John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch is a children's musical comedy special created by John Mulaney that debuted on Netflix on December 24, 2019. The show was written by Mulaney and Marika Sawyer and inspired by classic children's television series Sesame Street, The Electric Company (1971), and The Great Space Coaster. Eli Bolin composed the music, with lyrics from Mulaney and Sawyer.
Performing with Mulaney are 15 child actors and singers, aged 8–13. Celebrity cameos include Richard Kind, André De Shields, David Byrne, Natasha Lyonne, Annaleigh Ashford, and Jake Gyllenhaal as "Mr. Music."
Two more Sack Lunch Bunch specials, one of which will be a Christmas Special, have been announced to air on Comedy Central.
John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch provides examples of the following tropes:
- Actor Allusion: David Byrne puts on a giant suit similar to what he wore for Talking Heads performances in "Pay Attention!", with the context that he's a small child pretending to be a newscaster by wearing his mom's pantsuit.
- Alpha Bitch:
- The queens who mock Sascha's dad's drag act in "Sascha's Dad Does Drag, and The Act Needs Work". They're cruel, but Sascha does concede that Dad's performance isn't very entertaining.[E]ven though Sascha was embarrassed, he couldn't deny they were right to throw shade.
- When John learns that the kids call him "Ms. Mulaney" whenever he's in one of his "moods", he immediately proves them right by acting incredibly temperamental and catty.Linder: Oh, what did Richard Kind call him the other day?
Jonah: "Madam Secretary".
John: Oh. And when did Richard say this?
Suri: On the group text. [beat] Oh... are you... not...?
John: [in a low, brittle voice] No, I'm not on the group text.
- The queens who mock Sascha's dad's drag act in "Sascha's Dad Does Drag, and The Act Needs Work". They're cruel, but Sascha does concede that Dad's performance isn't very entertaining.
- Anti-Climax: "Do You Wanna Play Restaurant?" abruptly ends with Suri denying John entry into her imaginary restaurant.
- Attention Whore: "Pay Attention!" is a justified example; Lexi spent a lot of time prepping her act, and is trying to get the adults at her mom's party to, well, pay attention to her after they said they would.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- A few of the quiz segments have answers like this.
- The Tutor promises Jonah that he'll tell him how he lost his eye due to his lack of algebra knowledge. Turns out that the song has nothing to do with that; in reality, the Tutor poked out his eye while performing the song.
- In Mr. Music's song "Music Everywhere", every single object that he hopes will make noise to illustrate the point that Everything Is an Instrument is either too quiet, doesn't work like it's supposed to, or is generally noiseless.
- The Cameo: Natasha Lyonne only appears during the discussion segments, and is the only celebrity who never participates in a sketch herself.
- Children Are Innocent: Zig-zagged. While the children are surprisingly knowledgeable and existential, they still wonder about stuff like whether or not flowers can exist at night.
- Contrived Coincidence: In "Music Everywhere," Mr. Music gets desperate and tries throwing a girl's clarinet out the window to make noise. Not only is the window open, but the clarinet lands on a "truck full of pillows" that just so happens to be passing by at that exact moment.
- Creepy Jazz Music: Subverted with "Algebra Song!"; although it seems to be this, complete with shadow-puppet sequences, deep red colors everywhere, and a big vamping ending full of greasy brass, the effect becomes more bewildering than anything for Jonah because it has barely anything to do with math and the ending makes no sense. Doubles as an Actor Allusion to André De Shields, as composer Eli Bolin wrote the song to invoke, but not copy, the style of Hadestown, which is very much a straight example.
- Didn't Think This Through: Mr. Music tries to plant various noise-making objects to help him with his song "Music Everywhere." He didn't plan ahead, though, and so chooses things like a swirling glass of wine, a leaky faucet that someone fixed, and — worst of all — tap dancing on a Tempur-Pedic mattress... which is designed not to make noise or transfer motion.
