John Mulaney Replies to Fans Online

GQMagazine

John Mulaney goes online to answer the internet’s questions. The GQ Men of the Year 2024 cover star responds to questions on Quora, Reddit and X, as well as fact-checking Wikipedia and replying to YouTube and Instagram comments.

Transcript

00:00Hey, GQ, it's John Mulaney.

00:01I'm gonna go undercover on the internet

00:03and look at stuff.

00:05It's actually me.

00:09It's me, for real.

00:10This is me doing this.

00:14Let's see, this is from Reddit.

00:17The kid John talks to in Baby J, was the kid hired?

00:20John did the same joke at the show in my city

00:23and ever since I've seen the recorded version,

00:26I've been wondering, did he do that joke at every show?

00:29If so, how could he be sure the kid

00:31was going to be at every venue?

00:32Okay, so the last standup special I did called Baby J,

00:35there was a young boy named Henry in the audience.

00:39Henry was not hired.

00:40Henry was, like Pinocchio before him, a real life boy.

00:44Henry was actually in the audience and I talked to him

00:47and that ended up in the film of the special.

00:49At other stops along that tour,

00:52there were often children

00:55and often children under the age of 10.

00:58There was once a baby.

00:59It was often weird to go through 90 minutes

01:01of very dark personal stories

01:04while looking into the eyes of a fourth grader.

01:06So I would call it out at the beginning.

01:09I met a lot of kids on my drug stories tour, just a fact.

01:14If you had to choose a favorite special,

01:16what is your favorite John Mulaney special and why?

01:18Okay, so this is a question for other people other than me.

01:21Now, what's interesting about this question

01:22is that favorite is spelled with a U

01:24and that means that the person is not from America.

01:28They are from Great Britain.

01:30And as an Irishman, I will not answer your question.

01:34How about one of these guys,

01:35parentheses John Mulaney slash Pete Davidson as Plastic Man?

01:39I know who Pete and I are

01:42and I don't know what the rest of that means.

01:45Is Plastic Man a DC comic?

01:47If you know the answer, call my personal phone.

01:51It'd be a money thing.

01:53Honestly, I can answer for Pete as well.

01:55It'd be a money thing.

01:56Apparently these movies pay a lot,

01:58these action hero things,

01:59but that is also changing

02:01in today's ever evolving media landscape.

02:04Subreddit Big Mouth, which character is most like yourself?

02:08This person answered, I think I'm most like Andrew Glauberman

02:11I would say I'm most like Andrew Glauberman as well

02:13since I have the same voice as him.

02:16A decent amount of his exploits were based off

02:18things I did when I was a younger man.

02:21And that's all I'll say.

02:22Richard Kine says John told him

02:23there might be another season of Everybody's in LA

02:26but in a different city.

02:27He said, well, we might be doing it again.

02:29I don't think I ever told Richard Kine

02:31we'd be doing it in a different city.

02:33Recently when I saw him said,

02:35hey, if you do more Everybody's in LA

02:37and you wanna replace me, I won't be offended.

02:40And I was like, one, I don't wanna replace you

02:42and two, of course you would be offended.

02:45No one would be more offended than Richard Kine

02:48if he was replaced from Everybody's in LA.

02:50Sweet man, I'd go to any city in the union

02:54with Mr. Richard Kine.

02:55Why do millennials find John Mulaney funny

02:58from a confused Zoomer?

03:00They don't all.

03:01I've certainly stood in front of some who don't.

03:04I say different names of movies

03:06and things that millennials know

03:08and they go, I remember that.

03:09And I go, of course you do.

03:10It's a trick using these references

03:12to get laughs out of you.

03:13They find me funny

03:15cause they found me funny in their twenties

03:17and they want to still feel young.

03:19Next.

03:21Instagram.

03:23I don't know why it's weird

03:24that John Mulaney is wearing Nike.

03:25I feel like he should be wearing grandpa clothes,

03:28which is to say no brand flannels and corduroy pants.

03:31Well, smart guy, I'll have you know

03:35that that is not how I dress.

03:37So I understand why you think I would be wearing

03:41no brand clothing like an elderly man.

03:43I do own some items by Nike and even Reebok.

03:46I absolutely agree with this person.

03:49Whenever I'm wearing a Nike shirt like that,

03:51I feel weird too.

03:52I should be one of those people you see at the gym

03:55who's just like walking slowly on the treadmill

03:58wearing mainly Carhartt.

04:00How the fuck are you sitting like that?

04:03I am able to sit like that

04:06because I have hip dysplasia like many dogs.

04:10And I am able to sit completely Lotus

04:12with my legs folded over each other.

04:14I actually have a tear in my right hip

04:16because my hip bone is so weirdly shaped.

04:19And I go to PT, but they told me it's not gonna work

04:22and that I am gonna need hip replacement surgery.

04:26So who's a grandpa now?

04:28Wikipedia, the encyclopedia of incels.

04:32From watching the lifestyle of the character,

04:34Ricky Ricardo on the program, I Love Lucy,

04:36Mulaney knew he wanted to go into show business at age five.

04:39That is absolutely true.

04:41I liked that Ricky Ricardo sat around the house,

04:43looked at a magazine for some of the day,

04:45smoked cigarettes, and then went to the club at night

04:47and did his job in show business.

04:49I thought that is absolutely the best lifestyle.

04:51And I live that now, except I don't smoke cigarettes anymore

04:55because a man hypnotized me in Santa Monica.

04:59At age seven, Mulaney was a member

05:01of the Chicago children's based sketch group, The Rugrats.

05:05Because of this, Mulaney had an opportunity

05:07to audition for the role of Kevin in the film Home Alone,

05:10but his parents declined.

