John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch

John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch
Directed byRhys Thomas
Written byJohn Mulaney
Marika Sawyer
Produced byJohn Skidmore
StarringJohn Mulaney
Alexander Bello
Tyler Bourke
Ava Briglia
Cordelia Commando
Camille De La Cruz
Oriah Elgrabli
Jake Ryan Flynn
Orson Hong
Isabella Iannelli
Jacob Michael Laval
Suri Marrero
Zell Steele Morrow
Jonah Mussolino
Lexi Perkel
Linder Sutton
Edited byAdam Epstein
Music byEli Bolin
Production
companies
A24
3 Arts Entertainment
Petunia Pictures
Distributed byNetflix
Release date
  • December 24, 2019 (2019-12-24)
Running time
70 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch is a children's musical comedy special created by John Mulaney that debuted on Netflix on December 24, 2019.[1] The show, directed by Rhys Thomas, was written by Mulaney and Marika Sawyer and inspired by classic children's television series Sesame Street, The Electric Company and The Great Space Coaster.[2] Eli Bolin composed the music, with lyrics from Mulaney and Sawyer.[3]

Performing with Mulaney are 15 child actors and singers, aged 8–13.[4] Celebrity cameos include Richard Kind, André De Shields, David Byrne, Natasha Lyonne, Annaleigh Ashford, and Jake Gyllenhaal.[5]

Summary

The program is a one-hour long variety special that presents itself as one episode of a larger series. The special consists of several songs, skits, and activities interspersed with scripted segments of Mulaney chatting with the Bunch as well as unscripted interviews with both the children and the adult guest stars about their greatest fears and acting background.

  • Jake, ostensibly in character as a younger version of Mulaney, sings a song about his grandmother's boyfriend Paul and his many quirks, while wondering why the rest of his family hasn't accepted Paul.
  • Jonah summarizes a fictional book he has read called Sascha's Dad Does Drag and the Act Needs Work, a book with a comically frank depiction of drag culture from the perspective of the son of an aging drag queen.
  • Mulaney plays the producer of a fictional Sony Pictures Animation film called Bamboo 2: Bamboozled which is being focus grouped by the entire Bunch. The skit pokes fun at the kids' viewing habits and the tropes of modern western animation.
  • A father, played by Mulaney, hires a math tutor (André De Shields) to help his son Jonah with algebra. The Tutor performs an elaborate Dixieland-style jazz number about how not knowing math caused him to lose his eye — however, it turns out to be a shaggy dog story, with his eye being unexpectedly saved at the last minute, and he reveals afterwards that he had simply lost his eye by accident while performing the song.
  • A transitional scene focused on Googy, supposedly a recurring Sack Lunch Bunch character, is interrupted when Mulaney is forced to reveal to the kids that the actor who played Googy passed away, subsequently having a frank conversation about death.
  • During lunchtime, Orson breaks into song about how he will only ever eat one food: "a plain plate of noodles with a little bit of butter."
  • Mulaney and Tyler play a chess game and continually try to throw one another off with existential questions and absurd facts.
  • Suri urges Mulaney to play "restaurant" with her, only for the game to end abruptly when Suri refuses to allow him entry into her imaginary restaurant.
  • Actor Richard Kind has an unscripted[6] discussion with Ava, Cordelia, and Camille about movies, his career, and their experiences in plays. Nearly every sentence contains the phrase "girl talk."
  • Lexi and her friend David Byrne prepare to put on a skit in front of the guests at her parents' dinner party. However, when all of the guests talk over the performance, she and Byrne launch into a musical number urging the guests to pay attention and explaining what they planned to do in the skit, including cartwheels, acting out the entirety of Frozen, and a fake newscast while wearing an enormous blazer.
  • Zell and Oriah perform a dramatic '80s-inspired power ballad wondering what happens to flowers at night.
  • Jacob and David Byrne make a papier-mâché volcano despite Byrne's childhood fear of volcanoes.
  • While Mulaney asks about the Bunch's top New York moments, Alex recalls a time he was in New York and saw a woman (Annaleigh Ashford) crying on the street. He wonders in song about what would happen if he had gone up to her and asked what was wrong, and imagines the friendship they may have shared if he had done so.
  • Special guest Mr. Music (Jake Gyllenhaal) attempts to demonstrate how one can make music without instruments. However Mr. Music, having failed to prepare for his segment, grows increasingly exasperated as the objects around the studio he tries to use as examples fail to make any sound.
  • The special ends with a final round of interviews with all of the child and adult performers.

