John Mulaney: New in Town (2012) Reviews

• PopCultureThoughts.Com

  popculturethoughts2019-01-12

  It's great that the quietly charming and decisively hilarious comic has managed to significantly increase his professional profile since this first special. Here, he's more inexperienced but still has a great deal of screen presence, and there are a number of extended bits that are laugh-out-loud funny. In particular, a rant about Delta airlines, a story about lying to the doctor and a closing anecdote about meeting a homeless gay man with AIDS (which gives the special its name) stand out among a series of strong bits, with Mulaney's various vocal inflections pointing the way to effective voice work on his Netflix animated sitcom "Big Mouth." It's a repeatable, entertaining and well-written piece of stand up comedy that demonstrates Mulaney's ease with the format and the insightful nature of his humor.

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• Flipping Hilarious

  gavin69422014-02-24

  The thoughts and feelings of comedian John Mulaney: a pleasant, nearly-30-year-old man, who enjoys making fun of himself and others. I love the great opening with the throwback to 1980s television. I love how he claims the phrase "on the phone with Blockbuster" is now an outdated and antiquated expression. I love the differences pointed out between the word "midgets" and the N-word... The inclusion of Amy Schumer was a bit odd, considering she has no lines whatsoever. A wise use or a waste of good talent? Anyway, an excellent stand-up performance from a bright, relatively young comedian. I hope he does more specials and tours. I would buy a ticket.

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• Worthwhile

  euphojoe2018-03-27

  Excellent standup special. A traditional set that features many surprising one-liners and nuggets of wisdom while subtly integrating personal stories that span his entire life. In his first Netflix special, Mulaney really throws down the gauntlet and delivers a hilarious, inspired hour of comedy.

• Slow to Start

  boblipton2012-11-05

  John Mulaney, a staff writer for Saturday Night Live, takes the stage in this Comedy Central standup show. He starts out pretty slow, talking about how people thought he was Asian as a child, and the audience is appreciative, but either they've been warmed up or there's some canned laughter in there. By the halfway mark, though, his pace of jokes has picked up. He's on a roll and he's pretty funny -- the laughter in the background still sounds canned, or at least as if the volume is turned up when he pauses for breath. Even when he tells stories about himself, about his period as a drunk, Mulaney does not vary his pacing much. Early in the show, a bit slower, later in the show, a bit faster. Although the stories are good and well told, they lack a sense of person that I prefer in a comic until the last one. I don't know if you will have the patience to wait for it.

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• my least favorite but still good

  ghostfriendisalive2019-01-20

  Another good special from Mulaney but the jokes did not stick as well to me this time around. I laughed a lot less in this one then I thought I would which makes me more upset at myself because i wanted to like this special more but alas 6/10 is about how I feel at the moment.