BABY J Births a New Era for John Mulaney

“Don’t believe the persona.”

It’s a brief comment made early and quickly thrown away, a phrase not particularly positioned as a punchline in John Mulaney’s new standup special Baby J, which started streaming on Netflix April 25th. All the same, it serves as the mission statement of his set, and perhaps this entire phase of the comedian’s career.

It’s been a long road for the Chicago-born standup Mulaney to reach this moment in time. Just a couple of years ago, it wasn’t all that clear that another special was even in the cards. So it goes when a comedian enters rehab and proceeds to both dismantle and rebuild his life and entire stage presence in the process. When an artist loses their persona, who the hell knows what comes next?

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A lot of stand-up comedy depends on artifice (or, to put it less cynically, just some good ol’ fashioned magic). I don’t mean to shatter any illusions, but…many of the great stories your favorite comedians tell aren’t precisely true. They’re either greatly exaggerated in the details, stolen experiences from friends or family, or even just flat-out made up. But deep down, you kind of knew that, right? What are the odds that all these funny people have something hilarious and odd happen to them every time they leave the house? As Mark Twain may or may not have once said, “never let the truth get in the way of a good story”. Developing a joke, a funny story….it’s all work. And it’s work that’s done in the name of creating a persona that any audience on a random Tuesday can immediately identify with.

Personas are a really, really hard thing to develop in comedy, and an even harder thing to shake once you have it. All of the greats have a “character” that they’re playing, even if it’s only lightly enhanced for the stage. Norm MacDonald played the gleeful anarchist, Jerry Seinfeld the exasperated observer. Anthony Jeselnik embodies the amoral rogue, Sarah Silverman the sweet shock artist. But if you ever had the fortune to meet these people in real life, odds are you’d be amazed to learn just how little of their actual selves they’re revealing to their audience (okay, except for maybe Norm).

The persona extends to comedians you probably don’t even think are all that funny, maybe even more so! You understand intellectually that Larry the Cable Guy probably isn’t actually hooking up Spectrum boxes during the day. Hell, his name isn’t even Larry, it’s Dan Whitney. What part about this dude isn’t a lie? Yet he’s one of the biggest jokesters of all time. Note that I’m not signing off on him being objectively funny per se, but he has an astronomically large audience that’s into the idea of him. The mere fact that we all know who he is puts him, in terms of “success” head and shoulders above just about everyone who’s ever tried to pick up a mic and make people laugh. He worked out a character, fine-tuned it, and popularized it. His persona works.

But consider this: Larry is now trapped. I don’t really get the sense he’s looking to make a pivot at this point, but if he tried to…if he went back to just being Dan Whitney in public…well, it’d be a potential leap off a cliff for him, yeah? Who knows if his fanbase, who likes him specifically for what he’s selling, would go with him on that? He’d be a fool to try.

Let’s take this one step further: what if there was some sort of public scandal that went directly against the core of that persona? Say TMZ ran an article next week revealing that Larry the Cable Guy cut the cord back in 2019 and, in fact, is rumored to not even own a TV (note: I’m assuming most of his comedy is about telecommunications). Well, he’d be kind of fucked, wouldn’t he?

This is more or less the abyss John Mulaney was staring down as the pandemic surged.

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For those who weren’t previously aware, it’s hard to describe how ubiquitous John Mulaney was/is among even the most casual comedy fans on the internet. GIFS and images of him were/are everywhere. Phrases, quips and punchlines from his many specials were/are so commonplace on message boards and social media sites that there’s an entire subreddit dedicated to unexpected uses of his material.

And, look, you couldn’t say the dude didn’t earn it. He worked his ass off to get to where he was. And his resume isn’t contained to just his four stand-up specials and countless talk show appearances. After being forged in the burning kiln that is the Saturday Night Live writers’ room, he turned out to also be an insanely prolific creator, finding himself working on projects as diverse as Documentary Now!, his own fucking Broadway show, and even a network sitcom*. He’s even in the Marvel universe, as the venerable Spider-Ham in Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.

