Creator / John Mulaney

"It CAN get weirder!"

"I wanna tell you one more story before I get out of here..."

— The Comeback Kid

John Edmund Mulaney (born August 26, 1982) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, comedy writer, Irish Catholic, and, oh yeah, the Salt and Pepper Diner guy.

Born in Chicago, Mulaney became a huge comedy fan at an early age, and he and his best friend would act out skits in junior high for his class. He is a graduate of Georgetown University in English Literature, and shortly after he moved to New York for a career in comedy.

After serving as an office assistant at Comedy Central, he became a writer for Saturday Night Live, where he remained for six seasons (and came back to host four times, the most an SNL writer who never crossed over to being a cast member has done, making him only one of three SNL writers who were never picked to be cast members to come back and host alongside Conan O'Brien and Larry David). He occasionally cameoed on Weekend Update, and you can also thank him and Bill Hader for the character of Stefon gracing your screen. Mulaney is also a Primetime Emmy Award winner for his SNL work. Unfortunately, his FOX sitcom Mulaney, which debuted in 2014 and co-starred fellow SNL alumni Nasim Pedrad and Martin Short, didn't fare well in the ratings and barely managed a single season.

Most of you reading this, however, probably recognize Mulaney more for his stand-up comedy, which is characterized by a theatrical, energetic delivery and a real knack for storytelling. He has five specials thus far: The Top Part in 2009, New in Town in 2012, The Comeback Kid in 2015, Kid Gorgeous in 2018 (which earned him another Primetime Emmy for writing), and Baby J in 2023. Famous bits include, of course, "The Salt & Pepper Diner," his love of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and his bits on his past as a blackout drunk and continued struggles dealing with drug addiction. He's also done the special John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch.

John was married to make-up artist Annamarie Tendler from 2014 to 2021. After their separation and a stint in rehab for drug abuse, he confirmed in September 2021 that he was having a child with actress Olivia Munn; his son was born later that year.

Not to be confused with Grant Gustin, with whom he shares a resemblance.

Filmography:

Live-Action

• Dickinson: Henry David Thoreau

Voice Roles

• 2018 — Big Mouth as Andrew Glouberman
• 2018 — Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as Spider-Ham
• 2022 — Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) as Chip
• 2022 — Puss in Boots: The Last Wish as Jack Horner

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Tropes associated with John Mulaney's career and his comedy numbers include:

