John Mulaney Presents: Everybody's in LA

If you like John Mulaney and you enjoyed Comedy Bang Bang this will be catnip for you.

Oh I guess 500 characters are required. OK. So it's setup like a talk show but the guests to show up randomly and don't really seem to understand why they are there or what's happening. The live show is cut with digital shorts that are frequently hilarious and sometimes just bizarre (Richard Kind tries to score acid? What?). John takes random calls on a big old fashioned phone that fits right in with the bizarre 70's porno set they're working with. These calls are just random people completely unscripted that are treated with deadly seriousness. Why they would do this is unclear.

It's hard to look away and hard not to laugh.

I hope John Mulaney totally saves himself from addiction and goes on with this for many years to come. As someone who's been having several issues with Netflix's recent choice of comedy, this one at the very least signaled freshness in framing humor.

The opening act was great, what with the map, trivia and all... The way it was constructed reminded me of another Netflix show, a special named Red States, Blue States. It always helps to mix fact with not-so-facts to get that mockumentary taste while still establishing the grounds for what we will be experiencing.

Yeah, this show is about LA after all - the unstable nature of the format helps underline the chaotic nature of the city as well. Mulaney being laid back and not too jumpy allows the guests to roam free, which helps each in different ways. That joke by Stavros vs Seinfeld's good boy humor. Etc.

Seeing Will Ferrell in character is always great and maybe that was what elevated my score from a 7 to an 8.

Now, was it really too funny? No, not really. But what matters at this point in streaming is the mood you offer. And they did offer an original mood that brought with enough laughs.

Let's see if other episodes will be even better.

This show feels like a nyquil fueled dream that you barely remember and leaves you with feelings of longing, giddiness and slight overwhelm, and you can't exactly pinpoint why. The combination of strong satirical bits, awkwardness, nonsensical/seemingly unconnected interviews with L. A. natives, set dressing and randomly assorted celebrities (that vary in popularity depending on the decade) all come together to make something that feels very chaotic yet very charming and funny.

I personally would love to hear what the goal of this show was when it was being thought up, so that I could get a better understanding of the overall vision. But in spite of a lot of confusion, I absolutely adore this limited time live show. In my opinion, this show captures the unspecific, not talked about, awkward parts of life that everyone is influenced by.

It very well could be that I'm reading deeper meaning within something that is just nonsense and funny for no specific reason. Regardless, I've been laughing much more than I usually do at online entertainment and for some reason the chaos, craziness and nonsense of the show make sense to me and (in a peculiar way) make me feel seen.

It's an odd ball, but I honestly love it in a way that an owner loves their weird mannered and weird looking dog.

Definitely worth a watch.

What...what was this? This show starts off with a funny monolog, then I can't even for sure tell you what happened. Was this a series of really dry comedy bits that fell flat, or a series of esoteric parody bits that succeeded in making uncomfortable comedy moments? I'm not sure and I'm not certain John Mulaney knows. He's a phenomenal stand-up comedian, and as a result, I can't believe this was an accident. So that leaves me with the unfortunate belief that this was a deliberately unpolished mash-up of bizarre concepts that have definitely not been tested before a life audience. It kind of feels like if David Lynch made a talk show.

All the negative or confused reviewers are looking for something that they're not supposed to find: a consistent format.

The show is live, it's meant to be random, fun and slightly imperfect - almost like humans used to be. The phone calls and discussion leave so much room for improv - that's where the fun is, that's where the thrill is. We're all experiencing the show together, it's intimate, it's real, it's not overly polished or saturated like a pre-recorded nightly talk-show that has 5 hours to edit their episode before it airs.

This is a show for the people who go to a concert but leave their cellphone in their pocket and enjoy the moment.