Mulaney (2014) s01e00 Episode Script

Mulaney - S01xE00 An Opening Act Ladies and gentlemen, John Mulaney.
Thank you.
Please have a seat.
Nice to meet you.
My name's John Mulaney.
Thank you for coming.
I'm gonna do stand-up tonight, and we're gonna film it for this sitcom I have called "Mulaney" that's on Fox.
It's a scary thing, a new show.
It's especially scary when a new show is titled "Mulaney," 'cause who the hell is Mulaney? The premise of this show is the life of John Mulaney, who's me.
It's not exactly what happened in my life, but it's kind of how it felt.
This show is how it feels to be living in New York with two roommates, working for a very strange boss, just how weird and exciting and scary that could be.
I needed to get you together for a roommate meeting.
Yeah.
Now, you guys haven't paid me rent in two months.
I am out of checks.
I don't know how to get more, and I refuse to look into it.
This is the set of the show.
This is the apartment that I live in on the show.
It's in New York.
New York is an amazing city.
One of the last things I saw before I left New York was I was walking down West 12th Street downtown.
I was walking downtown in the middle of the afternoon, and I walked by a guy on his cellphone, and as he walked past me, he said, "no, no, no.
I can't meet right now.
I'm way uptown.
" And then he looked at me and he winked and he kept walking.
That guy is fantastic.
You have to start with the core thing, which is he funny? And John is very funny.
He's very, in an old-fashioned sense, clean-cut.
For about five years, I was a writer for Lorne Michaels on "Saturday Night Live," and at the end of that, I came to him with this idea for sort of a throwback sitcom about my life A slice of white bread moving through New York City.
I'm 30 now, and I have this new phenomenon in my life where late at night, when I'm on the street, women will look at me like I'm a threat.
Yeah, that is funny.
It's also weird because I'm still afraid of being kidnapped.
But once I was walking towards the subway at 2:00 in the morning, walking towards the subway, and there's this woman in front of me, and she was walking along, but she kept giving me, like, the over-the-shoulder, like that.
And then she started to walk a lot faster.
So I thought, "Oh, she must hear the train coming.
" "Or maybe she feels it in her feet like a native American in a movie.
" So I started to sprint towards the subway at her, and she looked back and she was like, "aah!" And then she gives chase, so now we're booking it towards the subway at 2:00 in the morning, and I'm gaining on her.
I'm gaining on her.
We're getting to the end of the subway hallway.
She goes into that dead-end shuffle, you know, that women do when you chase them.
And I'm almost at her.
I'm almost at her, and then it dawns on me "Oh, she's running from me Because in her eyes, I'm an adult, and adults murder each other.
" So I wanted to go up to her and be like, "hey, no.
I'm not a man.
" But I think that that would be equally creepy, 'cause if you were in a subway at 2:00 in the morning and I chased you down, grabbed you, and said, "I'm not gonna kill you.
I'm a little boy.
" When the show begins, I've just gotten this writing job for a game-show host named Lou Cannon, who's also a big stand-up comedy legend.
And I have an Emmy Award.
And when you put it against this mirror, it looks like I have two Emmy Awards.
Two Emmys, and a Daytime Tony.
Lou Cannon is a game-show host, big star.
He was a big stand-up in the '80s and '90s, and now he's kind of going that cheesier route to make lots of money.
He's filled with himself and his own importance in his staff, and ultimately, not the brightest bulb.
Do you realize that I have never been nominated for an Oscar for "Celebrity You Guessed It"? And do you know why? Is it because it's a syndicated game show that's on at odd hours? As soon as Martin short agreed to do it, and I'm still not sure why he did, but he did Martin Short, everybody.
Hey, hi, everybody! We started talking about the character, and we both had a lot of ideas for it that really shaped what it became.
It's enough to know that when I die, you'll be there to hold my hand.
Aww.
This job is gonna take up so much of my time.
I can deal with a difficult boss, though, because, you know, my dad, he didn't like us very much.
I mean, he loved us, but he didn't like us.
I was once on a family car ride.
We were going from Wisconsin to Illinois with my two sisters and my brother.
We were all in the family Van.
