Evening Latte

• Year Premiered: 2024
• Number of Seasons/Episodes: 1/6
• Status: Ended (but with a spinoff)

In May of 2024, there was a big comedy festival in Los Angeles that brought a lot of headlining comics to town that week. John Mulaney pitched doing a multi-part live comedy special that involved having many of those comics as guests, and Netflix picked it up. Its six episodes aired from May 3rd to the 10th, with the first on a Friday (sort of the pilot) and the remaining five every evening the following week.

The big hook: everything was live. Truly live. Not six-second-delay live, not taped lived and aired unedited later that day. As John pointed out during each night’s intro, the show was streamed live via Netflix with no delay to countries all around the world.

The format and set are loosely based on a 70s vibe. The centerpiece of the stage is an overstuffed tan leather couch, John’s wardrobe abounds in the artificial Earth tone palate of that era, and Richard Kind (of Pixar voice fame and previous Mulaney collaborator) is the ever-enthusiastic sidekick: he’s Ed McMahon turned up to 11, but without the booze. Guests are announced to the couch (almost always two or more), and the general idea is that John interviews them about one main topic per episode. A nod to the more modern talk show format is the inclusion of taped bits/segments that are run to give everyone breaks during the roughly hour-long episodes, similar to commercials in a traditional broadcast show. As part of the live feature, they also take calls.

The reason I said interviewing guests is the “general idea” is because it’s rare for any question to be fully answered, let alone linked to a related follow-up. Most of the guests are standup comedians, and many take every opportunity to deliver one-liners or lean into bits. John is armed with a clipboard that he explains has the scheduling beats of each show (Netflix will apparently fine him if he goes over), and he does keep things moving along. However, during the interview portions, he seems happy to let everyone popcorn around topics or simply riff. In addition to the comedians, each episode has an actual expert in the stated topic of the evening.

Episode 1: Coyotes

• Stage/Interview Guests: Jerry Seinfeld, Stavros Halkias, Ray J
• Bit/Segment Guests: Will Ferrell
• Topic Expert: Tony Tucci (wildlife)

Episode 2: Palm Trees

• Stage/Interview Guests: Jon Stewart, Gabriel Iglesias, Mae Martin
• Bit/Segment Guests: Andy Samberg
• Topic Expert: Amanda Begley (trees)

Episode 3: Helicopters

• Stage/Interview Guests: Nate Bargatze, Patton Oswalt, Earthquake, Marcia Clark
• Topic Experts: Zoey Tur (news helicopter pilot)

Episode 4: Paranormal

• Stage/Interview Guests: Sarah Silverman, Tom Segura, Cassandra Peterson, Ronny Chieng
• Topic Expert: Kerry Gaynor (hypnotist and paranormal investigator)

Episode 5: Earthquakes

• Stage/Interview Guests: David Letterman, Bill Hader, Luenell, Pete Davidson
• Topic Expert: Dr. Lucy Jones (seismologist)

Episode 6: The Future of L.A.

• Stage/Interview Guests: Hanna Gadsby, Mike Birbiglia, George Wallace, Nikki Glaser, John Carpenter
• Topic Expert: Dr. Emily Lindsey (paleontologist)

The quality of each episode was largely determined by the guests: how quick they were on their feet and how willing they were to embrace the silliness and (at times) chaos that are the heart of the show. The first two episodes perfectly highlighted this: in the first episode, Jerry Seinfeld seemed initially confused by the experience, then turned sort of snarky about it, at one point wryly quipping “It does seem like a guy coming out of rehab would do a show like this” (Mulaney has been open about his struggles with cocaine and other drugs, including two trips to rehab). For whatever reason, Jerry didn’t embrace what the show was about, so the episode suffered with him as the main guest.

On the other hand, John Stewart couldn’t get enough of it. From repeatedly engaging the tree expert with actual questions to laughing like a maniac at Andy Samberg’s James Goldstein impression to jumping out of his seat and yelling “What the fuck?!” while simultaneously laughing at his own reaction to the show’s robotic delivery mascot (yep) unexpectedly rolled behind the couch. He engaged with the callers, supported the other guests’ bits/stories, and generally helped the show flow smoothly. Which I guess shouldn’t be surprising since he has a little experience with interview-based comedy shows. In a later episode, David Letterman seemed almost wistful in the disjointedness, saying that during the early run of his show, his bookers specifically sought out people considered too weird for The Tonight Show, which led to some interesting episodes.

