John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City is a 2018 stand-up comedy film written by and starring John Mulaney. The special was recorded live in February 2018 at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and released by Netflix on May 1, 2018.
Similarly to Mulaney's previous show, The Comeback Kid, Kid Gorgeous is a visually simplistic stand-up routine with a major emphasis upon observational humor. The majority of jokes are centered upon Mulaney's adolescence, celebrity, marriage, politics and anxieties associated with contemporary American life.
Kid Gorgeous has received an overwhelmingly positive critical response, with critics praising Mulaney for his compassionate delivery, observational wit and, in particular, a prolonged analogy comparing U.S. President Donald Trump to a "horse loose in a hospital". The special won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special in 2018.
Background
John Mulaney rose to prominence in 2008, when he performed at the Bonnaroo Music Festival and earned a position on the writing team of Saturday Night Live. Prior to his distribution deal with Netflix, Mulaney released two stand-up comedy albums through Comedy Central Records: The Top Part in 2009 and New In Town in 2012.
The comedian's most recent stand-up show at the time of Kid Gorgeous's release was The Comeback Kid, which was performed throughout 2015 and released on Netflix in November of the same year. The Comeback Kid received similar acclaim from publications such as Paste Magazine and The Atlantic, and precipitated Netflix's decision to commission Mulaney's animated series Big Mouth in 2017.
Mulaney began writing and touring Kid Gorgeous, his fourth stand-up tour, in February, 2017. The Kid Gorgeous tour concluded in April 2018 in Jacksonville, Florida, following a sold-out, seven show run at Radio City in New York the preceding February; it was one such show that was filmed for the purposes of his Netflix special. Following 2016's The Comeback Kid and 2017's Oh, Hello On Broadway, Kid Gorgeous was the third comedy special Mulaney had manufactured specifically for Netflix.
The special's title "has no meaning" and derives from an episode of The Simpsons, wherein Moe Szyslak's boxing name was revealed to be "Kid Gorgeous". Mulaney was considering old-fashioned nomenclature reminiscent of 1940s gangsters, such as the "Bachelor Bandit", but eventually decided upon "Kid Gorgeous" as it made his wife "laugh the hardest". "Kid Charlemagne", a song by the American rock band Steely Dan, also provided inspiration for the title of Kid Gorgeous.
Following the release of Kid Gorgeous, Mulaney revealed that he had refined and performed the routine while recovering from a labral tear in his knee. Mulaney thought referring to himself as a "kid" whilst recovering from such an injury at age 35 highly amusing, which also influenced his choice of title.
Synopsis
In the introduction, a nervous Mulaney prepares for his performance before he is ushered onstage by a mysterious chaperone (Carole Shelley). The show begins when, accompanied by organist Jon Brion, Mulaney greets the audience directly and launches into an introspective monologue about his parents' marriage, and his mother's alleged encounters with the supernatural.
Following this, Mulaney describes memorable events that have occurred throughout his relationship with his father, who would "pick [him] apart psychologically" rather than enacting physical discipline. Among these are an awkward sex talk regarding composer Leonard Bernstein's perceived homosexuality, and a humorous incident wherein six-year-old Mulaney was compared to a Nazi for failing to intervene during an act of schoolyard bullying.
The focus of the performance shifts to Mulaney's childhood, as he recalls the rituals associated with elementary school assemblies and the unusual antics of J. J. Bittenbinder, a retired Chicago police detective tasked with informing pupils of "stranger danger". Bittenbinder has since expressed his dismay with Mulaney's parody, disputing the notion that he ever "wore a three-piece suit with a cowboy hat". Mulaney then examines his tertiary education in similar detail, despairing over student loans and the "audacity" displayed by his former college, Georgetown University, in approaching alumni for donations.