Comedy Central needs to take down the framed photos of John Mulaney from its vision board and turn on Dua Lipa’s “New Rules.†He’s not coming. He doesn’t want to do your show. And by “your show,†of course, we mean The Daily Show, which is currently being half-hosted by Jon Stewart. And by half-hosted, we mean that every time it goes viral, it’s because of Stewart, but he actually only hosts on Mondays. Apparently, Comedy Central tried to solve its issue by going to Mulaney, not once but twice. Mulaney was asked to host TDS both when Stewart first left, per a November 12 GQ profile, and again “more recently.†Mulaney confirmed the original ask on the Basic! podcast in 2023, saying, “It wasn’t the right thing at the moment.†But also, apparently, it wasn’t the right thing at a later moment either. Duh!
Mulaney has never been an overly “topical†or politically minded comedian. John Mulaney’s focus is on his life, his history, and his most mundane opinions. His most famous joke about “the news†came when he compared the entirety of politics to “a horse loose in a hospital†during his Netflix Is a Joke set. “I think everything’s going to be okay,†he said, “but I have no idea what’s going to happen next.†Funny! But it doesn’t exactly show the impulse to dig deep into politics.
Instead, per GQ, Mulaney is digging into 12 more episodes Everybody’s in L.A., his wackadoo live talk show that is purportedly about Los Angeles but is also, really, about watching a bunch of comedians and experts attempt to grapple for screentime while Mulaney sits back and watches the chaos unfold with Richard Kind. That’s John Mulaney.