05:11I was offered to audition for the role of Kevin

05:14in Home Alone.

05:15My mom thought about it for a little while.

05:18I was getting a booster shot,

05:20and my mom waited until we were at the pediatrician

05:23and then told me, your dad and I have talked

05:25and we're not gonna let you audition for that movie.

05:28And then I got a booster shot.

05:29I think it was like, let's just,

05:32maybe if we put the two bad things at once,

05:34they'll neutralize each other.

05:37But I remember both, and I disliked them both.

05:40I do wanna say for the record,

05:42there is no better performance in the 1990s

05:45than Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone,

05:47and he deserved an Oscar nomination

05:50and an Oscar for that role.

05:52If you have a Macaulay Culkin story,

05:54call me at my personal number.

05:56After graduating from Georgetown in 2004,

05:59Mulaney moved to New York City

06:01with ambitions of a career in comedy.

06:03Yeah.

06:03And was hired as an assistant at Comedy Central.

06:06After a year, he pitched the idea

06:07for a parody of I Love the 80s called I Love the 30s,

06:10which he developed with fellow comedian, Nick Kroll.

06:13True.

06:13I Love the 30s was a parody of I Love the 80s

06:16in that we were talking in a flippant way

06:18about pop culture stories, but of the 30s,

06:21which had more weight to them

06:22than the type of thing they talked on I Love the 80s.

06:25One of them was about the Lindbergh baby.

06:27And we talked about it like you would Cola Wars

06:30in the 80s, like just kind of flippantly.

06:33And my Nana called me and said,

06:34I was alive for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

06:38It was not funny that baby died.

06:41These are not things you should joke about.

06:43I made it sound like that was a conversation,

06:45but it was a voicemail and I never called her back.

06:48Okay, these are YouTube comments.

06:51Can someone explain DTLA to a person not from there?

06:55Downtown LA is the downtown part of Los Angeles.

07:01Often downtown means the center of where things are.

07:04This is not the case in LA.

07:06The downtown is a scary wasteland that we all avoid.

07:09As I joked on the show, a lot of people wonder

07:11what happened to New York in the 70s.

07:13It moved to downtown LA.

07:15Why did they decide to turn the concept

07:17of a man ordering lobster in a diner into a Les Mis parody?

07:21I don't know.

07:23Am I questioning it?

07:24Hell not.

07:25Okay, Sherlock3134.

07:27And I'm not being condescending by calling them Sherlock.

07:29That is their screen name.

07:31I also don't remember how it became a Les Mis parody.

07:35Colin Jost and I were talking on a Monday in 2009

07:41about how long some diner menus are

07:44and how they always offer like Thanksgiving dinner

07:47and a lobster.

07:49We talked about writing a sketch for that week's host

07:52where someone would order the one lobster

07:55that they have at a diner.

07:56After read-throughs, there's always a big bulletin board

07:59with every sketch and you move them over

08:02into the show's running order as you plan

08:04that week's episode.

08:06And I remember, I remember lobster diner

08:09wasn't even on the board.

08:11It was a card that said lobster diner

08:13that was laying on the floor.

08:15So no one ever said, we hate this,

08:16but it was greeted with a blizzard of indifference.

08:20When I came back to host in 2018,

08:23that Monday I ran into Colin in the hall

08:26and he said, lobster diner?

08:28And I said, absolutely.

08:30Okay, these are from Quora.

08:32What is John Mulaney's weakness?

08:34Hmm, I don't have any well-publicized faults.

08:38What's one thing I have trouble resisting?

08:42Can't think.

08:44I have had my ups and downs with various dependencies.

08:47I would say, I don't understand what happens

08:51at a four-way stop sign at all.

08:54I normally just stare forward and hope everyone else leaves

08:59so that I can do my thing.

09:01No part of it makes sense to me.

09:03The waving, I just, I panic.

09:07How does John Mulaney come up

09:08with his standup comedy material?

09:10Slowly.

09:11What is the best Steely Dan song?

09:12The best Steely Dan song is Sign In Stranger.

09:15Post.

09:16These are questions from X, formerly Twitter.

09:19Why couldn't John Mulaney host the Oscars?

09:22I'm busy.

09:23It's really no, no other way to put it.

09:27Burt Vonnebutt asks, why is John Mulaney

09:30and The Bear the most Chicago thing ever?

09:32I am from Chicago and the show The Bear is set in Chicago.

09:36My Chicago experience was not filled

09:38with many small businesses

09:40that become Michelin star restaurants.

09:42A lot of people ask me for restaurant recommendations

09:44in Chicago because it is such a great town for restaurants,

09:47but like I grew up there, so I ate at home.

09:50We didn't go out to places.

09:53Sometimes I'd have snacks in a car.

09:55If spider ham was bitten by a radioactive pig,

09:57is it really cannibalism?

09:59No, but I don't think anyone's saying it is.

10:02Everything I know about spider ham

10:04is the lines I say in the movie.

10:07I didn't understand what it was when I arrived

10:10and I don't understand now.

10:11They wouldn't even tell me what it was called.

10:13I showed up and it had like a code name

10:16and they were dancing around

10:17that it was a Spider-Man related movie.

10:19I was like, I don't give a shit.

10:22Like, don't tell anyone.

10:23Who am I gonna tell?

10:24Okay, that's it.

10:25I've answered enough of your questions.

10:28Okay, that's it, I'm done.

10:30Okay, I'm done.

10:31I don't wanna do this anymore.

10:33I think we all learned very little.

10:35I know less about myself now than I did at the beginning.

10:38So I'm signing off.

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