So, exactly how bad is the new Fox sitcom, Mulaney? It
reminded me of what a bad Saturday Night Live sketch would be if they decided
to do a parody of a stereotypical bad sitcom. It wasn't like they tried to
make it funny and failed; it was like they tried to make it awful and
succeeded.
The show has been compared, favorably and unfavorably, to
the classic Seinfeld, and you can’t help but recall the early Seinfelds when
every show began with Jerry Seinfeld doing stand-up. John Mulaney begins his show
with his stand-up act, the only difference being that jerry Seinfeld is maybe
one of the five best stand-up comedians of all time (George Carlin, Lenny
Bruce, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor . . . okay for now) and John Mulaney is not.
It is the sort of sitcom where the main character’s wacky
friend bursts into the doctor’s office where the main character is waiting,
yells “I’m not crazy!!!!!!” to the assembled crowd, and then squirts massive
quantities of hand sanitizer on her hands.
Why is she going to her friend’s doctor’s appointment? Who enters a
doctor’s office full of strangers yelling, “I’m not crazy!!!!!!”? Why would
anyone remain friends with someone who behaved like that? Then again, why would
a man tells his doctor he suffered from “frequent urination” when he wanted
anti-anxiety medication because he was nervous about a job interview?
Seinfeld drew laughs from taking real life situations and
blowing them up to gigantic proportions. Mulaney bears no relationship to
anything remotely resembling the universe the rest of us inhabit. Every
character on the show behaves like no one you would ever meet in real life, or
on a bad acid trip.
I've said before that it is sometimes difficult to judge a
sitcom by its pilot. Mulaney is so cynically constructed to be a carbon copy of
other not-very good sitcoms that I can’t imagine it improving. Lucky for me, I don’t
have to waste my time finding out.
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