Cast

Production

Prior to working on the special both Mulaney and his co-writer Marika Sawyer had sought to do some kind of comedy bit involving children. One idea was a segment on Weekend Update called "Lil Weekend Update" which would have been anchored entirely by children, another concept was a Mulaney written stand up special performed by a ten year old. Neither of these projects ever came to fruition.[7] Mulaney noted that during development, it was difficult for him to articulate to people exactly what he wanted, saying "It was a lot of telling people what it wasn't".[8]

Mulaney noted that often adults talk down to kids, telling Entertainment Weekly: "When I see people interact with kids, I was always like, 'Why are you talking down to them? Why are you crouching on the floor talking in a high voice?' I don’t recall needing that as a kid." He theorizes that "kids think that they’re older than they’ve ever been. They believe they’re adults";[7] and as such he wanted a special that children and adults could watch together and laugh at the same jokes instead of the normal "this joke's for adults and this joke's for kids" approach often seen in children's entertainment.[8]

While appearing on Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, Mulaney described the special as being inspired by other educational children's programs such as Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, The Electric Company, and even more specifically, shows like Free to Be... You and Me, and 3-2-1 Contact.

The special is co-written by Marika Sawyer (Saturday Night Live) and music composer Eli Bolin (Sesame Street, Original Cast Album: Co-Op), who drew inspiration from musical influences including Burt Bacharach, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, and Trinidadian calypso legend Mighty Sparrow. They turned to pieces like Maurice Sendak and Carole King's "Really Rosie", which Mulaney remembered from childhood, and Harry Nilsson's "The Point," which were also fueled by catchy songs and extremely relatable anxieties. "As a kid, we watched movies like Little Shop of Horrors and Clue, and they didn't seem inappropriate – and I don't think they are," Mulaney says. "But they had a lot of tension to them."

Music

Track listing

John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch track listing
No.TitleWriter(s)SingerLength
1."It's John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch!"
The Sack Lunch Bunch:49
2."Grandma's Boyfriend Paul"
  • Mulaney
  • Bolin
  • Sawyer
Jake Ryan Flynn3:37
3."Algebra Song!"
  • Mulaney
  • Bolin
  • Sawyer
André De Shields, Alexander Bello, Camille De La Cruz, Isabella Iannelli, and Zell Steele Morrow4:46
4."Googy's Theme"
  • Mulaney
  • Bolin
  • Sawyer
Chorus:15
5."Plain Plate of Noodles"
  • Mulaney
  • Bolin
  • Sawyer
Orson Hong and The Sack Lunch Bunch2:49
6."Do You Wanna Play Restaurant"
  • Mulaney
  • Bolin
  • Sawyer
Suri Marrero and John Mulaney:55
7."Pay Attention!"
  • Mulaney
  • Bolin
  • Sawyer
Lexi Perkel and David Byrne3:51
8."Do Flowers Exist at Night?"
  • Mulaney
  • Bolin
  • Sawyer
Zell Steele Morrow, Oriah Elgrabli, and Shereen Pimentel1:51
9."I Saw a White Lady Standing on the Street Just Sobbing
(and I Think About It Once a Week)"
  • Mulaney
  • Bolin
  • Sawyer
Alexander Bello featuring Annaleigh Ashford4:32
10."Music, Music Everywhere!"
  • Mulaney
  • Bolin
  • Sawyer
Jake Gyllenhaal and The Sack Lunch Bunch5:17
Total length:28:46

Discography

  • John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch (Drag City, 2019)

Release

On November 22, 2019, Mulaney tweeted a poster of The Sack Lunch Bunch in a parody of the artwork from the original Broadway cast recording of A Chorus Line.

On December 12, 2019, Netflix released a promotional teaser, also directed by Thomas, that doubled as homage to Bob Fosse's classic film All That Jazz, consisting of nearly shot-for-shot recreations of the 1979 musical's opening, with Mulaney dressed all in black (just as Roy Scheider portrayed the character Joe Gideon).[9]

On December 16, 2019, there was a premiere event hosted for The Sack Lunch Bunch where the film was screened for the first time.