It was a white Van with wood around the side, 'cause you know how you want your car to be made of wood? But a car made of wood It would catch on fire.
Ah, very frustrating.
But still, the dream of wood persists.
You're like, "hey, can I get a little bit of wood?" Well, you are in luck.
We here can put a saucy stripe of wood around the outside of the Van for all those times you looked at your car and thought, "hmm, it needs a belt.
" We were driving along with my dad.
My dad was driving.
We're all little kids.
And in the distance, we saw a McDonald's.
So we started chanting, "McDonald's, McDonald's, McDonald's," and my dad pulled into the drive-through, and we started cheering.
And then he ordered one black coffee for himself And kept driving.
And, you know, as mad as that made me as a little kid, in retrospect, that is the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.
John was one of the essential writers and one of the most brilliant people I've ever had.
He's very smart.
I think a massive star.
I think he's very funny, very relatable.
I was just saying that I have this feeling I'm never gonna get booked on "letterman.
" Why? What'd the booker say? He said, "you'll never be booked on 'letterman.
'" An Opening Act," will be right back after this message.
Try to be nice to this one.
It's not my fault, John.
You just pick bad women.
Most of the time, I'm perfectly friendly.
I swear to God, if that is a person I've been in a few relationships.
The weirdest part to me is when the relationship is going well, so you meet each other's parents.
I've never understood that.
I've never been like, "hey, honey, tonight is going great, but do you know what would make it perfect? Chip and Ellen Mulaney.
Yeah.
We've been going pretty hot and heavy lately.
I think it's time we bring in two older catholic people.
" Who would you like me to date? Someone like me.
Someone who's, like, creative and fun and embraces their persona, like Stevie Nicks.
I'm not gonna date Stevie Nicks.
Whatever.
Just call her, okay? It's just drinks.
I had the pleasure of working with John at "SNL.
" It's been so fun to transition into working with him here.
John told me he had written this part with me in mind, and if I would look at it, and I obviously read it and loved it.
I talked to Nasim Pedrad a lot about the character of Jane, and it made us laugh that she is surrounded by guys and has a lot of problems with them because she's, you know, obsessed with justice, and there's not always justice when it comes to guys.
She lives! She's alive! I feel like John has written Jane very much within my voice.
Hopefully, I'm not as crazy at times.
I am not crazy! Freshman year of college, I was kind of nerdy, okay? - I had this dry, wild hair - A unibrow.
You shut your mouth! Yeah, you broke her.
You broke them all.
And you should feel free to celebrate.
It doesn't make me happy to see you miserable.
John, the reas - Are you flexing your arm? - Sorry.
Comedy was the first time I ever tried hard at anything.
I was very lazy as a kid.
It was always very frustrating, 'cause at my school, you got a grade, and below it, you got a grade for effort.
My mom once got so frustrated with me, she was like, "you know, I wouldn't mind if you had all C's and D's, as long as you had A's in effort.
" I was like, "that wouldn't make you sad, if you knew that's what was going on?" If my teachers were like, "Mrs.
Mulaney, John is trying as hard as he possibly can.
He is using every chromosome of his brain The only brain he will ever have with him.
He is pushing that to its limit.
That's an "F" right there.
'Your son is an idiot, but a sweet, hard-working idiot.
'" It's been cool to see how so much of his stand-up material just easily folds into storylines.
Most of my stand-up comedy comes from real stories that have happened to me, and also, things I've just observed rambling around.
I was able to then take those stories that I'd fleshed out in stand-up and put them into the series itself.
I had a life, and then I pull from it for stand-up, and then I'd pulled from the stand-up and the life for the show.
So we have a show now, but I have no life.
Lou just talks at me for hours.
It's like he's trying to torture me and I'm his best friend.
Aww, I miss my sorority.
Well, at least you're getting - to open for him at this Marsha thing.
- Yeah, it is a big show.
Hello? John, it's Donna, Lou Cannon's assistant.
- Hi, Donna.
How are you? - Blessed.
So, Lou has a special announcement he wants you to read to get the crowd warmed up.
No problem.
Lou Cannon cannot be here today, so there will be no show! What? I really wanted to break the show out of just being in our living room all the time because, you know, when you live in New York City, you get a tiny apartment and then you try to get outside as much as possible.
