The Memo: Everybody's Into L.A.

"Sugar" and "John Mulaney's Presents: Everybody's in L.A." have us doing a curious double take on the oft-bashed city.

Ready to jump-start the tourist season, big streamers, like Netflix and Apple TV+, have decided it’s time to plug L.A. Its beaches, sunny weather, pixel-perfect movie stars, and palm trees are not doing enough of the heavy lifting. How else do you explain the prevalence of timely, buzz-worthy TV whose setting is none other than the nation’s entertainment capital?

Farrell as Sugar and Mulaney as Himself

Case-in-Point: The Netflix is a Joke Festival

For the annual Netflix is a Joke Festival held in L.A. this month, comedian John Mulaney hosted six live comedy talk shows that were a quirky, albeit welcome masterclass in how to land a backdoor late-night show pilot. Mulaney adamantly claims this special was a one-and-done of the pop-up talk show variety.

Each episode of John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A. [Trailer] centers around a topic somewhat specific to L.A. For example, episode 1 is about coyotes (apparently they’re everywhere), episode 2 talks about palm trees (same), episode 3 has helicopters, episode 4 does the paranormal, and so on. As you watch episode 1, you get the sense that Mulaney’s not entirely sold on the merits of his deal with Netflix’s CEO Sarandos. Still, oops, he’s already neck deep in hocking Ray J’s entrepreneurial divorce trauma and eliciting sticky staccato-like answers from his obscure guest.

Side Note: Mulaney is not afraid to wave the red flag and to learn from his failures. So with the knowledge gleaned from the nuclear-sized Ray J disaster event in episode 1, he switches up the format to include multiple guests which is a good call because eventually, the show finds its footing. Can’t say the same for The Roast of Tom Brady, which kicked off the Netflix is a Joke Festival week and was held at the L.A. Forum. It’s ~3 hours of my life I can’t get back and I’m pretty sure Tom Brady’s exes feel similarly.

Pros of John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A.

• Wang Chung’s “To Live and Die in L.A.” 80s intro [See for yourself]

• Pre-taped comedy sketches (unfortunately not available yet on YouTube):

  • HGTV’s House Hunters parody with Mulaney and other comedian buyers assessing a home and competing with other comedians. It’s hilarious.

  • Psychologists and a legal expert analyze stand-up comedians’ acts and diagnose their issues

  • Armisen conducting a focus group of “Old Punks” and them jamming out after

    

    Source: Consequence TV / “Old Punks” Focus Group

• Viewer call-ins and Mulaney and friends responding to their questions

  • Mulaney’s obsessive question about what cars listeners drive. It’s fascinating.

• The celebrity panel format which include comedians, journalists, and academics

• Close-ups of real people living (and likely to later die) in L.A.

  • Business owners (The Blue Jeans guy and the father and son bike store owners were the ones I remember vividly)

• Musical guests with L.A. roots - Except for St. Vincent, who is just cool, all the acts were born in L.A. - Weezer, Beck, Los Lobos, etc.

Its Cons

• Comedian and occasional Curb Your Enthusiasm walk-on Richard Kind as the Andy Richter sidekick guy to Mulaney’s Conan O’Brien

  • It feels too much like a pity party and Mulaney doing a nice thing for a friend. Sorry, but not sorry I said this. (said in my best Nikki Glaser impression, who is a guest in episode 6)

• Saymo the self-operating concessions delivery robot - Too many sketches involving the robot. Plus, as the show progressed, Saymo’s relationship with Richard Kind became increasingly antagonistic, giving Kind more reasons to be on air. For all these reasons, I’m out. (said in my best Mark Cuban Shark Tank impression)

  

  Richard Kind and Saymo are fighting. Kind is shouting.

• A few of the louder, more demonstrative comedians take over the panel leaving some of the quieter, or rather more subdued ones to sit there and smile, occasionally popping a joke. It’s a bit like art imitating real life and the battle between extroverts and introverts. I feel you, Hannah Gadsby and Mike Birbiglia.

  

Beth’s Verdict

If my consistently enthused commitment to watch the show’s 60 minutes of mostly laughs content illustrates anything, it’s that the country needs a “Mulaney & Friends" late-night show right now.

Let’s Discuss

Will Netflix be able to go where no streamer has gone before it and get viewers plugged into live TV again? The Roast of Tom Brady drew 2M live viewers. Mulaney’s # numbers I can’t find. Thoughts?

The Taste of Sweet “Sugar”

Sugar [Trailer] on Apple TV+ is a neo-noir crime caper set in the gritty and hyper-stylized world of yesteryear’s Hollywood, only it’s happening now. In it, the sexy Colin Farrell drives around Los Angeles in his baby blue 50s Chevy Corvette cruising for missing people, telling everyone he meets that he always finds his moll mark person. He’s like a private eye, but he’s not one, not really. He’s a do-gooder too. Early in the show, he tries to save a homeless man by giving him money and free advice only to find out the man OD’ed - realizing that perhaps his goodwill was too much for the man to bear.

Colin Farrell as “Sugar” now streaming on Apple TV+

The show is a mystery within a mystery and it turns out with a big whiff of sci-fi on the side, but no spoilers in this review. The primary mystery is the ominous disappearance of the granddaughter of an influential producer/director (the patriarch of a big Hollywood family). For the sake of not perpetuating slanderous, harmful antisemitic stereotypes, I’ll steer away from including the last name of the rich, bad guys "who run Hollywood” family here. Hey, at least no Jewish actors were cast in the roles here. Sugar’s boss, Ruby, tells him to steer clear of the missing girl case, but Sugar can’t resist. He has anti-authority, runs-by-his-own code written all over him. Plus, he has skin in the game. He can emotionally connect to this crime, having experienced the loss of his sister Djen at what we sense is nefarious circumstances. Don’t bother looking for a deeper origin story on that story though. The #metoo, human trafficking, sexual assault subplot involving the granddaughter, Olivia is one I’d hoped they’d go a little more into, but alas, they scraped the surface, perhaps too dark to go there fully. This isn’t Baby Reindeer after all.

Colin Farrell as “Sugar” now streaming on Apple TV+

One thing you can’t miss in this show is that John Sugar is a captain of the Raymond Chandler fan cub and as such he eats up classic Hollywood noir films and recites verbatim scenes from a myriad of movies. Interspersed in John’s observations of his surroundings are classic film clips that help him interpret and make sense of the world around him. So extensive is the repertoire of films that someone catalogued it here (Link).

Beth’s Verdict

This show had me up until episode 6, minute 33. I’ll keep on watching though because in my mind, I’m stuck in a Bogie and Bacall film.

Let’s Discuss (Spoilers Permitted)

• For those who are up to date on the show, should John’s encyclopedic, Rainman-esque recall of Hollywood film scripts have tipped us off to something?

• If this show was on at the same time as The Bear would you have still watched it? I guess it’s a question of whether it benefits from this mid-to-late Spring original programming deficit or if it merits the praise and preoccupation we have. The new season of The Bear is coming out in June, by the way.

• Does the show try to do too much or take on more than it can chew?

• Is The Long Goodbye that good of a film? I don’t see it. Then again, I’ve never been much of an Elliott Gould fan, satire or not.

Beth Cracks the Amazon Algorithm

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