- Everything Is an Instrument: Parodied with Mr. Music, who seems a little... unbalanced. He wants to teach the kids that anything can be music, but nothing he uses to illustrate this purpose actually makes much of a sound, even when they should.
- Expy: The Tutor is one to Mary Poppins.
- Eye Scream: The Tutor lost an eye because he accidentally poked it out while performing his algebra song.
- For Want Of A Nail: Alex's song is about him wondering what would have happened if he'd tried comforting a white woman he saw crying in New York instead of going on a field trip with the rest of his class.
- In Memoriam: Parodied In-Universe; John has "In Memory" pictures for every member of the cast.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Present in "Sascha's Dad Does Drag"; while they're obviously mean, Sascha agrees with the other queens that his dad's drag act needs work.
- Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: When discussing their fears, one of the kids talks about how she accidentally watched a trailer for Us and is now scared that her doppelganger will come after her. Another admits to being scared of the concept of The Purge.
- Lampshade Hanging: When his dad joins in on the algebra song, Jonah incredulously asks if he and the tutor rehearsed it beforehand.
- Metaphorically True: The Tutor claims that his lack of algebra knowledge cost him his eye, and promises to explain how it happened via song. It turns out that he poked out his own eye during a performance of the tune—but since the song is about how he didn't know algebra, he's technically telling the truth; if he hadn't struggled with algebra, he wouldn't have to perform the song in the first place and so wouldn't have stabbed himself.
- Mundane Made Awesome: The question "do flowers exist at night?" gets an operatic ballad dedicated to it.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Invoked with Jake Gyllenhaal's accent as Mr. Music, which is extremely inconsistent. He slides in and out of it (and the entire character) throughout the whole sequence.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: In-Universe, Alex is the son of a Jackson from The Jackson 5. Mulaney's ears perk up when he finds this out, but when he learns that his father is Marlon and not Michael, Mulaney loses interest.
- Parent with New Paramour: The titular character in "Grandma's Boyfriend Paul". The singer is accepting of him, but his mother and aunts aren't, which he can't understand.
- Pastiche: Well, the film is pretty clearly one, but In-Universe, they manage to parody the trope itself. Mulaney tells the kids that it's pastiche only if they don't pull the whole thing off. Then, he says, people will call it brilliant.
- Picky Eater: Orson, as his solo song "Plain Plate of Noodles" explains, is a very self-aware one.
- Sanity Slippage: Mr. Music becomes more unhinged the more his act fails.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: John and Tyler engage in a few during a game of chess, hoping to psych each other out.
- Special Guest: Parodied; while there are several celebrities in the special, the intro song specifically labels Richard Kind as this.
- Subverted Kids' Show: John wants to recreate the feeling of the afterschool shows he watched in his youth, but this special is aimed at adults. While not too graphic or vulgar (since the bulk of the cast is children), it's still full of references to death, mutilation, and existential horror.
- Take That!: The "Bamboo 2: Bamboozled" sketch pokes fun at many of the cliches used in modern-day animated kid's films. Additionally, the titular film was apparently produced by Sony Pictures Animation.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Exaggerated for laughs. Orson doesn't want anything but a plain plate of noodles with a little bit of butter. You could give him the fanciest lobster, and his heart will still yearn for macaroni.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: A recurring bit has the children talk about their deepest fears. Some of them get disturbingly existential.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- The singer of "Grandma's Boyfriend Paul" gives a short one to his mom and aunts over their inability to accept Paul into their lives.
- During the Googy skit, the kids call out John for making Googy's actor work with a known medical condition. John, in turn, calls them out for making his problems worse by forcing him to do physically-draining actions.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Invoked by Jake Gyllenhaal as Mr. Music. According to Mulaney, Gyllenhaal originally planned on doing a full-on Caribbean accent for the part, but Mulaney pointed out that it might be offensive. Instead, Gyllenhaal affects the tone of someone trying (and badly failing) to use some kind of Caribbean/South Island accent, which manages to take a tour of Europe in the process.