• Accidental Pervert:
  • His "Chase Through the Subway" had him accidentally come across like he was trying to grab a woman in the New York subway. He initially thought the woman was running because she heard a train, only to realize "she's running from me, because I'm an adult, and adults rape each other... kind of a lot".
  • In The Comeback Kid, the toddler daughter of his friend says "Uncle John has a penis". While it was From the Mouths of Babes, John talked about how there was really no good way to play that off.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • From "The One Thing You Can't Replace."
    John: So a Chicago police officer walked down the stairs, and got to the bottom in the basement, and looked out over a sea of drunk teenagers, yelling "Fuck da police", in his face. [Beat] And he was almost impressed! He was like, "Wow."
  • John had the same reaction to his father pulling into a McDonald's drive-thru with four kids in the back of the car, all begging to go to McDonald's... then ordering one small black coffee for himself, and nothing else.
• Addled Addict: Though he was infamously good at hiding it, in Baby J he describes himself in mid-2020 as "extremely strung-out" and "desperate for cocaine."
• Adoption Diss: In "Baby J", he says his older siblings convinced him he was not only adopted but that his mother was murdered by Miss America. Complicating things, at the time he thought Miss America was the Statue of Liberty.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: He quit drinking because he would often get blackout drunk and proceed to ruin parties (or so he was told). He says one of the biggest downsides of quitting drinking is no longer being able to use it as an excuse for your bad behavior.
  John: If you quit drinking, you're about to lose the best excuse you've ever had in your life, which is, "I'm really sorry about last night, I was just so drunk." That is a "Get Out of Jail Free" Card that you don't even realize you have until you lose it. I can't say that anymore. I can never be like, "I'm really sorry about last night, I was just so drunk." Now I have to be like, "I'm really sorry about last night, it's just that I'm mean and loud... It probably will happen again."
• All Women Hate Each Other: Discussed in the comedy special "New In Town". John Mulaney thought that his female friends get along, but they just naturally butt heads. He reasons that maybe women can be friends, but if they're not together by choice, they will default to cattiness. The stereotype is directly referenced when he says that a group of women coming together for, say, a heist would devolve into passive-aggressive snipes.
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • Self-described as such in New In Town. Specifically, when he was younger, he says that he was the spirit of an old gay man in the body of a nine-year-old.
  • A concern of John's father, who once took him aside and explained that Leonard Bernstein wrote some of his finest material when repressing his homosexuality; John admits he's not sure if his father was more concerned about him being gay, or if he wanted him to be a composer.
• Annoying Laugh: By his own admission, he inhales when he laughs, creating a weird choking noise.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The titular bit from New In Town where someone comes up to him on the streets and says he's homeless, gay, has AIDS, and is new in town. Lampshaded by Mulaney.
  John: You're gonna close with "new in town"? That is not the most dramatic thing that you just said.
• Attention Whore: Discussed in Baby J, with him attributing it to being the third of four children and not receiving as much attention during his childhood.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The conclusion of his "Buying the Cow" routine from The Comeback Kid, almost word-for-word, where he pokes fun at the phrase "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"
  John: Let's be real: why buy the cow? Because you love her. You really do.
• Awesome, but Impractical: John describes most of detective Bittenbinder's self-defense tips as such. Like throwing money clips full of cash as a distraction to get away from muggers. Or trying to fend off assailants by lying on your back and kicking them with your feet.
  John: Bittenbinder, he didn't want us to not get kidnapped. He wanted us to almost get kidnapped, and then fight the guy off using weird, psych out, backroom Chicago violence.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: A favorite of John's.
  John: [I don't care for] these new Nazis. "Oh, Jews are the worst, and Jews ruin everything, and Jews try to take over your life". Well, you know what, motherfucker? My wife is Jewish. I know all that, how do you know all that?
• Break Them by Talking: John says that he's terrified of 13-year-olds because they're mean in an accurate way, finding the thing you hate most about yourself and using that against you.
  John: They don't even need to look at you for long, they'll just be like "Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Look at that high-waisted man, he's got feminine hips!" and I'm like "NO, THAT'S THE THING I'M SENSITIVE ABOUT!"
• Brick Joke: He uses this one a lot. In New In Town, "The One Thing You Can't Replace" makes a reference to John's earlier joke about leaving a horse to pet-sit your dog.
  • In Baby J, John says early in the special that public baby changing stations are for doing cocaine. Later, he has to change his infant son's diaper in public for the first time...
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Subverted. John's parents went to college with Bill Clinton but he's a bit older than them. Since it was in downtown Washington DC, the school liked for the guys to walk the girls home at night. Bill Clinton walked his mom home a couple of times. His dad didn't think Clinton would remember her. As it turned out, he did.
