Paul Shaffer Sings Frank Sinatra, Shares Stage with David Letterman and John Mulaney at Netflix Event
It was like the good old Late Show days for a little while Tuesday night at L.A.’s Montalban Theatre.
David Letterman took over the venue to host Netflix Is A Joke Presents: This Better Be Funny with David Letterman with special guest John Mulaney. But before welcoming Mulaney into the lights, the veteran host had another trick up his sleeve bringing out beloved Late Show band leader and good pal Paul Shaffer. The capacity crowd greeted Shaffer with a standing ovation when he turned up at the top of the event.
Letterman, who recently signed on to executive produce Say Hello to Our Good Friend Paul Shaffer, an upcoming feature documentary about his longtime sidekick, traded quips with Shaffer like they did for years on late night television. “I got to go up to Moonshadows and meet Mel Gibson,” Shaffer joked as he made an exit that turned out to be relatively brief. Shaffer came back to close the show nearly 90 minutes later by taking a seat at the piano and performing a Frank Sinatra classic, “That’s Life.”
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Letterman kicked off the show with a brief opening set that played a little like “this is your life” as the veteran host looked back on the early days, like all the way back to childhood. Photos flashed on the big screen behind him showing a young Letterman in his yearbook photo and on the basketball and track teams at Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. He also recapped highlights of his career, like early radio and TV gigs, the time he served as the weekend weatherman or when he reported live for KTLA at the 1979 Rose Parade.
Letterman played well-received clips of his early television appearances on Mork & Mindy and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour. He also relayed praise he received early in his time in L.A. after an appearance at The Comedy Store. “I told a joke and nobody laughed,” Letterman recalled. “But I was not discouraged because I was petrified. You can’t be discouraged and petrified simultaneously. But when I got offstage, there was a man there in the shadows, a man I recognized by the name of Richard Pryor. … He said to me, ‘I really like that joke.’ And I thought, “Oh my God, I can go ahead and pay the rent.’ It was a huge moment for me.”
The other big moments of the night belonged to Letterman and Mulaney as they sat at center stage and traded lively and amusing stories about life, celebrities, their careers and families. Mulaney’s wife, Olivia Munn, was in the audience and he spent a chunk of time talking about their two children, a son named Malcolm and daughter Mei, and her Chinese-Vietnamese relatives.
About those relatives, Mulaney got lots of laughs for detailing his unique relationship with them. “For the first 39 years of my life, I financially supported zero Vietnamese people. Now, sitting here with you tonight, I have about 10 on the books and two take Cash App. It’s weird [when people ask], ‘Oh, what’s your life like when you’re [doing all these projects],’ but most of my day is texting with elderly Vietnamese people about if they got the money or if they need more. If I bought an appliance and it breaks, I don’t know if you know this, that’s on me.”
That said, Mulaney called it “one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me” to have his life expand in that way. “My white family is very … there’s just no comparison to being Vietnamese. Becoming Chinese-Vietnamese is the smartest thing I ever did. It’s remarkable. It’s remarkable.”
Letterman quizzed Mulaney on a bunch of other remarkable events in his life, like soon becoming the first comedian to play Wrigley Field in his hometown of Chicago, accepting an honorary patronage from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, taking his son to Graceland, where he also performed, and becoming part owner of Years, a Midwestern non-alcoholic beer brand.
Letterman also asked Mulaney about directing the comedy special Robby Hoffman: Wake Up for Netflix. Letterman noted how he watched the special and was curious to know what it was like to work with the Hacks rising star. “I have lost my way in the world of contemporary comedy because I am so smitten by you and a handful of other young men and women who I think have elevated this craft, this art beyond early expectation in the world,” Letterman said in prefacing his question.
Mulaney called Hoffman “a total original,” likening her debut to the late and great Sam Kinison, “someone who you’re, like, ‘I’ve never heard of a comedian like this. I’ve never seen anyone this unafraid,'” Mulaney said. “When she opened for me in San Diego at an outdoor venue on the water with lots of couples at tables, she never adjusted her act for anyone.”
Mulaney said he reached out to her because he had a deal to direct and produce specials for Netflix and he offered to direct hers. “She goes, ‘What’s the money?’ And I go, ‘All told you’ll net blank. There’s a lot of expenses and I have a small budget and they’ll license it and it’s a really interesting deal, but I’ll just be upfront — I take no fee to direct it, but you’ll probably only net blank, blank thousand.’ She’s like, ‘Not very much.'”
He said that they talked it out and she came to the conclusion that it was very good for her but “let’s be clear,” she added, “It’s good for you too because you seem street when you do stuff like this, John, you seem street, it seems like you’re plugged in.” Mulaney added that every time we talked about production meetings and such, Hoffman would say, “This is good for you.”
“But I will say, her prophecy came true. I am seen as cooler. I am street. A lot of people have been saying, ‘I see more street now.’ She’s one of those people that makes me excited to do stand-up again.”
The pairing of Mulaney and Letterman marked a reunion of sorts as the latter appeared on the live series John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA, also for Netflix. Letterman asked Mulaney whether he will be making more of the series, which has lasted only one season thus far.
“We have another season from Netflix. I’m on tour till January 2027. So we shall see,” Mulaney noted.
The two spent a chunk of time talking about Mulaney’s career-boosting gig as a writer on Saturday Night Live and his recent appearance in the Lorne Michaels documentary, Lorne, from Morgan Neville, who also happened to be in the audience at the Montalban.
Letterman played the clip from Everybody’s in LA that found Mulaney interviewing Michael Jackson’s Bubbles the chimp. After the viral clip finished, Letterman asked Mulaney whether he’s seen the new film about Jackson, Michael, from director Antoine Fuqua. “No, I haven’t seen it because it looks like dog shit,” Mulaney said. “I just was looking at lots of movies that were out and I thought, ‘Oh, that looks like dumb ass dog shit.’ But oh, it made a lot of money, so I guess … But it looks terrible, Dave.”
Mulaney asked Letterman whether he would see it and he also declined. “I don’t think that program is for me.” Mulaney then added, “I don’t say this, by the way, on some kind of stance, but just aesthetically and as a film, it looks stupid and bad.”
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