iThough I have heard his name, I have never seen John Mulaney perform before. And since this came to Netflix, I’ve learned probably a little too much about him, given the AV Club’s coverage of him back in 2015 or 2016, whenever he had his show. As usual, hype can be dangerous, as I found myself not enjoying this to start; finding it moderately amusing but that’s about it.
I’m not sure if the special starts show, or if it was just hearing so much about him before I saw it, but I definitely didn’t enjoy the first 10-15 minutes. It was more of a feeling of like “I guess this is moderately amusing.”
But something happened. He won me over. Part of this is the rather in-depth stories to some of the jokes. Some of the jokes are quite long, and are more funny stories than joke. These work much more than the short bits, to my mind.
I also like how he deals with the darker material, skirting around it or briefly mentioning it but continuing on as if it’s not so dark (molestation, suicide).
So I found this quite enjoyable once I warmed up to it.
7/10
- Directed by Rhys Thomas
- Written by John Mulaney
- Starring:
- Petunia
- John Mulaney
- Amanda Walsh as the voice of Petunia
- Produced by
- Dave Becky (executive producer)
- Mike Berkowitz (executive producer)
- Rob Guillermo (executive producer)
- John Irwin (executive producer)
- David Miner(executive producer)
- John Mulaney (executive producer)
- Lisa Nishimura (executive producer)
- Casey Spira (co-executive producer)
- Kristen Zolner (executive producer)
- Music by Jon Brion
- Cinematography by Craig Kief
- Film Editing by Kelly Lyon
- Production Design by Kevin Depinet
- Makeup Department:
- Annamarie Tendler: hair stylist / makeup artist
- Production Management:
- Aaron Champion: post-production supervisor
- Wendy S. Millman: production manager
- Sound Department:
- Gerry Formicola: audio engineer
- Bill Kaplan: audio mixer / sound mixer
- Teddy Salas: sound designer
- Jennifer Vanncy-Roonsaville: audio engineer
- Boyd Wheeler: audio sweetener