  John: We land at Bill Clinton's feet. Bill Clinton turns, looks at my mom, and says, "Hey, Ellen." 'Cause he never forgets a bitch, ever.
• Camp Straight: John believes he is this, moreso when he was a child. He also imagines that when God was making him, he meant for him to be gay but forgot the last step before sending him to Earth.
• Correlation/Causation Gag: In "Baby J," John mentions he was in rehab during the January 6, 2021 insurrection on the Capitol, and insists it only happened because he was away.
  John: 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.
• Corpsing: You can hear John fighting to control his laughter during New In Town when he describes how Ice-T handles New York's "most sensitive cases" in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
• Could Say It, But...: In his bit concerning "garbage airlines", John decides against naming an actual airline and chooses to make up a name. The name he chooses is "Delta Airlines".
• Culturally Religious: He's no Stephen Colbert, but he's still practicing in a classic Christmas-and-Easter sense. In The Comeback Kid he even jokes that contrary to not being particularly churchgoing, he had all the words and steps to the service memorized and was "batting .400" till they changed the response to the priest saying "Peace be with you". In Kid Gorgeous, he says that while not religious himself (and even joking about it), he gets defensive when people make fun of religious people because his mother still is.
• Culture Clash: Referenced in Kid Gorgeous; John's then-wife, Anna, being raised in a secular Jewish household, thinks that The Last Supper portrays the disciples eating Thanksgiving, with Jesus sitting in front of a turkey.
• The Danza: On Mulaney.
• Darker and Edgier: "Baby J" is much darker than his earlier Netflix specials. It takes place after John's 2020 rehab and the COVID-19 pandemic, and is quite frank about the struggles he faced surrounding drug addiction and his public reputation. He even makes this clear to the audience right off the bat by explaining how he couldn't start the special the same giddy way he always did.
• Darkest Hour: He describes himself at his lowest moment in Baby J. John had to tell his own accountant not to give him money unless he asked for it in an email while CC'ing his doctor to make sure it wasn't being used for drugs. Then one day in late 2020, John was desperate for cocaine, so he concocted this elaborate story as to why he should be allowed to buy a Rolex watch with his one credit card that still worked. After somehow convincing the Rolex salesman to sell John the watch for twelve thousand dollars, he then turned around and sold it to a watch salesman. But John only sold it for six thousand dollars, half of what he paid for it in the first place, just so he could have cash on hand to buy cocaine with. And all of this occurred three days before his friends staged an intervention for him. However, John admits at the end of the story that as bad as that story was, that was the one he was willing to say in public, meaning there's likely something from around the same time that's even worse.
• A Deadly Affair: Discussed in The Comeback Kid:
  John: I would always think to myself...how could a human being kill another human being? And then I got cheated on and I was like, "Oh, okay. I'm not gonna do it, but I totally get it." And I don't mean in that way of, like, no one else can have you. It's just creepy to have an ex out there after things have ended badly. They have a lot of information. Anyone who's seen my dick and met my parents needs to die. I can't have them running around.
• Deadpan Snarker: He wouldn't be John Mulaney without it.
• Dedication:
  • Sitting through the credits will show that The Comeback Kid is dedicated to his then-wife Anna.
  • Baby J is dedicated to the twelve people who staged his intervention, as he credits them with saving his life.
• Descent into Addiction: Baby J is mostly about falling back into addiction and going through rehab. The most embarrassing story he was willing to tell about his fall was after having told his accountant to not give him cash sometime in early 2020, he was so desperate by the summer that he bought a Rolex on a credit card the accountant didn’t know about and then turned around and pawned it for half of what he paid for it to get cash.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: After the chasing a woman in the subway incident, one of the things he thought to say was "I'm not gonna rape you! I'm a little boy!"
• Disconnected by Death: Discussed when talking about technology in Kid Gorgeous:
  John: People walk around on the phone now, “Hello? You still there? Lost him.” And that’s it. No follow-through with that guy. Fifty years ago, if you were on the telephone with your friend and suddenly the line just went dead, that meant your friend was murdered!
• Do Not Try This at Home: Early in "Baby J," a special largely about John's drug addiction and rehab, he singles out a child named Henry in the audience and tells him not to do anything he's going to hear tonight.
• Dr. Feelgood: In "Baby J", John recalls his experiences in getting dubious prescriptions for drugs from Dr. Michael (John never learned his last name), a very low-rated doctor who operated out of his own apartment and who would gladly write prescriptions for anybody who wanted them, even when it was obvious they were just looking to score some drugs. He was also really eager about giving people shots, which John figures was because he just really liked seeing people take their shirts off in his apartment.
• Drives Like Crazy: Despite his best efforts.
  John: I just want you all to know that if you're ever on the highway behind me, I hear you honking, and I also don't want me to be doing what I'm doing. I don't like that I'm in that lane either, and I sure would like to get out of it.
