc tower for batteries. It was a big, it was almost like a pyramid where all your sizes of batteries had different levels they could clip into.
Could you use that? Definitely can't find the double A's when I need them. Could you use that? Now, do you guys keep your batteries in the freezer, by the way? Or am I just married to a crazy person? No, I don't think there's any science behind that.
What are you, a photographer? What's going on? I used to, I got one of those wedge pillows where you can slip your arm because my arm was bothering me for a while. And I bought it from, I think, like the back store in one of these things.
Relax the back. And you actually put your hand, it looked like a mousetrap.
And then I'd sleep on this thing. Anyway, I didn't end up working.
Oh, what a catch. Do you have a CPAP when you go to sleep too? Sean, do you? I don't.
Sean, do you? My girlfriend, Olivia, we still have the pregnancy pillow, that horseshoe shape thing. And I slept in it the other day.
And it is fantastic. It's like sleeping in a bumper bowling lane.
I woke up with something. Sean sleeps like in that position they tell you again when a plane's crashing, like with his...
He's grabbing his knees. Just in case Scotty wakes up.
Real antsy. I never feel rested.
I never feel rested. I saw an interview with Donnie Osmond

once where he

was extolling

the virtues

of sleeping

on the tray

on a commercial flight.

Sleep on the...

No, that always

makes me want to vomit.

And did he say,

make sure to drink

12 rums

before you do it?

I love you've got

Donnie as a rum drinker. Bacardi.
Bacardi. Yeah, not the Bacardi.
Top show. Top show.
Wait, I want to get back to this long professional and personal relationship you have with the guy who let you into the improv group, which is Nick Kroll. The wonderful Nick Kroll.
The wonderful Nick Kroll. My best friend, older brother, and everything.
Mentor. Okay, well okay well we got it now we got it in writing and on recording we got it yeah i know i sound good it sounds gracious i sound gracious because he led me into the group and now just air it on you've been paying him back ever since but but you you guys no it did you guys are like brothers and and you guys have worked together so much now over the last however many years since you've known each other.
And is that like a thing that you guys consciously say, or do you come back together every couple of years? Or you're like, or you go, you do your own thing. You're like, Hey, let's go and do this.
Or we, I don't know. How does it work? Well, let's see.
For a while we, that's a good question. We don't consciously plan, you know, let's work together in 18 months.
We love working with each other, so he'd be my first thought for anyone to collaborate with. And then we have things that we've done consistently, like the theater show, Oh Hello, where we played these two guys, Gil and George.
We did that in a variety of media and then did it as a play on Broadway. So like that's a thing where we will talk about revisiting those characters specifically.
And then obviously I work with him on Big Mouth on Netflix, but he's along with Andrew Goldberg and Mark and Jen Flackett.

He's a creator EP, so I'm not doing that with him,

but I'm lucky enough to be on it.

You're on it.

Big Mouth for Tracy is a really funny,

very popular animated show on Netflix.

It's been on for a long time.

Tracy might even know that.

She might know that.

She's already moved on to human resources.

She might know. And we will be right back.
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And now back to the show. Hey, John, with all the things that you do and do well,

how do you decide what to do?

Is it informed by some sort of five-year plan that you've got?

No, never had a five-year plan.

What about next week, next month?

