{"id":15585,"date":"2023-04-26T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/26\/inside-the-making-of-john-mulaneys-baby-j-netflix-special\/"},"modified":"2023-04-26T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T21:00:00","slug":"inside-the-making-of-john-mulaneys-baby-j-netflix-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/26\/inside-the-making-of-john-mulaneys-baby-j-netflix-special\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Making of John Mulaney\u2019s \u2018Baby J\u2019 Netflix Special"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Much has changed since John Mulaney<\/strong> was last onstage in a Netflix stand-up special. The comedian has weathered a much-publicized pandemic roller coaster<\/a>\u2014drug relapse<\/a>, recovery, divorce, a new romance, and the birth of his first child\u2014and emerged, after two years spent workshopping material about this epic trajectory, with a new persona<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have kind of a different vibe now,\u201d Mulaney tells the audience of Baby J<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> the Netflix special that debuted Tuesday, as he salutes the dramatic recent end of his \u201cnice guy\u201d era. Over 80 minutes, Mulaney walks a self-deprecating tightrope\u2014depicting himself at the depth of his addiction as a drug-motivated con artist who stole from himself, hit up New York\u2019s shadiest doctors for prescriptions, and showed up late to his own intervention. But he does so with such sharp punch lines and delivery that the material does not feel oppressively somber. \u00a0<\/p>\n

After finessing his new comedy during a tour, Mulaney reunited with Tony-winning Broadway director Alex Timbers<\/strong> (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,<\/em> Beetlejuice,<\/em> and Moulin Rouge! The Musical<\/em>) to create a Netflix special that would introduce Mulaney 2.0 to mass audiences. Timbers, whom Mulaney has called<\/a> the Fosse to his Liza Minnelli,<\/strong> previously directed Mulaney in his 2016 stage show with Nick Kroll<\/strong>, Oh, Hello,<\/em> and Mulaney\u2019s 2018 Netflix special, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City.<\/em> That Netflix special opened with an elaborate sequence that found Mulaney backstage at the famed New York theater, tracking the comedian as he walked onstage and was greeted with applause from the over 6,000 people in his audience.<\/p>\n

This time around, to suit the more intimate material and Mulaney\u2019s new \u201cvibe,\u201d Mulaney chose a smaller venue\u2014Boston\u2019s stunning Symphony Hall, which accommodates about 2,600 audience members. Underneath coffered ceilings and an imposing wall of Greek and Roman statues, the stage sits closer to the audience\u2014an intimacy that Timbers and his DP Cameron Barnett<\/strong> amplified for at-home viewers by using steadicams onstage to capture Mulaney at a much closer distance than was captured in Kid Gorgeous.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mulaney also opted to forgo a traditional opening. Instead, the special begins with a black screen as the comedian is overheard telling the audience, \u201cThe past couple years, I\u2019ve done a lot of work on myself.\u201d Baby J<\/em> cuts to a tight shot of Symphony Hall\u2019s stage, and Mulaney backs into the frame as he continues: \u201cI\u2019ve realized that I\u2019ll be fine, as long as I get a lot of attention.\u201d The camera then spins around to show Mulaney\u2019s POV, looking out into the audience, and getting said attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn wanted to get right into the material,\u201d explains Timbers in a phone call with VF.<\/em> \u201cBecause there\u2019s such an urgency and intimacy, it felt like diving right into the show was the right choice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The special was culled from footage taken during three sold-out stand-up shows performed during two days in Boston this past February. Ultimately, Timbers says, he and the comedian reordered the show in the edit room so that Mulaney was beginning Baby J<\/em> with softer lead-up material, about wanting attention so much as a child that he secretly hoped a grandparent\u2014\u201cone of the unimportant ones\u201d\u2014would die. (Though grim, the bit is a throwback to Mulaney\u2019s earlier comedy about his childhood.)<\/p>\n

Onstage, Mulaney acknowledges, \u201cI apologize for starting the show on such a dark note. But I didn\u2019t want to start too upbeat.\u201d He then breaks into jokey song and dance, imagining what that upbeat version of the opening would\u2019ve been: \u201cWe all went to rehab, and we all got divorced, and now our reputation is different.\u201d<\/p>\n

One mood-lightener in the first minutes was unexpected\u2014Mulaney spotted an 11-year-old fifth-grader named Henry in the balcony of one of his performances. After a playful back-and-forth about what Mulaney was about to discuss, he told Henry, \u201cDon\u2019t.\u201d It takes 10 minutes before Mulaney finally winds up to discuss his intervention, teasing, \u201cHere\u2019s what happened.\u201d Baby J<\/em> then cuts to opening credits before the special returns to Mulaney onstage, beginning the special\u2019s centerpiece.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Much has changed since John Mulaney was last onstage in a Netflix stand-up special. The comedian has weathered a much-publicized pandemic roller coaster\u2014drug relapse, recovery, divorce, a new romance, and the birth of his first child\u2014and emerged, after two years spent workshopping material about this epic trajectory, with a new persona.\u00a0 \u201cI have kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}