  • Apparently, he's so bad that he once reversed onto a highway off-ramp.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: John's initial fear when going into rehab was that everyone would recognize him. It ended up getting under his skin more when it turned out that not one person recognized him despite his success as a comedian. So much so that he once conspicuously left a newspaper out that reported on him being in rehab, just to passive-aggressively help his fellow addicts make the connection.
• Executive Meddling: Why his sitcom didn’t work. Mulaney grew up absolutely loving sitcoms and it was his big dream, but he did not want to be known as difficult to work with or a diva, so he let them change the song he wanted for the theme and lots of other stuff.
• Exact Words:
  • When John's dad wanted his kids to calm down during a long road trip, they said they wanted to go to McDonald's. John's dad agreed, pulled into a McDonald's drive-thru, then ordered a small black coffee for himself and nothing else. After all, he didn't say he'd be buying them anything.
  • How he argued with his attorney father as a child when asked if he brushed his teeth before bed. He answers yes, and his father counters by showing him his "bone-dry" toothbrush. John counters that he never specified when he brushed his teeth and that the record will show that he did not perjure himself.
  • In Kid Gorgeous, John mentions that his wife Anna said that John could make jokes about her, as long as he didn't say that she's a bitch and that he hates her. After the initial shock ("The bar is so much lower than I ever imagined!"), he declares on stage "my wife is a bitch, and I like her so much!"
• Extreme Doormat: To his dog and Delta Airlines.
  John: You could pour soup in my lap and I’d probably apologize to you!
• Feeling Their Age: Discussed in Kid Gorgeous — where John states that he's at the stage before "old" — he's "gross".
  John: I am damp all the time. I am damp now, and I will be damp later.
• For the Evulz: The end of his "The One Thing You Can't Replace" routine. His friend would go to parties at other people's houses and steal family photos because, as the title of the routine indicates, they were the only things in the house that could never be replaced.
• Gentile Jew-Chaser: In his act, he states that he likes to date Jewish women because they say exactly what's on their mind and encourage him to stand up for himself. True enough, he married a Jewish woman in the Catskills Mountains.
• Glasses of Aging: "The Xanax Story" ends with a Time Skip where he goes back to the same clinic where he humiliated himself two years prior, and sees the same nurse he had then, pointing out that the nurse is wearing glasses as proof that time had passed.
• Godwin's Law:
  • Deconstructed during a routine wherein he talks about a friend saying (apparently apropos of nothing), "So you wouldn't kill Hitler if you saw him walking down the street?" John points out that realistically, a situation where he saw Hitler walking down the street would mean that "Hitler" would either be an actor in costume or an extremely old man... and John doesn't really want to kill either of those people (especially since he doesn't know what Extremely Old Hitler would even look like and killing the guy would make him look like he just murdered a helpless old man).
  • He also recounts a time when he was a kid telling his parents about his day at school, where another kid got pushed off the seesaw. John's father asked if he told a teacher, to which John said that he didn't, prompting his father to compare this to people not speaking out against the atrocities committed in Nazi Germany just because they weren't personally being affected, and concluded that John not telling a teacher about another kid getting pushed therefore made him no better than a Nazi.
• He Knows Too Much: Parodied when he discusses his exes, saying that he wouldn't kill one to keep her from falling for someone else, but because they "have a lot of information".
  John: Anyone who's seen my dick and met my parents has to die. I can't have them running around.
• Hope Spot: How do you make 21 consecutive plays of "What's New, Pussycat?" even more torturous to the listeners than it already is? Replace #8 — and only #8 — with "It's Not Unusual", giving them that small hope that the ordeal is over, only for it to start right back up again in a couple of minutes.
  John: And the sigh of relief that swept through the diner! People were ecstatic! It was like the liberation of France! You know, for years, scientists have wondered: can you make grown men and women weep tears of joy by playing Tom Jones’s "It’s Not Unusual"? And the answer is: yes, you can, as long as it is preceded by seven "What’s New Pussycat?"s. [Beat] And on the other hand...when we went back...holy shit...
• Iconic Outfit: All three of his specials (except "The Top Part") were performed in a suit and tie. Their widespread availability cemented the look as part of Mulaney's brand.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: More to be liked than loved. It comes up in nearly all of his specials, with him saying that he's gotten over it towards the end of Baby J. In the 2010s this mostly manifested itself in stories about his meekness, but in Baby J he talks about how he wasn't showing his more complicated real-life self (or at least an on-stage persona closer to it) on stage because he was worried how his audiences would feel.
  • In The Comeback Kid he mentions that "if you spill soup on his lap, he'll probably apologize to you."
  • In Kid Gorgeous he outright admits how much he needs people to like him.
  John: When I walk down the street, I need everybody, all day long, to like me so much. It’s exhausting. My wife said that walking around with me is like walking around with someone who’s running for mayor of nothing.
  • In Baby J he talks about how a woman hired to lead his intervention told him she heard he was nice, and he replied "don't believe the persona."
