Line #46 Series/Mulaney


1	->''"I look back on making the show really fondly. It's my noble failure. I tried, and I wanted to do it this way. Some people liked it—just not enough."''
2	-->-- '''Creator/JohnMulaney''' on the failure of the show.
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4	''Mulaney'' is a comedy that aired on the Creator/{{Fox}} network. It centered around comedian Creator/JohnMulaney (played by comedian [[TheDanza John Mulaney]]) getting the opportunity of the lifetime when he's chosen as a writer for legendary comic Lou Cannon (Creator/MartinShort). The cast was rounded out by John's best friend and fellow comedian Motif, angry roommate Jane (Creator/NasimPedrad), TheFriendNobodyLikes Andre, and their neighbor Oscar (Creator/ElliottGould).
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6	Produced by Creator/LorneMichaels of ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' fame. Mulaney was formerly a writer for the show and Short was an actor, though all three never overlapped at once. The trailer for the series can be seen [[http://www.hulu.com/watch/635052#i0,p6,d1 here]].
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8	It debuted in October 2014 with a 16 episode order and a cushy time slot, right after ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''. Unfortunately, critics and viewers were not kind to it, dismissing it as a ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' ripoff. After a few weeks, FOX cut the episode order from 16 to 13[[labelnote:*]]They had just finished filming episode 13, FOX simply told them not to bother making the final 3.[[/labelnote]] and moved Mulaney to an earlier timeslot...where more often than not, it was preempted by a football game. FOX officially canceled it on March 15, 2015, one month after the 13th episode aired.
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10	----
11	!!This Series Provides Examples Of:
12	* AscendedMeme: John's GirlOfTheWeek in "Sweet Jane" saying that she defended him when people said he was ripping off Seinfeld is a reference to RealLife detractors to the show saying the same.
13	* BreakingTheFourthWall: Much like ''Seinfeld'', there are sequences of Mulaney performing standup. Unlike ''Seinfeld'', which could have been InUniverse, these take place on the set.
14	* BrilliantButLazy: Apparently John in school, his grades were fine but he always got a low "effort" grade, which bothered his mother.
15	* ButtMonkey: Things never go well for Andre.
16	* {{Calvinball}}: ''Celebrity You-Guessed-It'' makes no sense. John asking how the game works has become a running gag. Even Mary Jo, who runs the show, says it makes no sense.
17	* CaptainErsatz: "Motif in the City" has Motif's old crew... which are blatant ersatz versions of the cast of ''Series/SexAndTheCity'' (with Motif being the Carrie).
18	* CharacterTitle: Much like ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' before it.
19	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}:
20	** Motif is often pretty disconnected to reality.
21	** Oscar, the neighbor with the strange anecdotes and goofy but often good advice.
22	* CreatorInJoke: Macauley Culkin quits the Christmas special of Celebrity You Guessed It at the last minute.
23	--> '''Lou''': Apparently he doesn't like to [[AuthorAvatar play himself on tv.]]
24	* CrappyHolidays: Lou feels like people aren't scared of Halloween anymore, so he fires people on Halloween. [[spoiler: He hates Halloween because it's when his parents got divorced so he tries to make other people hate it as well]].
25	* DeadpanSnarker: John and Jane. John usually snarks around the LargeHam Lou Cannon, and Jane usually snarks around [[WomenAreWiser Motif or John]].
26	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The gang trying to get the air conditioning through a window is treated like a childbirth.
27	* FallbackMarriagePact: Jane reveals that John is her backup guy, in case she's ever old and desperate.
28	* FollowTheLeader[=/=]GenreThrowback: The show attempted to be one to 90s multi-camera sitcoms like ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' and ''Series/{{Friends}}''. However, this was cited as its failure as it was too anachronistic for a modern audience,
29	* TheFriendNobodyLikes: No one likes Andre.
30	--> '''John''': "Bad news guys, it's Andre!"
31	* FriendVersusLover: The primary plot of "Sweet Jane." Jane has a tendency to dislike John's girlfriends, which sets off the plot.
