Bit of the Day — January 21
John Mulaney — “A Horse in a Hospital” — 2018
John Mulaney — “A Horse in a Hospital” — 2018
21.January.2021
John Mulaney
“A Horse in a Hospital”
2018
While there is a lot of work ahead of us to untether ourselves from the four years of chaos the former president unleashed on America, today is the first full day of work.
When historians reflect on the past four years, they will do well to call on John Mulaney’s bit “Horse in a Hospital” from his 2018 Netflix special, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City.
Suppose you haven’t heard the bit. You might be reading the words “Horse in a Hospital” and wondering how that would relate to politics.
Close your eyes and imagine the chaos a horse would cause if it somehow got loose in a hospital.
That is exactly the kind of disorder the former president shepherded in on day one of his White House occupation.
Kid Gorgeous at Radio City is brilliantly written and performed. Mulaney’s humor has just the right amount of confidence with pitch-perfect delivery. His observational humor is in line with Jerry Seinfeld, but Mulaney possesses a deeper sense of rascality.
John Mulaney is the smart ass that everyone loves.
To wit, as a writer for Saturday Night Live, he created and wrote the beloved Stefan character with Bill Heder. I was always so distracted by Bill Hader laughing, so it removed me from the humor. And then I found out why Hader broke character so often.
They would write the sketch, rehearse it, and then sometime between rehearsal and the live broadcast, Mulaney would re-write the jokes. So as Hader is reading them on Weekend Update, he’s reading them for the first time, and that’s why he always laughed. It’s deliciously devious and funny as hell.
If you have the time, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City captures John Mulaney in a prime moment, and one only hopes for many more like these.
If you don’t have the time, do yourself a favor and block out five minutes to watch what is perhaps not only one of the greatest jokes of the Trump era but a joke that could very well end up being a historical record of the past four years.
The best part? He does not name him once …but you know exactly who he’s talking about.