• Irishman and a Jew: When he and Nick Kroll perform together, he's the Irishman to Kroll's Jew.
• Judgment of Solomon: invokedDiscussed when he talks about just how much Fridge Logic is required to make that story work.
  John: ...What kind of awful bitch has just stolen a baby —she stole a baby— and the first time she's asked about it, she's like "Look, I'll take what I can get!"?
• Keet: Effeminate to the point of Ambiguously Gay, and so energetic he practically runs across the stage in Kid Gorgeous.
• Manchild: Self-described as such.
• Meaningful Name: The Comeback Kid special is titled that as a moniker for Bill Clinton and John Mulaney himself returning from the very public failure of his sitcom.
• Missing White Woman Syndrome: John notes that the media loves to play up the attractiveness of female murder victims to enhance the sensationalism. He then notes that sometimes the hype doesn't live up to the reality. "'Beauty Slain'. Hmm...how about 'Body Found'?"
• Mistaken for Gay: Due to his Camp Straight mannerisms, he says as much in The Comeback Kid.
  John: And.. a lot of people think [I] like bulls.
  Audience: laughs
  John: They assume it!
• Mistaken Nationality: One routine from New In Town describes his childhood being bullied for being Asian-American.
  John: And the biggest problem with that...is that I'm not Asian-American.
• "Not So Different" Remark: How he describes his relationship with his father. His father believes he has no morals because he’s a Democrat and compared him to a Nazi when he was only seven years old, but he always respected him when he could get away with watching TV when not allowed.
  "We are not so different, you and I. You have your law practice and I have all these fuckin' markers."
• Not What It Looks Like: His bit about being mistaken for a rapist in a subway. He started running after a woman in the subway, thinking it was because she heard a train coming, only to realize that she was running from him because she was afraid of him and that she now thought he was chasing her.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Played for both laughs and drama when talking about his intervention and the famous people in attendance (most of them comedians).
    "No one said a single funny thing the entire night. Before I got there, they promised each other that they wouldn't do bits. [...] The funniest people in the world were staring at me and refusing to do jokes. It was maddening! Fred Armisen was serious. Do you know how off-putting that is?!"
  • Also later discussed when noting that John (normally a very affable guy) was wholly venomous to his friends and particularly the intervention leader.
    "I looked at [the intervention leader] and said, "Were you even prepped for me?" And she said, "Yes, but everyone said you were very nice."
• Older Than They Look: Very much so. He himself takes note of this.
  John: I was hoping I would look older. But it didn't happen. I just look worse. I don't think people are looking at me on the street and going, "Hey, look at that man!" I think they're saying, "Wow! That tall child looks terrible!"
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Averted in "The Salt and Pepper Diner" and "The One Thing You Can't Replace", in which his best friend John plays major and minor roles, respectively.
  John: Now, I go into this place one day, when I'm eleven, with my best friend John. I should say that his name is also John. I'm not calling myself my own best friend. It's a separate human being.
  • One bit in Baby J had him and two other friends named John get apprehended by the cops when they were teens. The cop thought they were playing a prank by saying their names were all John.
• Random Passerby Advice: A woman John passed when he was walking down the street told him to "Eat ass, suck a dick, and sell drugs" completely unprompted with no explanation.
• Refuge in Audacity: Lampshaded in "The One Thing You Can't Replace". The image of a bunch of white, drunk teenagers chanting "FUCK DA POLICE!" in a Chicago police officer's face with complete and total confidence is so impudent, that the officer is, in John's words, almost impressed. And then you learn that John went to a Catholic school.
• Riddle for the Ages: Baby J has a story about how, in rehab, John was made to reach out to and cut ties with his drug dealers. The interaction ends up revealing to John that his main drug dealer... wasn't actually a drug dealer (at least not before he started selling to John, and no one else), and was in fact just a random guy with a normal day job. As John was messed up on drugs at the time they met, and the only explanation the guy offered was "You just kept asking", John has absolutely no idea why he thought a random painter should be selling him drugs or how he got that painter to actually start selling him drugs.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Referenced in New In Town, when he encounters an old gay man in a public bathroom:
  John: He went, "I'm either having a drink or I have to pee. You're living the golden years, kid, not me." He spoke in rhymes, it was crazy!
• Saved for the Sequel: Of a sort. During his time as a writer for SNL, John wrote a sketch parody of Les Misérables about two guys ordering lobster in a diner. The sketch was never used until he came back to host many years later, which allowed him to play the role of the waiter.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Wears a suit and tie in New In Town, The Comeback Kid, Kid Gorgeous and Baby J.
• Skewed Priorities: One of the jokes he makes about Law and Order is how some witnesses will continue working, despite being questioned by detectives.
  John: Some of my personal favorites? There's guy-who-while-being-questioned-by-homicide-detectives-will-not-stop-unloading-crates. Doesn't matter to this guy! Double rape and murder? Naaaaaah. He's gotta unload that van!