*A sitcom that, by the way, I desperately wished had worked. In a time when network TV was beginning its full-throated death rattle, Mulaney at least had the sincere desire in its style and aesthetic to return to a time when the network sitcom was king. The cast was a good balance of up and comers like Nasim Pedrad and Seaton Smith, alongside old pros like Elliot Gould and Martin Short. He even opened and closed each episode with a little stand-up act, a-la Seinfeld. Alas, it just wasn’t that funny and was never going to be granted the time it needed to find its comedic voice. Whatareya gonna do?

On a personal level, my wife and I have been fans of his comedy for probably over a decade at this point. We’ve had the opportunity and great fortune to see him live at least five times, in rooms as small as the local Punch Line club (where he mentioned that in the years between his gigs at this club, a timespan that included innumerable worldwide changes, the Nordstrom Rack next door had remained exactly the same), and as odd and huge as the Golden 1 Center (aka that place you all saw the Kings take the Warriors to seven last month, light the beam). In fact, we even got to see him work out his material that eventually became this special (back when the set was called From Scratch, a title I admittedly liked a little better).

One of my most treasured live show memories is Mulaney coming out and immediately unleashing his J.J. Bittenbinder material on an unsuspecting San Francisco crowd. Well, actually, the first thing he did was start profusely mocking the four prominently vacant seats right in the middle of the front row. From there, though, he launched into his whole bit about school assemblies, leading to his full breakdown of “Street Smarts!” by the aforementioned Bittenbinder, an insane former Chicago cop and, as it turns out, a very real guy. It probably isn’t literally what happened during this bit, but it sure felt like I laughed for ten minutes straight.

On stage, his comedy persona, at least before 2021 or so, was generally one of a boyish charmer with a briskly-alluded-to dark past. The combination of his old-school showman presentation (the suit and tie, the pseudo-50’s-newsboy quality to his voice) belies a not-so-clean lifestyle under the surface. As he describes it, college was a rough time for him(“I lived like a goddamn Ninja Turtle. I didn’t drink water the entire time”), and his continuing struggle with his Catholic upbringing provided a never-ending source of tension as a child. In the comedy present, however? A lot of jokes about his mother and father. A lot of stories about his wife, their dog and the happy, childfree existence they share. There was this intentional dichotomy between where he once was and where he now is. As he puts it:

I used to drink and then I drank too much and I had to stop. That surprises a lot of audiences because I don't look like someone who used to do anything. I look like I was just sitting in a room in a chair eating saltines for, like, 28 years and then I walked right out here.

Regardless of whether or not jokes about his married life truly made up the plurality of his routine or not, he pretty quickly earned the moniker of a “wife guy”, mostly because, when he did talk about his wife, they were stories about when he was the dope. For instance, his famous screed about the horrors of Delta Airlines opens with an admission that he doesn’t stand up for himself without her help. Yes, another famous punchline about her involves her being a bitch that he loves very much, but I think any normal person would look at that as the inversion of expectation that it is, and not Mulaney the comedian literally communicating with us that he genuinely thinks his wife is a bitch (seems like it would go without saying once you listen to, but I’ve seen people use this as evidence against him)

And, putting everything else aside, I think he’d still develop a fiercely loyal and clingy fanbase because…I mean…look at him. He’s jumping around the stage, making movie and Broadway musical references, he’s up there describing himself as a little courthouse mannequin. How could you not wanna put him in your pocket? Thus, his internet fanbase doomed him in the category of a “smol bean”, a room that ultimately only ever has one exit.

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Now, as mentioned, John Mulaney has never precisely been dishonest about his vices and past struggles. As alluded to above, he’s had entire sections of his past material talking about the usage of cocaine, pills and alcohol. Still, like every other fan in 2021, I didn’t quite know what to make of the news that Mulaney had checked into rehab, completed rehab, divorced his wife, gotten together with Olivia Munn, and made a pregnancy announcement, all in what felt like rapid succession.

Despite all of my intellectual capacity to understand that, of course, there are no celebrities that we truly know (we all barely have friends and family members about which we can make that claim), it all felt at odds with what was presented to me. My immediate first thought, insomuch that they mattered at all, was how I was ever going to be able to listen to the aforementioned material about his wife again. How could he do that to a woman he made such a part of his persona, as if somehow I could possibly be the one betrayed in this scenario. My second thought was that none of this felt like the behavior of a man successfully in recovery, as if somehow I was the one that could be victimized by his addictions here. My third thought was that I desperately wanted to be able to laugh at his stuff going forward, as if I all of a sudden don’t possess free will.