I'm a little, I remember a professor in college said,

someone was like, someone said, just taking it one day at a time. And he said, that's great.
Of course, Mulaney lives minute to minute. And like everyone laughed.
And I was really like, it was odd of him to call that out in the middle of a Jewish studies class. You have no sort of North Star, whether you get there or not, at least it's giving you direction and forming.
I'd love a knockout obituary and great speeches at the memorial service. But then I can't think, you know.
You just want it to be glowing. What do you want your tombstone to say? I've thought about this recently.
if it could say anything you know i i was walking around a a cemetery in connecticut where all the um where you do where you do and the graves are from like the 1700s and back then people would they i walked by a grave that said handsome and brave i'm so it was like a hero of the revolution handsome and brave i was like i think I'm gonna gonna take that yes so this is what I thought I was thinking I was walking around a cemetery a couple years ago one night and not a big just cause it was a better you know I get a better view inside the window it doesn't matter longer story anyway obviously for a lawyer I can't say why of course but reading all the all the gravestones, I was thinking like, I would want to put something like, he was a cool guy. That's it.
Because then if I saw that, I'd be like, who the fuck is that motherfucker? He was a cool guy? You know what I just read? I read that you can now get your body turned into compost and you can, you know, use it to plant a tree or something. It takes six months to turn it into compost.
They just keep mixing the guts with dirt over and over again? Yeah, that's what happens when you just fucking bury a body. What do you think the body does in the ground by itself? It's a pickup truck worth of compost.
So that just sounds like compost with a dead body in it. It doesn't sound like your body is doing anything.

It does. That's a good point.

Your gaseous, unembalmed body exploding in usable compost.

I would love to see your search history, though, Sean.

No, I did. I looked at all—

So would the FBI.

Why did you buy all that lime? What's going on?

I'd like—

You know, I would like it said at my funeral or on my gravestone that some of my flaws. Like he was late a lot.
And people talked to him about it and he was still late. Are you still? Are you still late? I'm getting better at it.
I'm getting better at it. Do you know why you're late? I think, well, one, Saturday Night Live completely destroyed my relationship with time in that meetings that were supposed to begin at 3 p.m.
would begin at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m.
with no explanation or apology. So after a couple years there, I would meet people 45 minutes late and not think I needed to say anything regarding where I'd been.
Wow. Yeah.
And then I think I'm better. I must think I'm better than everyone else.
I mean, everyone else, I guess. What about having a kid now? Kid really puts you on a schedule, right? No, a kid put me on a schedule, and I have made a big resolution to be on time, be where I said I'll be when I said I'll be there.
And I've actually been good about that. Like Sean, Sean said,

I'm going to be outside a fire station

all day today.

He is.

I live in the middle of it.

What do you think you're best

at being a dad? What do you think you're worst at

being a dad?

I know we're early days

and we're just trying stuff out.

Best at

Swaddle technique? I am a good swaddler. Yeah.
I am a good swaddler. I learned to swaddle somewhat from Ozarks.
You give a brief swaddle tutorial, if you recall. John.
And we were waiting on… You're not supposed to watch that. Oh, my God.
What was your favorite episode? I love the one where you're laundering all the money. You know, everyone's like, oh, my God, you know.
People check out the department store, those glory holes, and they swaddle sometimes. They sure do.
Isn't that right? Good at swaddling. I'm good at, I know when tummy time is over.
Before little Malcolm gives me that look like, Jesus, man, you're going to get me out of here? I know it's time. I know that big head is starting to get a little tired of bobbing up and down.
Right. I probably am worse at overthinking how to approach him as an adolescent, which I really don't need to worry about for the next few years.
But I am, I'm constantly running scenarios of what, of what kind of parent I'll be when he's 11, 12, 13. The combo between being a dad versus being a best friend? Oh, just like, yeah.
And, and will I be, in my mind, I was like, I'm going to be this like, semi-stern I'm going to be this

I'm going to kind this semi-stern.

I'm going to be this,

I'm going to kind of be like my dad with him.

And that's all fallen apart in four months.

I can't imagine ever criticizing anything this kid does.

But who do you, I mean, you know.

Don't worry, it'll come.

You know Olivia.

Olivia knows you.

Have you guys, has it become clear

who's going to be the disciplinarian,

who's going to be the nurturer?

