John Mulaney Walks Down Memory Lane With David Letterman on ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction’

Larisha Paul
·2 min read
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John Mulaney, David Letterman in My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman - Credit: NETFLIX
John Mulaney, David Letterman in My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman - Credit: NETFLIX

John Mulaney’s homecoming will be captured in the forthcoming episode of Netflix’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman. In a special episode premiering on April 30, the comedian heads back to the high school he attended in Chicago to sit with Letterman for a deep discussion about addiction, fatherhood, and comedy.

The walk down memory lane begins in the trailer for the episode, where Mulaney recalls a childhood memory while standing in front of a framed Class of 1950 photo hanging on the wall. It wasn’t his own graduating class pictured there, but it didn’t look too different from his earlier stand-up audiences.

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“I went to a birthday party, and Mr. McArthur; his name was, he said, ‘That’s a sharp shirt you have on,'” Mulaney recalled, teeing up an early joke. “I said, ‘Yeah, sometimes I use it instead of scissors.'” As he remembered it, everyone laughed — Mr. McArthur included. His audience, it seems, were often adults.

“My dad would have these — in the summer, his law firm would have these summer parties at our house,” Mulaney remembered. “I’d watch Dr. Ruth on TV — I was like five — and I’d walk up to his different partners, and I’d go, ‘I’m gonna be a sex therapist.'” While he was walking around parties quoting the famous therapist and talk show host, he started to notice the comedy of it all. “It was a funny bit to do,” he said. “I think I knew it’s funny that you’re five, holding a Schweppes, walking around.”

Mulaney recently opened up about his battle with addiction as well as his recent divorce and first experience being a father in the stand-up special Baby J. His appearance on My Next Guest marks the first new episode of the series since December 2022, when Letterman sat with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Prior to that meeting, the show’s fourth season premiered with appearances from Billie Eilish, Will Smith, Cardi B, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Durant, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

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