If you’re looking for a quick 6-episode investment in something weird, wonderful and actually unique, I highly recommend this pseudo talk-show that aired each of its episodes live on Netflix during one glorious week in May 2024. I watched each episode live and couldn’t believe what I was watching and had no idea what was going to happen next. It was certainly fun watching it live, but it would be just as worthwhile watching these shows even after the fact.
Hosted and created by comedian John Mulaney, Everybody’s in LA was inspired by the annual Netflix Is A Joke festival, for which seemingly every comedian in the world descends upon Los Angeles to film specials around town, so Netflix can have a cache of content to air year-round. Because of this, Mulaney—who was born and raised in Chicago, went to Georgetown and was the head writer for Saturday Night Live, during which he was an avowed New Yorker–was inspired to invite some of his closest New York and Los Angeles comedian friends to discuss, sometimes in great detail, aspects of Los Angeles that make it one of the weirdest, best, and most perplexing cities in the world.
Mulaney himself opines that he both loves and fears Los Angeles, as an outsider trying to figure it out. So, he decided to educate himself and decided he wanted to do a deep dive into one Los Angeles-specific curiosity per show. So, while Everybody’s in LA appears to be just another talk show with a witty host and celebrity guests, what they all actually end up talking about has (almost) nothing to do with what anyone has to promote. Instead, all conversation is carved around the subject of that day, whether it’s earthquakes, coyotes, palm trees or helicopters, there is a lot to learn, a lot to be said, and proves to be a very bizarre resource for improv comedy.
And that’s where the weirdness totally makes these episodes so addictive (I truly missed it when it was over). We’re so used to a standard format of this genre that when it goes off the track—intentionally—it is absolutely glorious. Mulaney invites experts in each topic to join the show and treats them with just as much interest and reverence as he does his celebrity guests, if not more. And watching the interaction between the expert guests and the famous comedians is better than anything we’ve seen on any other talk show. The controlled chaos of this show is fantastic.
Mulaney takes live calls from viewers (which are the highlights of each episode), features pre-taped segments, shares the stage with Richard Kind as his pseudo sidekick and goes with the flow wherever the show and conversation take him. It’s irreverently by-the-seat-of-his-pants, even though he clearly put a lot of time and effort into it, and the bizarro randomness of it all is truly intoxicating.
If you live in or have ever even visited LA, I can’t tell you how much fun you’ll have watching this show. I would hope that you can enjoy it even if you have never lived or been here, and simply have a curiosity about this strange land. Either way, John Mulaney has never been better—this is probably his audition to host the Oscars or have his own show—and I can honestly say I’ve haven’t been this perplexed or satisfied by a television show in years.