Oh, that's a good question. She's such a wonderful mother and so nurturing and also.
Here it comes. Here it comes.
Well, I mean, right now she's extremely nurturing, but she can be extremely organized. She has packing cubes.
That was a good choice of words. Great choice.
Thanks, guys. Now she can listen.
So she's very good about organizing. Does that allow you to be— She's very organized, very disciplined in a way that I'm not.
However, I don't know when it comes to Malcolm. The ideal I have for myself is that I come home in a suit, which is going to be hard working at home, and that there's some expectation of your dad is home and therefore that's intimidating, but I absolutely will never follow through on that.
My oldest brother, Dennis, when he has three kids, he would let them with crayons draw all over the walls in every room. And of course, that would upset his wife, and they would discuss it.
And he was like, let them be kids. Let them do anything they want.
You can paint over the crayons. Would you ever do anything like that? Well, it should be noted also, he came from like Sean.
Sean's dad never got mad at them drawing on the walls or anything. He didn't get mad at them doing anything.
He would just what? Now, the reason is he wasn't there, but... Well, if they hide the car keys, he'd hate that.
That's the thing that would piss him off. Absolutely no chance of escaping.
It would really piss him off. Who took my to-me carry-on? He was always mad.
His dad left like... Who took my Toomey Carion? He was always mad.
Who took my Weekender? His dad left like Kal-El leaving Krypton just on his own like in an escape pod. You know what I mean? I don't know if that reference is right.
Is that right? Will and Jason, here's what I wonder. I remember a good friend of mine when we were six to his dad.
He was so mad at his dad and he said, Sayonara, sucker, motherfucker. And his dad acted mad.
And as I've gotten older, I'm like, I don't know how I won't laugh if my kid ever tells me off. It just will be, if Malcolm ever yells at me, it seems like such a funny moment that I won't be able to not laugh.
Well, we have, put it this way. I have videos of both my kids having, having breakdowns or tantrums at various ages because they're so fucking hilarious, which I show them now.
And even in the moment, you recognize how funny, like Abel, we have one abel saying when he was little and he was like something something because you're the worst and you can see him go in the moment go i mean not the worst i mean you're kind of great and i love you so he walks it back in the middle of his thing and then the other day when abel said to me that the other day i went to wake him up for school i think i told you guys this and i go up and he's he's 11. His eyes aren't even open yet.
And I go up and I go, hey buddy, we gotta get up. We gotta get to school.
Eyes not even open and he goes, play is gonna play. And I'm like, what? Play is gonna play.
They constantly surprise you. That's the thing.
And you have no idea how you're gonna react and you just kind of go with it and I don't know speaking of not knowing how to react hecklers what's a good heckler story because you're on tour right now right for you sean thanks from scratch right i emailed my i emailed my bullet points no but i love those stories i love heckler stories um the best i got i was doing bonnaroo one year uh and i was doing there was a big comedy tent at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and someone said we've signed you up to do a show at the VIP camping ground like the organizers of the festival and I said what's that about? and they said just get on the back of this golf cart. And they drove so fast in a golf, in the back of a golf cart, which is like falling out of a chair forever.
And they, I get to this, like, I get to a plywood stage and there's all these RVs and there's like a micro brew truck giving out beer to these VIP glampers. Oh, you can handle.
Yeah. And they had no idea someone had been brought in to do stand-up.
And they didn't ask for it. They didn't want it.
They didn't like it. I was not someone they knew who that was.
I was not someone people were excited to see. And I started doing stand-up, and this guy yelled, I think I speak for everyone when I say we'd enjoy silence more than the sound of your voice.
Oh, my God. And it was so articulate.
It was very polite. How do you heckle back at that? I went, hey, fuck you.
Sucker motherfucker. Yeah, sayonara, sucker motherfucker.
Jump on the back of the golf cart speed away. That'd actually be a good, I might close a special with that.
Sayonara, sucker motherfucker. After a really gracious thank you to the audience, I turn around and then say sayonara, suckers.
It would be so great if that became your calling card farewell to your audience. Yeah, this aggressive, shitty little group.
I have this masochistic fantasy of doing one set of stand-up, but I would have no idea how to write a session. Have you ever heard of— No, we know.
You know, yeah. I mean, the very fact that you call it a session is not...
Session. But you know how like some...
I'm here to perform a session. Guys, guys, listen up.
I'm here to perform a session. Well, you know like how some music acts, they don't write their own music, but they perform them well.
Have you ever heard of a stand up having a whole set written for he or she, and then they do it? Yeah, I mean, there are, there are, and it's kind of more of an older school thing. Like, there were, there were performers who had a lot of writers, and there were, you know, I really don't hear about it much anymore.
There are people who do stand-up who also do so many other types of sessions that, acting and directing sessions that they eventually have writers. But most people seem to...
Why don't you go to an open session night? Are there? Yeah, go to open session. I'd actually like to end stand-up the way my therapist ends sessions, which is, okay, we have to pause now.
Yeah, there you go. And then just walk off stage.
Jason, have you seen any good comedy routines lately?

