John Mulaney Explains His New Netflix Talk Show: ‘We Will Never Be Your Source for News’

Attention fans of weird late-night shows about coyotes: our time has come (once again).

“It was one of those shows that neither Netflix nor I really needed to do,” John Mulaney explained from stage in Los Angeles January 29 during Netflix’s Next on Netflix event about his acclaimed six-night 2024 talk series. “I never wanted to host a talk show, and they were getting out of the talk show game, so it was the perfect moment to do this.”

That’s how Mulaney teased that yeah, he’s coming back for more. The new live show, “Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney,” will air weekly for 12 weeks beginning March 12 on Netflix.

“We will be live globally with no delay,” Mulaney shared from stage. “We will never be relevant. We will never be your source for news. We will always be reckless. Netflix will always provide us with data that we will ignore. This is the one place where you can see Arnold Schwarzenegger sitting next to Nikki Glaser, sitting next to a family therapist with music by Mannequin Pussy — that’s just an example; we don’t know if we can lock in Mannequin Pussy. This is a really fun experiment. Not since Harry and Meghan has Netflix given more money to someone without a specific plan.”

Mulaney, of course, has a long relationship with the streamer: In addition to his stand-up comedy specials, last year he hosted the aforementioned live six-night event “John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA,” which featured a rotating panel of comedians, Los Angeles-specific area experts, and Saymo, a sidekick/delivery robot. That program led IndieWire to note Mulaney should get a blank check for whatever’s next. Clearly, that happened.

John Carpenter, John Mulaney at ‘John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA’RYAN WEST/NETFLIX

Mulaney confirmed that Saymo (and Richard Kind!) would be back for more when “Everybody: Live” premieres in March. “I think that this show will be something that people will want to tune into live. We will have a host in a suit taking calls from viewers. It’s Netflix’s commitment to embracing the 20th century. There is absolutely nothing new about what I’m doing, but by taking a lot of elements other people have already done and doing them out of order, it feels new and that’s what’s important,” Mulaney joked.

Speaking about “Everybody’s in LA” to IndieWire last year, Mulaney noted, “[Fan response to ‘Everybody’s in LA’] in particular felt really gratifying because most of the comedy I’ve done [like “Sack Lunch Bunch” or “Oh, Hello”] is actually about external topics and not about my own life or psyche or whatever; it was never about my personal life. To me, I mainly make fun of TV shows and random things I’ve seen. So this show being entirely external, in a way in the end becomes the most personal thing you can do. I promise you: I think more about earthquakes and ghosts than I do my own life.”