John Mulaney StandUp Monologue

John Mulaney

[Starts with SNL monologue intro]

[Cut to SNL stage]

[Band is playing music]

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, John Mulaney.

[John Mulaney walks in and to the stage]

[cheers and applause]

John Mulaney: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. It is amazing to be here hosting Saturday Night Live for the fifth time. For many, many reasons I’m grateful to be here tonight after a very complicated year. It is wonderful to be in a place that’s always emphasized sobriety and mental health. Since I last hosted, different things have happened. In December of 2020, I went to dinner at a friend’s apartment, but it was not dinner. It was an intervention. For me. My least favorite kind of intervention. When I walked into my intervention, I knew right away that it was an intervention. Do you know how bad of a drug problem you have to have? If when you open a door and see people gathered, your first thought is, “This is probably an intervention about my drug problem. There’s no other reason people would be behind the door.” I walked in, there were six of my friends in New York in person, and six of my friends over Zoom from LA. And you may be thinking, hey, if that was me, I would have been like, if you’re so worried about me, how come you didn’t fly in? Don’t worry. I said that several times. I rang that bell as often as possible. I went away to a rehab, which was a very good experience. I’m very grateful that I went. I was there for two months from December till February 2021. I was there January 6, during the insurrection. Wouldn’t have happened on my watch. Because I would have seen to it. Was there ever an insurrection before I went to rehab? No. Has there been one since I got out? Absolutely not. They wouldn’t dare. They know baby J is back on the streets.

One thing I did in rehab one exercise is you sit down with a counselor and you delete and block all of your drug dealers phone numbers. In some cases, you reach out to a dealer to say, “Hey, never get in touch with me again. I’m sober now.” It’s called breaking up with your drug dealer. I did this one afternoon with a counselor. I sat down. I texted my main dealer Arvind first. And I shouldn’t have said his name. But that’s, that’s okay. You don’t know him. Anyway, I texted Arvind first and I said, “Hey, I’m deleting and blocking you. I’m sober now. I’m never gonna buy drugs again.” And then I’m really polite. So I didn’t know how to end the text. So I was like, “But thank you for all of the nights that became days and your inspired professionalism.” So I send the text before I can delete and block him. He texts me back. He goes, “Hey, I’m so proud of you. I’m so happy that you got sober. You know, I only bought drugs to sell to you. Because I was worried about you. And I didn’t want you to get worse stuff off the street.” I know. And I’m breaking up with this guy? So I can’t block him. Now I text him back, you know? I go, “Hey, oh my god, you sweet man.” I said, “You only bought drugs to sell to me?” He says , “Yeah.” I said, “Did you sell drugs to other people?” He said, “No.” I said, “This is a weird time to ask. But are you a drug dealer?” He said, “No. I’m a painter. We talked about this.” Ladies and gentlemen, I have no idea how I know this person. So I texted him. I go, “How did it come to be that you sell me drugs?” And he wrote back, “I don’t know. You just kept asking.” I like that story. Because there are many tales of drug dealers who have turned innocent people into drug addicts. I might be the first drug addict to turn an innocent man into a drug dealer and that is the promise of their.

Life is a lot better and happier now. I have a 12 week old son. I’m very excited. Yes. He is a pretty cool guy for someone who can’t vote. His legs are like little calzones and I want to eat him. His name is Malcolm. And let me tell you the moment when I first bonded the hardest with Malcolm. We were in the delivery room, my girlfriend had just given birth to him, and he’s crying a little. So, they bring them over to this warmer on the other side of the delivery room, and they put them on the warmer under this big bright light. And light is just shining in his eyes. It’s really bright. And he’s not crying or anything. He just looks up at the light and this is what he does. He goes he was annoyed. But he didn’t say anything. And I was like, “That’s my son. A polite man in an uncomfortable situation, but he’s not going to make a fuss.” And this was a really bright light. I thought it was bright and I’d seen lights. He’d never seen a light before in his life. To see on a baby’s face the expression, Jesus with the light, is very interesting. He’s a very good boy. His favorite pacifier just got recalled though. It’s such a bummer. He loved it. So we had like a dozen of them. We still have them in a basket on our counter. And I see this look in his eyes all the time of like, “Oh, I want to use those but I can’t because they could kill me.” Welcome to my world homie.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a great show. LCD Soundsystemis here. So stick around and we’ll be right back.

John Mulaney Stand-Up Monologue

John Mulaney

[Starts with SNL monologue intro]

[Cut to SNL stage]

[Band is playing music]

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, John Mulaney.

[John Mulaney walks in and to the stage]

[cheers and applause]

John Mulaney: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. It is great to be here hosting Saturday Night Live for the fourth time. Thank you. It’s the most anyone has ever hosted. Happy Halloween to all of you and thank you for coming to this. Thank you to everyone here who did so much work to make something happen because nothing had been happening for so long. We all really appreciate it. My name is John Mulaney. I am a comedian, or as I like to call us ‘The last responders’.

I live in New York city. I love New York city. And I love that you’re all wearing masks. But I’m a little sad about masks in New York city because it prevents you from over hearing conversations on the streets and that is one of the city’s greatest joys. Just before covid hit, this was in December, I was downtown. I was on West 12th street. And I was walking downtown and I was on West 12th. I’m walking this way and this guy is walking towards me. And he’s on his cellphone. And we’re both downtown. And as he walks pass me, I hear him go, “No, no, no, I can’t meet right now. I’m way up town.” And then he looked at me and he winked and he kept walking. He’s the greatest guy I’ve ever seen in my life.