Would you like to go see some routines?

There's some wonderful routines out there at the Improv,

which is short for the improvisation there on Melrose Avenue.

I like when people call, like adults call,

like my brother go, I'm doing a play here in Chicago.

And he goes, you got play practice today? Yeah. You mean rehearsal? Is this Dennis with the three kids? Yeah.
Hey, I don't want to bug you. I know you're in the middle of play practice, but play practice.
I know you're drilling the play. I do like saying practice instead of rehearsal when we're on set.
That is fun. I do like yelling at a hockey game, shoot the ball.
I do like that. Oh, man.
Put that in your stand-up. Yeah.
Oh, God, great idea. Yeah.
You're a great start. John Mulaney, we've taken up way too much of your time.
Way too much. The tour is from scratch.
Fuck, I know. Why is that it? We could talk to Mulaney forever.
I know. I don't want to think about it.
He's probably got shit to do. We're an encore.
How about an encore? We could just do another one where we follow up on everything we didn't finish. Which was everything.
Every thread we started. Just every little thread.
We like to keep a million tabs open. You know, it's just, I know.
This browser has a lot of tabs open. We're the worst.
We're the worst interviewers. You're the greatest.
And I wouldn't want it any other way. You I mean I think it was Vivek Murthy who said to you guys

I've had a great time

I've had a really good time

on the show

you see the way he brought it

all the way back around you guys

this is what a pro does

that's how you end a session

double callbacks

Johnny

we love you

thank you for your time

love you guys

this was really fun

you're the best

thank you for having me

this was really great

thanks John

thanks buddy

bye buddy

bye Johnny

love you buddy

thanks John

bye

Thank you for having me. This was really great.
Thanks, buddy. Bye, buddy.
Bye, Johnny. Love you, buddy.
Thanks, John. Bye.
John Mulaney. He's a smooth operator.
So funny. Every time I see him on SNL, even in the sketches, I laugh out loud.
He seems like a good guy. I've never met him before.
He is. He's the Sade of comedy.
He's a smooth operator. Oh, God.
That's Thank you, man. And doesn't stop.
Like, he just keeps writing and writing and writing and doing stuff. I just don't.
I'm so envious. Like, I don't.
First of all, I can't write. I don't know how to write well.
And then just to keep writing all that stuff that works all the time. And all those Netflix specials, it's crazy.
Yeah, it's a lot of stuff. And touring, doing touring and touring with stuff for a year or a year and a half

and then doing a special.

And then immediately, like,

you got a sense of his work ethic.

His show ends production,

you know, this was years ago,

and the next week he's out on tour

and, like, going for a year.

Yeah, it's crazy.

And then has a special, like,

eight months later, like, what?

And enjoys the hotels and the buses.

Like, that's not for me.

