Comedian John Mulaney roasts Biloxi in new Netflix interview with David Letterman

Comedian John Mulaney roasts Biloxi in a new Netflix show filmed in part when he played the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in December.

He wasn’t impressed with the city — or the casinos.

And he and David Letterman, who was in the audience for the Dec. 8 show, apparently didn’t spend enough time in the city to learn how to pronounce Biloxi.

Mulaney is a stand-up comedian and actor who spent four seasons writing for Saturday Night Live.

Letterman interviewed him for his Netflix show “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” that includes parts of his Biloxi performance.

“I watched it last night on Netflix,” Matt McDonnell, executive director of the Coast Coliseum, said on Tuesday. He didn’t hear the start of Mulaney’s show when he was on the Coast Coliseum stage but said he didn’t think it was meant to be harsh or critical.

What Mulaney said

The Chicago Sun Times reviewed the Netflix show and said Mulaney created 15 minutes of “instant material” during his first visit to Biloxi.

“A lot of towns have casinos,” he said, “[but] you have more casinos than cities that are famous for having casinos, and not a dime is making its way into the town, Jesus Christ. Let me see the books, let me see the books ...”

“I thought that was grossly inaccurate,” McDonnell said of the eight Biloxi casinos not giving back to the community.

“Biloxi is a place where the outside seems haunted,” Mulaney also told Letterman.

The Biloxi portion of the interview comes at the end of the show, McDonnell said.

The audience reviews

Mixed reviews followed Mulaney’s performance in Biloxi.

“That Biloxi bit alone was worth the ticket,” one person commented on Reddit.

Most were critical of the opening act, who made jokes about stabbing kids. That might have soured them on the headline show.

“My friend and I were so excited for this and ended up super disappointed,” was another comment on Reddit. “This was one of the worst comedy shows I’ve ever seen. He seemed exhausted and mumbled incoherently often.”

McDonnell said, “Each person has their own opinion and own taste.” The coliseum was set up in theater configuration for the show did fine with ticket sales, he said.

Will Mulaney return to Biloxi?

Another segment of the Letterman show follows Mulaney to his prep school in Chicago, which he hadn’t seen since he graduated about 25 years ago.

“I have not been invited back,” Mulaney said.

Will he be invited back to Biloxi?

“It’s hard to say, particularly with comedians,” McDonnell said, and depends on their popularity and schedule.

“We have comedians that do make return appearances,” he said. The Coliseum does fairly well with attracting crowds for comedy shows, he said, particularly since COVID and the need to laugh at life.