John Mulaney Turned Down the Hosting Gig on ‘The Daily Show’ Because His Sitcom Sucked So Bad
Imagine making a multi-cam sitcom featuring the hottest stand-up comedian in the country, only for the show to be so bad that your star would end up turning down his next big break for fear of a second bust. Lorne Michaels doesn’t have to imagine it — he lived it.
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As Mulaney revealed to former Viacom executive Doug Herzog on the most recent episode of the podcast Trevor Noah, who didn’t accept those things either but still sat in the chair for seven years.
When Mulaney was taken off the air by Fox, executive producer Michaels and his production company Broadway Video had only managed to make 13 unlucky episodes of the ill-conceived sitcom that dared to ask the question, “What if we remade Martin Short and Dean Cain (who perplexingly played himself) led to bad reviews and worse ratings before the network pulled the plug.
Shortly after the series was canned, Mulaney was invited to a dinner with Comedy Central then-president Kent Alterman who had hoped to “float (Mulaney’s) interest” in the Daily Show gig. Mulaney recalled, “I was extremely flattered that y’all were asking me about it. I sensed they would be big shoes to fill.” However, he wouldn’t entertain the idea of filling them.
“I was gun-shy from putting myself out there at that moment after the Fox run, and I sensed all eyes would be on whoever came after Mr. Stewart,” Mulaney explained, “It wasn’t the right thing at the moment. I saying to Kent, ‘I wish it was five years from now.’ He went, ‘Yeah, but it’s not.’” Comedy Central didn’t have the time for Mulaney’s mourning period, and he understood that, saying, “Kent had a great tone of, ‘I hear you. I’ll hear out anything you have to say, but it’s now and we’re asking you about it. We can’t talk hypothetically for that long at this dinner, John.’”
Today, Mulaney is back at the top of the stand-up racket, and The Daily Show is once again searching for a new host. Perhaps its time for Mulaney and Comedy Central to pick up where they left off — Broadway Video be damned, but Dean Cain has to be part of it.