All very dramatic feelings for a guy I didn’t know in real life. And I wasn’t even particularly as pot-committed to him compared to some of his biggest fans! Even though it was none of anybody’s business, really, Mulaney’s relapse and subsequent rehab constituted a genuine pubic image crisis. It got even worse when people started going down the rabbit hole of “figuring out the timeline” of when he got together with Munn compared to when he officially split with his wife. It was rough to see one of my favorite comedians become grist for the gossip mill and Deuxmoi crowd.

By the way, if you’re waiting for this to eventually morph a piece about the parasocial relationships we tend to develop with celebrities*, it isn’t going to happen, I’m afraid. There are a million articles all about it that are frankly better-written and more comprehensive than anything I can provide. What this is sort of settling into, though, is me wrestling with my feelings about John Mulaney as an entertainer and celebrity going into From Scratch, then again going into Baby J.

*(By the way, I sort of rue the day the internet discovered the word “parasocial”; that word can go right in the trash, alongside the words “MacGuffin” and “problematic”.)

When the time came to buy tickets for one of his shows again, it became clear that Mulaney’s persona crumbling down didn’t ultimately turn me away. Yes, the, um, character flaws that had been revealed as a result of all the drama weren’t great or anything, and served as a stark reminder to never worship a celebrity for any reason (it’s just better off that way for everybody). I want him to be well. But I ultimately landed on this thought: the fact that this kind of public fallout contradicted some of the vibes of his material wasn’t ultimately enough to push me away as a fan.

As a counter-example, there’s a reason I found it easy to drop Louis CK like a hot sack of doggie doo-doo once the long-rumored allegations of making women watch him beat off were confirmed. It’s mostly because his material conveyed the idea of a lazy man who wants to just sit and be gross and masturbate. Well, clearly that’s just a persona; anyone who has made two TV shows, several stand-up specials and countless amounts of money can’t be lazy. In fact, Louis CK might be one of the most motivated entertainers of the past fifty years. But when the rest of it turned out to be him telling us who he is? Like, that one part of his act wasn’t really a joke? It’s difficult to return to it*.

(*Although return to it, I eventually did. Out of curiosity, I fired up Louis’ comedy for the first time in years, just to see if the recent Grammy winner Sincerely was anything. I admit to laughing here and there, but I was also kind of stunned at how….sophomoric and shock-humory it all was? Like, “raping dead grandmothers” kind of stuff. I had held Louis in esteem as one of the more brave and intelligent comedians of his time. Was his shit always like this? Or is this just what he’s been reduced to at this point? To his credit, he does eventually Talk About It, but it’s only towards the end, brief, and frankly only sort of insightful. On the same day, I gave a listen to Jen Kirkman’s OK, Gen-X which also has “Louis C.K. is a creeper” material, and was five times as interesting. So. There you go.)

But for Mulaney?

There are those out there for whom things just aren’t ever going to be the same, or even recoverable. I have friends who just aren’t that into John Mulaney anymore, so palpable was the hurt he specifically inflicted on his now-ex wife. I suspect they’re extrapolating their own personal pain onto this public situation, but…that’s kind of understandable, right? That’s the issue with knowing, or loving, an addict (or even just a narcissist). You don’t tend to forget the hurt that is inherent to someone callously abandoning someone they love*, even if it’s a situation not your own.

(*Again, I must say, allegedly. Who the fuck really knows what their life was like together. At a certain point, trying to specifically justify and ground your gut instincts on these kinds of things requires you to make assumptions and run with them. Probably best not to unless/until someone writes a tell-all.)

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This is why, I think, Baby J was the right type of material at the right time for John Mulaney. Outside of a couple of bits at the very beginning, the entire 80 minutes is dedicated to Talking About It (well, at least the rehab part of it; his current partner goes completely unnamed, which is probably for the best). Mulaney doesn’t swerve from the conversation at all; if anything, it’s kind of amazing how all-consuming the rehab talk really is, a few brief tangents here and there aside.

