Political observations and humor aren’t typically a core tenet of John Mulaney’s standup, but the affable comedian—who often gets away with a more barbed joke or three with his impish, disarming delivery—went viral over the weekend for sending very direct shots at Robert Kennedy, Jr., the also-ran Presidential candidate who’s now running the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services despite (or because of) his often bizarre perspectives on contemporary science and medicine.
In the clip—from Night of Too Many Stars, a May 7 show at the Hollywood Bowl, part of Netflix’s weeklong Netflix Is A Joke festival—Mulaney is laughably bemused that Kennedy wound up holding his current position, in part because he knows “Bobby” personally. “I know him as ‘Bobby.’ That’s how much he shouldn’t be in the government,” Mulaney says. “I know him.” Mulaney explains that RFK Jr. has long been “comedy-adjacent” thanks to his marriage to Cheryl Hines, of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame, and recalls being enlisted, along with other comics, to perform at charity events for RFK’s Waterkeepers Alliance. “They were in charge of keeping the Hudson River clean,” Mulaney explains incredulously. “That’s how good he is at jobs.”
Mulaney does a pretty killer interpretation of RFK’s gravelly, otherworldly-sounding voice, but naturally, the part of the bit that’s made headlines is Mulaney’s offhand assertion that RFK “cheats on [Hines] like a dog.” Before the groans even start, he adds, “Sorry for the pearl-clutch here…Sorry to drop that public-domain information on the Hollywood Bowl.”
The thing is, I saw my guy John headline the Bowl the very next day, and within the larger context of his new material, the bit felt even more refined, and hit even harder. In the set Mulaney’s been performing on his current “Mister Whatever” tour (a recorded version of which will hopefully hit Netflix soon), fatherhood and domesticity loom large. Mulaney’s son Malcolm is the focus of two extended bits, and Mulaney also devotes a lot of time to describing life as the token white husband amidst wife Olivia Munn’s extended family, which sounds like an NBC sitcom waiting to happen.