You know, really, the final character on this show is New York City.
Oh, that's from "Sex And The City"? Okay, never mind, then.
I don't like to get made fun of.
I guess being a comedian was a bad idea.
The worst heckle I ever had was when I was doing stand-up in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which is a real place.
I was doing stand-up comedy in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and a man yelled, and I quote, "excuse me, sir.
I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we would enjoy silence more than the sound of your voice.
" What a mean heckle, but also how very eloquent.
What a beautiful turn of phrase.
"To enjoy silence more than the sound of your voice.
" If that was the last line of a Maya Angelou poem, you would just shut the book and look out the window and think about what you did with your life.
I ordered a chicken sandwich the other day, and it came with a choice of either salad or fries The two most different foods in the universe.
Do you want salad or fries? That's like saying, "hey, do you want to go for a jog or free base cocaine?" "Oh, well, should we get a plate of free base? Yeah, let's get a plate of free base for the table.
" When women order fries together, they get very excited, and they act like it's a little adventure.
First they're like, "should we get a plate of fries for the table? Should we do it?" They got to make sure everyone's onboard.
"If I get fries, you'll have some, right? I know, you'll have fries if I get fries.
Let's do it.
Let's be bad.
We're gonna take a plate of fries.
" An Opening Act" will be right back after this message.
Motif's girls keep going home wearing my jeans.
I can't help that I like women with your body type.
Yeah, it's your feminine hips.
Look, look, Mulaney, it's a good thing.
Otherwise, we'd never have met.
First time I saw you, you were bent over a mini fridge.
And I was like, "I got to marry that woman.
" Seaton Smith is an amazing actor and stand-up comedian that I met in Washington, D.
C.
We were doing a stand-up show together, and he has so much energy.
He connected with the audience so much.
And I was so jealous of that.
Can I be your emergency contact? Yeah, I mean, I normally put my mom, but I guess we're roommates.
Let's do it.
It's also good promotion for me.
Matter of fact, don't put my number down.
Put down my website Oh, and write down - "They should skip my intro.
" - Yeah.
John Mulaney as a stand-up comedian is one of the best comedians in the country.
He's engaging, he's funny, he's tightly written.
I opened up for him, and I think I watched all six shows like I never saw them before.
He is just a magician up there.
I am 30 now.
I was hoping I'd look older by now, but I don't.
I just look worse.
Like, when I'm walking down the street, no one's ever like, "hey, look at that man.
" They're just like, "whoa, that tall child looks terrible.
"Get some rest, tall child.
You can't keep burning the candle at both ends.
" So I have a lot of stress now in my adult life.
But at least I'm not stressed out about the things I was as a kid.
Like, I always thought that quicksand was gonna be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be, because if you watch cartoons, quicksand is like the third biggest thing you have to worry about in life, right behind actual sticks of dynamite and giant anvils falling on you from the sky.
Now I'm older, and not only have I never stepped in quicksand, I've never even heard about it.
No one's ever been like, "oh, you coming downtown? "Well, take 5th Avenue, 'cause 7th's got a little quicksand.
Looks like regular sand, but then you start to slowly sink into it and talk until bubbles come out.
" Jane and Motif and I have another friend our age named Andre, and he's a real New York find.
I have bad news, guys.
It's Andre.
It's Andre! Why is he here? - What's her problem? - Oh, she's just going through a breakup.
Also, you're very unpleasant.
He's a boarding-school kid who now sells drugs, but not for long, because someday soon, he's gonna inherit a fortune.
You know, I don't plan on selling weed forever.
As soon as my grandma dies and my parents die, I'm coming into quite a bit of money.
All that stands between us and destiny is three deaths.
John Mulaney is one of the funniest people just naturally, and he's charming.
He's got that old sense of style.
He's eternal, in a sense.
Weed is legal in 18 states now.
Legal in Ah, did you "whoo"? Are you white? 'Cause you know, it's always been legal for us.
We don't go to jail for marijuana, you silly billy.
Marijuana's legal in Colorado, 18 other states.
That's pretty good, I guess.
I think that's good.
But it's very strange, 'cause this is the first time I've ever seen a law change because the government was just like, "fine.