I wonder how that's going to go now with the kid, you know, like, is he going to be able to Be happy about being on the road all the time Well, we know how that goes It changes everything And you get like, yeah You better start working on that sitcom It's hard, it's hard, as you know The sitcom works for being a dad, though Right? It sure does Why doesn't everybody just do a sitcom? Right. Just do that for the first 10 years.
Because I heard somebody, they're like, oh, like I'm working this hard job, a friend of mine in New York works in this office, and my job is so hard. I'm like, why don't you just get a sitcom, and then you're at home all the time? Because you can just order those on Amazon, right? You just sign up for them.
You're so stupid. Stop being such a stupid idiot and get a sitcom.

But Mulaney is so hilarious.

He's been so successful.

And he just, you know, he's one of those, like,

he didn't sort of explode out of nowhere.

Like, he just kind of, he kind of built, he built, he built.

Like Conan.

Like, remember when Conan came on the scene and we were like,

who the hell is this guy?

He's got the talk show now?

It's like, no.

Well, if you look at his resume, like, this guy has been a beast for a long time.

But the SNL, the ones that Mulaney hosts, the SNLs that Mulaney hosts are always rated huge. Yeah, of course, which is why they keep bringing him back, because he's hilarious and he always delivers.
And so, guess what? Turns out that that works in showbiz, Sean. Try being good, Sean.
Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit. I just realized.
Are we still recording? Yeah. Yeah, we're still...
I just... I saw my headphones on.
I can hear you. Sean.
Yeah? We didn't ask him his favorite color. What the fuck? Oh, fuck.
Text him. Shit.
Who got an email address for me? Hang on. No, well, he did ask funny heckling story.
Yes, because I love that shit. I just asked for just a general...
That's up there with, what's your craziest audition story? But you know what it is I realize about Sean don't you love those stories I love those stories this is what I love about Sean this is the reason I like it this is the reason I like it okay this is what and I'm like it's because Sean likes those things when stuff goes really wrong in normal situations he loves people freaking out oh. Oh, he used to love bloopers and practical jokes, right? And then those crazy home videos.
Right, Sean? Don't you miss it? Do you want to know what happened last Saturday late show at the play? Okay, yeah, of course. I shit you not, it was this long.
I'm doing my, I have like seven monologues in the play. In the middle of when I play,

and there's two or three other actors on stage.

And... I love that you don't even know how many.

Blanked out.

Completely blanked out.

You did?

Yeah.

In the middle of my thing, I go,

yeah, so I'm telling the story, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, sold out, by the way.

Uh, uh, uh, uh, and I look at Ethan,

and I'm looking at him, I'm like, fucking please help me. I know my mind went completely.
I'm like, no idea where I am. And then he says a line that skips about a page.
And in my head, I was like, thank you. But I don't think I can skip that because there's information the audience needs in order to know the story later.
Right. So I was like, uh, uh, uh, uh.
No. It was that fucking awful.
That long. What about somebody in the wings? Yes.
Anybody on book in the wings? I know. I said, and I said to the stage manager, she goes, I almost came on the god mic and gave you your line.
I go, just do it. Who gives a shit? I'm dying up there.
What, but, but, but, but what about just kind of sauntering over to the wings in character to get a soda? They're in the back. They're in the back of the house.
So what did you... So what happened? I fucking, I don't know.
You grabbed it and saved it? And did the audience know, do you think? Yes, for sure. Really? I had a couple friends like, hey, did you? And I was like, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Did they ask for any portion of their money back? Like, could you ask for like five bucks back? Here's the scariest part, Sean.
Here's the scariest thing. And Sean, we love you.
I love you, too. You told us this story verbatim yesterday.
Once you lay down and get your ankles above your heart, Sean. This is so, fuck, we love you.
We love you so fucking much. We love you so fucking much.
That's hysterical. Okay.
Listen, by the way, just to bring it back full circle, I'm going to let you guys know, but I think that I have to go over to the store to check out the dressing rooms or the bathroom. Because if, for no other reason than,

I'm really buying curious to see.

There it is.

Yeah, we got it.

Smart.

Smart.

Smart.

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