• Sophisticated as Hell: He often wears suits when performing stand-up and is mostly clean with the subject matter of his routines, which make the times when he swears that much more memorable.
  • He performed his 2023 special Baby J in a suit, telling stories about his relapse and recovery, including some things he does that are depraved and pathetic.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Chip Mulaney (hypothetically), when asked about the ghost of a little girl living in their house:
  Chip: I didn't kill her! Whoever did kill her only did it to protect her from this world!
• Take That!:
  • John's "made-up" "garbage airline" is Delta Airlines.
  • The "horse in a hospital" routine is an unsubtle parody of both the Trump administration and the media circus surrounding it. The "hippo" is one of Kim Jong-Un.
• The Teetotaler: Now that he's a Recovered Addict, John tries avoiding alcohol.
• "They're Not Real" Reveal: In the New in Town special, he talks about the time he was in a restaurant bathroom and has a strange conversation with an old gay man who spoke in rhymes. He ends by saying his girlfriend told him, "John, that bathroom's been closed for forty years! Wooooaaaahhh! Wooooaaaahhh!"
• Those Two Guys:
  • With his best friend since childhood, John O'Brien,
  • With Bill Hader during his time on SNL,
  • With Nick Kroll when they appear together to either promote or portray their Oh, Hello characters Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland.
• Troll:
  • The "Salt and Pepper Diner" routine is about trolling people by playing the same song over and over again on a jukebox in a diner. And just to make it worse, Mulaney and his friends had “Its Not Unusual” play once between the seventh and eighth replays to create a Hope Spot where it seemed like the loop had ended; Mulaney notes that when the eighth replay began, the entire diner nearly exploded into a riot.
  • Changing Bill Hader's lines on the Saturday Night Live teleprompter at the last minute to get him to break character and laugh.
• The Tyson Zone: Discussed in "New In Town" with regards to his former habit of getting blackout drunk and having to hear about his drunken antics second-hand.
  John: When you black-out drinking and you do crazy things, you kind of become like Michael Jackson. Like, any story anyone says about you might be true, and even you don't know by the end. I saw an interview with Michael Jackson before he died and they were like, "Is it true you bought The Elephant Man's bones?" and he was like "I don't know," you know, 'cause how could he keep track of that?
• Unfazed Everyman: He describes the waitstaff in "The Salt and Pepper Diner" as this.
  John: And we're surrounded by this seemingly indifferent staff, you know? (mimes cleaning) Just like, "Yep, same shit as always."
• Very Special Episode: Referenced (and mocked) in "The Comeback Kid", in his brief segment on marijuana.
  John: We'd be watching Saved By The Bell, we'd be having a great old time. And then suddenly, a character we had not seen before would show up with some weed, and the episode would stop cold in its tracks! And they'd always hold the joint, the bad guy would hold the joint in, like, a villainous way. They'd always offer the joint in a way that no-one ever holds a joint, like it's a skull in a Shakespeare play.
• Vocal Evolution: He's refined his stand-up style in every special since "The Top Part", specifically his impressions, pacing, and even his normal speaking voice, which are all much more energetic and show more variety in tone and pitch. The tone of Baby J is different from his past work too, as he even states at the beginning that the show is going to be very different from his usual sets, with a heavier, more mature and less energetic approach. Which makes sense, as much of the content revolves around how he had changed as a person from the times of his previous shows.
• Wild Teen Party: One of his routines involves him recounting when he once went to one hosted by a high school student who was the son of a Sadist Teacher that every student in the school utterly loathed. So naturally, the party guests took great pleasure in destroying the house and everything in it. One kid elbow-dropped the pool table and split it in half, while another defecated on the teacher's computer.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?:
  • Invoked. He has a lengthy routine in Kid Gorgeous about Detective JJ Bittenbinder, who would come to John's school and describe what might happen to them if (or rather, the detective seemed pretty convinced, when) they were kidnapped or murdered. When noticing that the audience became uncomfortable, John says of it:
    John: Very sorry, Radio City, did that make you uncomfortable? Well, guess what? You're adults, and he's not even here. So try being seven-years-old and you're sitting five feet away from him!
  • Mentioned on the Tonight Show that when he was recording lines for Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, he was told to "have fun with it". This being John Mulaney, he cursed up a storm before asking what, exactly, the film was rated. In his defense, he was told to have fun with it.^note  Apparently, some of it was almost used, as people who saw test screenings have reported that his swearing wasn't censored and he was dropping F-bombs.
    John: ...and then I pause, I went "What is this movie rated?" And they said, "PG". And I said, "Oh, so uhhhh... nothing I just said is usable."
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: John's reaction upon receiving a letter from his college asking for alumnus donations, after already having given them $120,000 in his tuition.
  John: And you have the AUDACITY to ask me for more money?! What kind of cokehead relative is my college? You spent it already? I gave you more money than the Civil War cost, and you fucking spent it already?!

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