A lot of people were binge watching shows during quarantine. I watched the series that I absolutely loved. It was an hour long dramady called ‘The Daily Press Conferences of Governor Andrew Cuomo’. Yes. He’s great. It told the story of an Italian American father who after being an empty nester finds himself quarantining with his two daughters. High Jinks Ensue. But he learns a lot about being a father and a little it about being a governor. I loved those press conferences. He would walk out everyday a little too excited and he’d sit down and go, “Today is Tuesday.” A hint of pride that he remembered the day as if back stage, one of his gibronis was like, “There’s no way you’re remembering the day.” “You watch me.” He’d get out there and he’d start his rhythm. It would be like, “We are New York though. And we are New York though because we are New York strong. And we are New York strong because we are New York kind.” He was talking like Smurf language after a while. “New Yorkliness is very New York to New Yorkers.” What Cuomo did what was brilliant was that he tried to relate to us with his own problems. Like, sometimes, he’s be talking about a situation we were all going through. And it was clearly just some stuff going down in the Cuomo household at that moment. He’d be like, “I know. We’re all trying to figure this out. Let’s say your brother’s wife wants to take the kids to see grandma. You go, ‘They can’t see grandma. Grandma is vulnerable. She’s elderly.’ But she says, ‘Well, what if the kids come halfway in the house and she stays in the other side of the kitchen?’ I’m going, ‘It’s airborne, this thing. You can’t have grandma even in the kitchen.’ She says, ‘Well, it’s important for the kids to see their grandma.’ I go, ‘you gavone bitch, if you bring your kids even into the mud room of my mother’s house, I will break your neck and bury you in the rockaways.'”

I am worried that when the coronavirus is over, that Cuomo won’t realize that his show is over. Like, I’m scared he’ll take it on the road and try to play stadiums and come out and be like, “Hey, who wants to hear about my daughter’s boyfriend?” And everyone’s like, “Play covid!” And by the way, he’s not even the least weird– He’s our least weird politician in America. He’s on like, 45 of the weird ones. I’m supposed to make an announcement. On November 3rd, there is an elderly men contest. There’s two elderly men and you’e supposed to choose your favorite of the two elderly men. You can put it in the mail or you can go and write down which elderly man you like. And then we’ll add them all up. And then we might have the same elderly man or we might have a new elderly man. But just rest assured, no matter what happens, nothing much will change in the United States. The rich will continue to prosper while the poor languish. Families will be upended by mental illness and drug addiction. Jane Lynch will continue to book lots of projects. When she does, she will deliver. She is so good at being on TV. Very good. That will continue. But there will be problems. There will be sleepovers where five of the girls gang up on one of the girls and they bully the girl. And the girl they’re bullying, the girl having the sleepover didn’t even want to invite but her mom made her, and that’s really the root of the tension. They bully her until she’s crying and then she wants to go home. So the parents of the girl having the sleepover have to call the unpopular girl’s parents and say, “Can you come pick her up?” And then there’s that moment where the dad has to sit at like, the dining room table while they wait for the pick up and he’s in pajamas and the outcast is in her winter coat looking kind of stoic. They have nothing to talk about. So, he tries to apologize for the fact that his daughter is a bitch. He kind of implies that she gets it from the wife. All of that will still continue. It is America. But you should vote. You got to vote. Vote as many times as you can. Vote. Fill in every circle, every dot they have, fill them in. And if a page says, “This page was intentionally left blank”, you write whatever you want on that. That’s your space as an American.

Now, my Nana is going to vote and she’s 94 years old. [cheers and applause] Oh! Yes. Do you applaud for things that you don’t think are a good idea? Listen, this is my opinion. I don’t think it’s going to be that popular. Why don’t we shut the doors so no one hears it? I don’t think maybe she should vote. You know, you don’t get to vote when you’re 94 years old! You don’t get to order for the table when you’re about to leave the restaurant. I’m sorry, that joke is agist. That is wrong. It is wrong to say one age group is better than another. That would be like calling yourselves the greatest generation. “Oh, we fought the Nazis!” “Well, we’re trying to fight the new Nazis if you’d get out of the way and stop voting for people you saw in between coin collector commercial.”

Listen, but I love my grandma. I love my Nana. When you’re a kid, you just love your grandma just totally. And as you get older, you start to wonder about her relationship with her mother. You’re like, “Why does that old lady make mom so nervous? Something must have happened there.” But my nana is a great eccentric wonderful person. I’ll tell you a story. When she was 88 years old, she didn’t like her driver’s license photo. She was still driving at 88. That’s not even a point of the story. She didn’t like her driver’s license photo. She thought it was unflattering. And I take her side in this. I also thought it was unflattering mainly because it was a photo of an 88 year old woman. So, her plan was this. She was going to go to the Marblehead, Massachusetts, DMV, and tell them that she lost her license. So, she went to the Marblehead, Massachusetts, DMV, and she said, “I lost my license and I need a new license and a new photo.” And the guy there said, “Do you have any proof of ID?” And she took out her license. And then as she told me, “We stared at each other for a moment. And then I said, ‘You’ve caught me in a lie’, and I took my license and left.”

I couple of summers ago, I was with my nana. It was a family reunion and I had to walk her to her car after like I had to. Not like when you walk a bridesmaid and there’s no stakes. I had to hold her up. So, I walked her to her car. She’s got like, a brown grey car. No brand. I think the government gave it to her. And we get to the car door and she opens it and she looks at me and she says, “You know, I used to be Carolyn Stanton. But now, everyone says I’m John Mulaney’s grandmother. Well, I want you to know that if I wasn’t your grandmother, I wouldn’t know who you are. Sorry.” And then she drove off.

We have a great show for you tonight. The Strokes are here, ladies and gentlemen. Stick around. We’re going to be right back.