32	* GenreSavvy: John learned how to date from 90's sitcoms, and has styled his dating persona after Ross from ''Series/{{Friends}}''.
33	* GirlOfTheWeek: No characters are shown to have a recurring paramour from episode to episode.
34	* GodwinsLaw: In "Motif and the City," John suggests a drinking game for the tenant meetings in the apartment complex where you take a drink every time someone compares something to the Nazis.
35	* GoneHorriblyRight: John thinks praying that his mom not finding out he doesn't attend church went horribly right... by having the priest giving the sermon die, thus being replaced by another priest who resembles the one John made up in the stories he told his mother.
36	* HalloweenEpisode: The aptly titled "Halloween."
37	* HaveIMentionedIAmSexuallyActiveToday: A RareFemaleExample in Jane:
38	-->'''Jane:''' "Must be time to take my birth control... for sex!"
39	* IJustWantToHaveFriends: Andre. When Jane says she'll do anything to get her ex-BF's password, he chose "let me hang out in your apartment with you guys." The second episode sees him carry up heavy appliances and furniture on his own for them.
40	* ImagineSpot: Motif has one when someone asks him how he thought birth control works. Turns out, he thought the pill functions like the gun in ''VideoGame/SpaceInvaders'' and shoots the incoming sperm.
41	* ItsAllAboutMe: To say Lou is self-centered would be a drastic understatement.
42	* LargeHam: Lou Cannon is just as loud and bombastic as his name implies.
43	* MagicalQueer: John's neighbor Oscar dishes out welcome life advice to John, helping him make a career decision in the Pilot and relationship advice in the following episode.
44	* MythologyGag: Music/IceT does the "this show was filmed before a live studio audience" reading, which is a call back to John Mulaney's famous joke involving Ice in ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit''.
45	* NoodleImplements: Andre's "used baseball cards."
46	* NoOntologicalInertia: "In the Name of the Mother, and the Son and the Holy Andre" reveals that Andre's acne medication is what causes him to be... Andre. He stops taking it and becomes a productive member of society, getting a FanservicePack in the process. If TheStinger is to be believed, after a week's time he's turned into a completely ripped guy who looks nothing like Andre.
47	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Motif. His real name is [[spoiler: Gerald]].
48	* PlatonicLifePartners: John and Jane. They've known each other for over eight years and never came close to dating.
49	* PopculturalOsmosisFailure:
50	** Motif never watched ''Series/{{Friends}}'', so he didn't get a lot of John's references to it. As Mulaney says, it was largely "for us, by us" (meaning white people).
51	** He also misses the ''Series/SexAndTheCity'' references from the three yuppie women he has cocktails with, not knowing what they mean when they call him "the Carrie", although he eventually agrees.
52	* PsychoExGirlfriend: Jane. Her ex-boyfriend has taken to calling her "crazy bitch" and... well, he doesn't seem to be terribly wrong.
53	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Jane gives one to John in "Sweet Jane" insulting him as a lover when he implies she's jealous of him.
54	* SideEffectsInclude: Jazzapram, a birth control pill, has side-effects that include "Unmanageable hair, haplessness, cartoonishness, and an inability to know when to leave a room." In other words, being Andre.
55	* SitComic: As the name may indicate, it's a vehicle for John Mulaney, and incorporates some of his material from his earlier routines.
56	* {{Squick}}: InUniverse, childbirth is this for John. Kind of an issue when he's dating a woman who's essentially a midwife.
57	* StrawFeminist: Jane's GuyOfTheWeek in "In the Name of the Mother, and the Son and the Holy Andre." He's a lawyer fighting for women's reproductive rights... but only because he doesn't like to wear condoms.
58	* StudioAudience: As Creator/IceT mentions before every episode, the show was filmed before a live studio audience.
59	* TokenBlackFriend: Motif, John's best friend. Hipper and luckier with the ladies than Mulaney.
60	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: It's described as a semi-autobiographical look at John's life.

Context Series / Mulaney