What’s most remarkable about the special is how willing he is to paint (or reveal) himself throughout the special as kind of an unpleasant dick. There are several stories told in Baby J that aren’t particularly flattering for him, including a harrowing tale of him buying an expensive watch in order to pawn it for drug money. He describes trying to turn his friends against his interventionist, as if maybe he could convince them she needed to go to rehab instead. He describes his frustration that nobody at his rehab facility seemed to know who he was. And, as he reminds us, these are the stories he’s willing to share.

If you’re a longtime fan, you can feel something being different post-rehab, even if you’re not really looking for it. Even though his signature style of delivery is still intact, he no longer comes off as an easy guy to be around, which is directly at odds with the classy imp persona that he had previously enjoyed. Watching this material both live and on Netflix, the aforementioned five minutes straight of laughter never quite materialized for me. BUT, I was strangely riveted in a way none of his other stuff has kept me. Stories about himself finding a quack doctor operating out of a New York apartment building who’s willing to give me Klonopin he didn’t need, a seeming minute by minute breakdown of his intervention….we’re a looooong way from J.J. Bittenbinder.

However, all of the above is actually why I think John Mulaney is going to be able to recover from his fall, even if his persona is never going to quite be the same again; he doesn’t provide a lot of excuses, if any at all. Instead, almost every joke in Baby J is directed at himself. He’s the butt of pretty much every punchline and that’s why it works. Even a joke about how the kids like Bo Burnham more than him now doesn’t seem so much a complaint as it does an admission of how the plates have shifted since 2020. Being able to wring an hour and a half of comedy by being able to nail down precisely what was funny about objectively the darkest time of his adult life…it’s impressive. Regardless of everything, The Kid’s Still Got It.

Compare this, again, to Louis CK’s first round of material after his exile, where he essentially blamed the kids. On the other hand, Mulaney’s ability to darkly laugh at himself may be what sets him free from his self-described “likability prison”. The “out of context Mulaney” Tumblr accounts or “every Tony winning musical as a John Mulaney quote” Twitter threads or whatever the fuck were good and fun and all, and it undoubtedly got him to the hyper-celebrity status he enjoys now. The persona has worked. It was a really fucking funny one. But now that it’s essentially been extinguished, a new and evolved one can now take its place.

The man turned 40 last year, which is usually an age that comes with introspection. And who knows how inward his first special as a quadragenarian would have focused in an alternate universe where his sobriety and marriage had stayed intact. But this is the universe we currently inhabit, and it’s imperative we make the most of the experiences we have. It’s hard to argue that Mulaney hasn’t done just that, especially *again* when you consider how poorly some of his contemporaries have done post-cancellation*.

*If you can even consider Mulaney as ever properly cancelled (or if anybody outside of a select few ever have, but…different conversation). Yes, his fans were pissed for a while, and some aren’t going to return. But the longest he was ever “gone” from the stage was his rehab stint during a global pandemic. Sorry, it bugs me that he occasionally gets hit with this tag.

Baby J proves Mulaney not only still has the chops, but he may be an even stronger comedic voice that we’d thought, even if the “internet’s precious little boy” aspect of his career is gone for now, and possibly forever. Mulaney has a gift for introspection, for zeroing in on an experience and nailing down what’s funny about it, for developing his act. And he’s spent the last year and a half using his weapons on himself. As a result, he’s capable of rattling off lines such as “when I’m alone, I realize I’m with the guy who tried to kill me”.

Despite losing a substantive part of his onstage self, something even more interesting may have emerged. A slightly slower, slightly older and slightly wiser Mulaney has been a good look so far. And besides, if the previous quicker version was a result of cocaine, what use is it anymore?

Wholesale change, even positive ones like sobriety, is fucking terrifying. It’s even more terrifying when you’re a public figure. I don’t know for a fact, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people like Mulaney sometimes resist cleaning themselves up out of fear that they may lose their creative self. It’d be understandable if what if I’m not funny anymore crosses their mind, even as they’re saving their own lives. If we presume that to be true, Baby J might be the best thing to ever happen to John Mulaney.