It’s a sunny Wednesday morning, and comedian John Mulaney is sipping coffee at a Midtown Le Pain Quotidien. Up the block, visible through a nearby window, is 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where Mulaney wrote for “Saturday Night Live” from 2008 to 2012.
He’s only been gone from the show for a year — less, actually, as he unofficially did some writing for them last season — but it might as well be decades in terms of his career.
When it was announced in May that Seth Meyers was leaving the show to take over NBC’s “Late Night,” the cry to make Mulaney his replacement on “SNL’s” Weekend Update segment permeated both mainstream and social media. Entertainment Weekly declared him “a perfect fit” as their No. 1 candidate for the job — a sentiment echoed by outlets from Variety to New York Magazine — and Twitter feeds were so jammed with “Mulaney for Update” demands that one die-hard fan even started a Twitter account by that name.
But Mulaney, 31, was already well beyond that.
Working with “SNL” founder Lorne Michaels, he was developing a starring vehicle for himself, a sitcom called “Mulaney.” Initially rejected by NBC, the show, which will co-star Martin Short, was given a series order by Fox last month.
Mulaney’s old “SNL” collaborator, Bill Hader, compares him to Jerry Seinfeld, largely for his ability to spin even the most minute observation into comedy gold. This Saturday, comedy fans can appreciate this gift for themselves, as Mulaney headlines Town Hall as part of the New York Comedy Festival.
As if taking his “SNL” exodus full circle, Mulaney now has the pleasure of watching his little sister, 25-year-old Claire, follow in his footsteps, as the younger Mulaney just began writing for “SNL” this season.
While Mulaney tells us — jokingly, we think — that his sister’s joining the show marks the first time he’s ever felt real pride, he also notes that he won’t be giving her too many pointers.
“Everyone’s experience is different, and she’s there in a much different year than I [was],” he says. “I wouldn’t know what the new cast or new season is like. My pointers would be confusing, because they’d be about 2008. ‘Go grab Bill Hader’s coattails and ride ’em into the wind.’ ”
As for Mulaney’s own experience, Hader — with whom Mulaney wrote and created the cast member’s most popular character, party-mad nightlife “expert” Stefon — might not agree with that characterization of the pair’s relationship.
“I’ve been very lucky to work with people like Tina Fey, Lorne Michaels, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Larry David, Steve Martin, these giants. Amazing comedic minds. And John is in that tier of comedy minds,” says Hader.
“He just has that thing. He was born with it. He is the funniest person in the room, no matter what room he’s in.”
Part of Mulaney’s appeal as a comedian comes from the way his boyish appearance fronts a Jazz Age sensibility, a persona enhanced by a sing-songy quality to his vocal delivery that recalls radio plays of the 1930s.
On “New in Town,” his 2012 Comedy Central special and CD/DVD release, the themes of an old worldview and/or a young face are ever present, as in one bit where he dissects his youthful appearance.
“I was hoping by now that I would look older, but it didn’t happen. I don’t look older, I just look worse,” Mulaney says in the bit.
“When I’m walking down the street, no one’s ever like, ‘Hey, look at that man.’ I think they’re just like, ‘Whoa. That tall child looks terrible. Get some rest, tall child. You can’t keep burning the candle at both ends.”
In real life, though, his youthful appearance works to his advantage.
“Just look at his face. He looks like a young sweet man,” says Caroline Hirsch, owner of Carolines on Broadway and the New York Comedy Festival, discussing Mulaney’s appeal.
“He’s got this great observational humor. He structures a joke beautifully. And he talks about everything young people wanna hear today. He’s got everything cooking for him right now.”
Mulaney’s nostalgic bent was nurtured early on. Growing up in Chicago, one of four children of lawyer parents, he was exposed to comedy greats like the Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, and Bob and Ray by his father.
“When I was growing up, all that stuff came out on cassette, and my dad would order a lot of them for car rides,” says Mulaney, who now lives in the West Village with his fiancée, 25-year-old makeup artist Annamarie Tendler.
“So much stuff was being re-released in the ’80s that I did grow up with an older person’s comedy education.”
He made a name for himself performing stand-up around New York, where he moved in 2004, and he was hired to write for “SNL” in 2008.
He tells us about his audition for the show.
“I did a gay-marriage ad campaign from George Takei, then Kevin Federline following a trail of cupcakes off the side of a building,” he says. “I also did this bit about how Donald Trump isn’t just a rich man, he’s what a hobo imagines a rich man to be, as if Trump met this old-timey homeless guy who dreamed of having tall buildings with his name on them and fine gold hair.”
Mulaney began writing with Hader immediately, including contributing to a sketch where Hader, as Vincent Price, hosted fellow Hollywood stars on a talk show in the early days of television.
Hader soon learned what a unique talent he had in his new collaborator.
“He and I and Seth Meyers were throwing jokes around, and Liberace, played by Fred Armisen, says something to Vincent Price,” Hader says of a scene where the two characters banter about the famed pianist’s closeted but obvious homosexuality.
“I go, ‘Price should say something back to Liberace,’ and John went, ‘He should say, ‘Save your sassy asides for your windowless bars.’ And we all just fell down laughing. It was like, how did you come up with that off the top of your head? A lot of times in a writer’s room, you’re fumbling around for wording, or for what a joke is. But John has this innate ability to say a perfectly structured joke. It’s like his brain is a joke factory. His hit ratio was outstanding.”
Their most popular creation together, Stefon, was a gay, overgrown club kid with a soft voice, loud bro clothing, and a penchant for debauchery, whose club recommendations consisted of the most surreal, over-the-top fetish dens Hader and Mulaney could conceive, like the “bi-curious beach party Uhhhhhh,” or “Spicy,” which was located “on the Upper East Side of a Dumpster.”
The past few months have been quiet for Mulaney, who used much of that time to plan his wedding next summer to Tendler.
But downtime for him will soon be a thing of the past. At the rate he’s going, Mulaney might just be our next great comedy star — and people that in-demand are not known for having lots of days off.
“People always talk about Jerry Seinfeld when they see John. He has such an original take on things,” says Hader. “[During the show], I felt like, when is someone gonna tap him on the shoulder and go, ‘Hey. You’re a giant star. What are you doing writing for these guys? Come with us.’ You knew that collaborating with him had a ticking clock on it, because he’s like Seinfeld. He’s gonna be that thing.”