The most interesting part of the show for me was the spectrum of reactions from the comics. Mae Martin, Nate Bargatze, Hanna Gadsby, and Tom Segura never seemed to tap into the vibe and sort of shrank, only giving short answers to questions and throwing out fewer jokes than I expected from professional comics. On the other side, Luenell, Sarah Silverman, and George Wallace took over the couches of their respective episodes with (mostly) funny results.

The expert guests obviously weren’t expected to do a lot of heavy lifting comedically, but some of them sure elevated their episodes. Both Amanda Begley (trees) and Dr. Lucy Jones (seismologist) seemed very comfortable in front of the camera, and the latter even commented that when a big earthquake happened, it often ruined her day because she ended up doing TV for hours. Begley somehow managed to match Jon Stewart’s energy and delivered a lot of useful knowledge along the way. They both rolled with odd questions from the comics and were quick on their feet to give a clever answers when they got opportunities.

Marcia Clark was a weird guest because she wasn’t a comic, but she also wasn’t acting as an expert. While booking her is kind of understandable because she was involved in one of the most famous events to ever happen in the city (people who weren’t alive/aware in the mid ’90s don’t understand how monumental the OJ trial was nationwide), the other guests didn’t know what to ask her other than OJ stuff, and nobody knew how to talk about OJ since it had only been three weeks since his death, so things just felt awkward while she was onstage. The Jon Carpenter interview also went way too long (almost 13 minutes) and often amounted to the ramblings of an out of touch old man (L.A. is great because it has beautiful women everywhere! Mexico is going to take over California right before the Big One dumps L.A. into the ocean!).

The other odd guest was Ray J for reasons similar to Clark: not a comic, not an expert. But John seemed more genuinely curious about Ray J’s life and business endeavors than the always-present Kardashian connection, and Ray J responded by giving earnest answers. At one point, he openly talked about how much he loved his wife even though they were getting a divorce. It was a small, but kind of touching moment.

In this format, the unedited interview/talk portions are always going to be uneven. Who would have guessed Seinfeld would refuse to be funny while the tree expert would deliver some good lines? So you’d think there would be a lot of focus on making the taped segments extra funny/punchy/interesting in case they needed to get people back after a tough interview portion. Accordingly, the segments that showcased unique L.A. characters (like the owner of a shop that just repairs jeans) and stories (the Leonardo DiCaprio reading room at a local library) were a great mix of quirky and informative. But nearly all the taped comedy segments (House Hunters spoof, Terrance Howard’s school, Mulaney and Nick Kroll as characters on a mansion tour they thought was a Charlie “Manson” tour, etc.) fell flat and were far too long.

I’m normally a staunch advocate of “watch the whole season/series for the full experience,” but the live and unrehearsed nature of this show justifies an exception. My recommendation is to watch the first episode to get an idea of how much into the concept you are. If you like it enough to continue, watching the whole thing is obviously an option, but I also propose two others:

1. Have a hair trigger skip forward button. If you don’t like the first 20-30 seconds of a segment (especially a taped one), you’re probably not going to like the rest of it. Give the interviews a longer leash because it can take a few minutes for the guests to figure out their dynamic.
2. Only watch the episodes that are significantly better than the others. After watching the first episode to set the whole thing up and establish running gags that last the rest of the show, I think you could be forgiven for only watching two more:
   • Episode 2 (Palm Trees)
   • Episode 5 (Earthquakes)

A thing I appreciated about the show was how flexible John, Richard, and (most of) the guests were. Everyone knew the whole thing was going to be live and unrehearsed, so when a joke or bit wasn’t working, they rolled with it and either went to the next thing or found some way to joke about the thing that just bombed. And when things were clicking, it was a joy to see skilled people collaborating in real-time for laughs and (seemingly) having a good time while doing it.