" Just gave up.
It's like, healthcare and gay marriage, we have to battle out in the Supreme Court.
With weed, it was just something we wanted really badly, and we kept asking for 30 years, and now the government is like cool parents.
They're like, "okay, here.
Take a little.
"We'd rather you do it in the house than go somewhere else and get some.
" Now weed is legal, which is great news, unless you're a weed dealer, and then it is terrible news, because weed dealers are about to find out that it was because they had an illegal product that we showed them a certain amount of politeness that we don't show to people in other businesses.
Like, when the Chinese food delivery guy comes, we don't let him hang out after he's delivered the Chinese food.
And we don't look the other way when he says weird things to the girls we're hanging out with.
And we definitely don't give him some of the Chinese food that he brought to us.
He's never like, "hey, can I get in on that dumpling?" And we're like, "yeah, we're all friends.
" Oh, hello.
Hey, Oscar, we got a package of yours.
We live across the hall from Oscar, who's a 70-year-old, very liberal, very proudly gay, former radical, played by Elliott Gould.
How do you put out a cookie-dough fire?! It's a pleasure to write the character of Oscar and then have Elliott Gould deliver those lines.
It's really amazing.
The character is kind of a Yoda to all of us, and Elliott is a Yoda to all of us in the cast.
His Yoda.
I like that.
That's pretty funny.
I think a gay Yoda is wonderful.
I'm not confident now.
I was confident when I was a kid.
I had a lot of confidence.
Like, I'm straight, but I was definitely gay when I was a little boy.
A lot of little boys are gay.
You know, they're very flowy, and they have strong opinions on things.
I don't mean that I was a sexually active gay man when I was a child.
That's not what I'm saying.
I was more like a 70-year-old gay man who's kind of over it sexually, you know? I was like an old queen.
Like, I would go out to recess and be like, "everyone get out of my way.
I just want to sit here and feed my birds.
" The gym teacher would tell me to play kickball, and I'd be like, "you want me to do what?" Jokes should be about wonderful things.
- Knock, knock.
- Who's there? A baby bird.
Ha, ha! Wonderful! Step one was writing these characters.
Step two is working with this amazing cast to form the characters.
All of these actors and actresses have brought a lot to the characters, and the characters have changed as we've worked together as an ensemble.
It's an amazing, amazing TV cast, and a very mediocre crew.
- Mediocre?! - All right, guys, just relax.
An Opening Act" will be right back after this message.
I have actual roommate business.
I'm not going to complain about being single anymore, because I have found a solution.
What if we just heard a gunshot right now? Sometimes I'll be dating a girl.
Hey, it's true.
Sometimes I'll be dating a girl, and then I'll have these friends that are girls, and I think, "oh, maybe they'll all get along.
" No.
I don't want to make any generalizations about women, but while women can be friends, I think it's hard to force women to hang out with each other.
Like, I don't think you could ever put together a heist of just women.
Like, "Ocean's Eleven" with women wouldn't work, because two would keep breaking off to talk trash about the other nine.
Or not even talk trash, just say weird passive-aggressive things while they break into the Casino Vault, just being like, "oh, I love how you just wear anything.
" Thanks very much, everybody.
This was really fun.
I hope you enjoyed yourself.
John, give me five reasons why people should watch your show.
You want five reasons why people should watch the show? Okay.
Uh, one Martin Short.
When I walked in, I was just so shocked and delighted.
Couldn't tell because I've had some work done.
Aah! - Let's freak them out! - No, no! - Lou, truth or dare? - Truth.
- Uh, how old are you? - Dare.
Two Stand-up comedy on TV.
Oh, yeah.
Three Elliott Gould saying, "oh, hello.
" Oh, hello.
Oh, hello.
Oh, hello.
Oh, hello.
Ohh, hello-o-o.
Four We have lots of animals drop by, and the most lovable drug dealer on TV yet.
Morning, Mulaney.
Best birthday ever.
Five Martin Short.
Yo-o-o-u guessed it! So, those would be five reasons to watch my show, which premiers October 5th at 9:30, only on Fox.
That is the point of this, right? We're on after the "Family Guy.
" We're so grateful.