On April 2, 2020, a Twitter Live event was hosted at 7PM in which anybody could watch The Sack Lunch Bunch and live tweet about it using the hashtag, #SackLunchWatch. Viewers could tweet their questions using the hashtag and members of the cast and creatives of the film would respond.

Reception

Critical reception

The special received a 96% "fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes[10] and has an 87% on Metacritic.[11] Critic Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone Magazine, wrote "It is, like Galaxy Quest, The Princess Bride, or Jane the Virgin, one of those gems that manages to simultaneously parody a genre and be an excellent recreation of it."[12] Critic Erik Adams, from The A.V. Club gave the special an A rating, writing, "The Sack Lunch Bunch is an unconventional package, but its ingredients are pure John Mulaney".[13] Richard Roeper of The Chicago Sun-Times, and John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal both praised the special, describing it more as "effective conceptual art than a variety show".[11]

Accolades

Year Award Category Recipient(s) and nominee(s) Result Ref(s)
2020 Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) John Mulaney, Marika Sawyer, Rhys Thomas, David Miner, Cara Masline, Ravi Nandan,
Inman Young, Dave Ferguson, Corey Deckler, Mary Beth Minthorn and Kerri Hundley 		Nominated [14][15]
Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special John Mulaney and Marika Sawyer Nominated

Future

Mulaney has suggested in an interview with Vulture that he hopes to do another Sack Lunch Bunch special, and that he has material that did not make it into the first one that he hopes to explore in later specials.[6] In July 2020, it was announced that Mulaney has signed a deal with Comedy Central for two more Sack Lunch Bunch specials, reportedly with the same cast.[16][17][18]

References

  1. ^ Zinoman, Jason (December 24, 2019). "A Comedy Special for Kids That Gets Their Dark Sense of Humor". The New York Times. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  2. ^ Fienberg, Daniel (December 24, 2019). "'John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch': TV Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  3. ^ McHenry, Jackson (December 24, 2019). "Behind the Music of John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch". Vulture. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  4. ^ Sanchez, Omar (December 24, 2019). "Behind John Mulaney's 24-hour race to get David Byrne for a 'Sack Lunch Bunch' cameo". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  5. ^ Framke, Caroline (December 24, 2019). "How 'John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch' Became One of 2019's Weirdest, Most Wonderful Hours of TV". Variety. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  6. ^ a b Bonanos, Alexander (December 18, 2019). "A 10-Year-Old Interviews John Mulaney About His Kids' Special". Vulture. Retrieved January 16, 2020.
  7. ^ a b Sanchez, Omar. "John Mulaney is putting on his best Mister Rogers shoes for Netflix special Sack Lunch Bunch". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  8. ^ a b Zuckerman, Esther (December 21, 2019). "John Mulaney on How He Pulled Off His Zany Netflix Children's Special". Thrillist. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  9. ^ Holub, Christian (December 12, 2019). "John Mulaney invokes 'All That Jazz' to tease new Netflix special". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  10. ^ "John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch (2019)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  11. ^ a b "John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch". Metacritic. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  12. ^ Sepinwall, Alan (December 23, 2019). "'John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch': How to Recreate a '70s Kids' Show". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on January 21, 2021. Retrieved September 16, 2021.
  13. ^ Adams, Erik (December 24, 2019). "The Sack Lunch Bunch is an unconventional package, but its ingredients are pure John Mulaney". AV Club. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  14. ^ "John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  15. ^ Hipes, Patrick (July 28, 2020). "Emmy Awards Nominations: The Complete List". Deadline. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  16. ^ Goldsmith, Jill (July 7, 2020). "Comedy Central, John Mulaney In Deal For Two 'Sack Lunch Bunch' Specials: Comedian Says Once Worked At Network As "Not Very Good Intern"". Deadline. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  17. ^ Otterson, Joe (July 7, 2020). "John Mulaney Sets Two 'Sack Lunch Bunch' Specials at Comedy Central". Variety. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  18. ^ "John Mulaney To Produce Two SACK LUNCH BUNCH Sequels". Nerdist. Retrieved January 16, 2022.

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