‘There’s…Johnny!’ Is The Gentlest Show On TV

There’s a story I tell in my head every night while falling asleep, a thing I do so my mind doesn’t run through the latest incidents in the 2017 horror show. In this story, I’ve been plucked from the present and dropped in the year 1975 where I’m a writer for The Bob Newhart Show. It’s totally dreamlike for a mental exercise that occurs just before I fall asleep, as I hobnob with my retro heroes and worry way less about America’s total annihilation.

I make this possibly mortifying admission because my gentle nighttime play-place is uncomfortably similar to a show that just debuted on Hulu, the Paul Reiser-produced There’s Johnny! The show is set in 1972 and follows a 19-year-old Nebraskan as he’s whisked away into the backstage drama of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show through a series of events that are about as plausible as me waking up in the ’70s and hanging out with Bob Newhart. Watching There’s…Johnny! was like watching someone plagiarize my embarrassing bedtime daydreams, and the show’s gentle delivery only made the experience more ethereal. And the fact that the lead character falls asleep on two different couches in the first episode only makes it feel more gentle and dreamlike.

There’s…Johnny! was shot through the most flattering Instagram filter, one that casts subjects in a comforting glow and smooths over all blemishes. This show loves Johnny Carson and the ’70s as much as Marvel’s Jessica Jones loves scarves and booze. And like, I’m the rare millennial (born in 1984, so barely) that legitimately loves Johnny Carson. My family would rent Carson’s “best of” VHS tapes from Kroger’s regularly, and watching them on repeat was a magical childhood experience for me. Retro TV is my comfort zone, my safe space, and even I can tell that There’s…Johnny! is adoringly, overwhelmingly reverent. That reverence makes for a gentle watch, as the warm wave of perfect ’70s nostalgia washes over you.

Johnny! doesn’t stop with the visuals, though, as they’re paired with a soundtrack that could make even Robert Mueller space out and, like, just chill. Organ flourishes, finger-picked acoustic guitar melodies, breezy harmonica riffs, some brassy horn stings for punctuation–it’s like if Fleetwood Mac composed prescription drug commercials. The soundtrack goes hand-in-hand with the visuals, assuring you that everything is gonna be juuuuuuust fiiiiine.

Not that the show itself really gives you any doubt that things are going to be just fine. 21st century retro shows like Mad Men and Stranger Things are steeped in nostalgia, sure, but the characters don’t have it easy. Alcoholism, Lovecraftian demon-monsters, there’s plenty to fight! But There’s…Johnny! drifts along, propelled by the same gentle force that nudges along dreams. Wide-eyed nice guy Andy Klavin (Ian Nelson) writes to The Tonight Show to get an autograph for his parents and he–why not?–asks for a job! And surprise, he gets offered one! So he packs up and moves to Los Angeles where he goes directly to the show’s studio and giddily wanders around the empty set (no doors were locked in the ’70s, not even the doors to the set of the most important television show in the country). And when he finds out that that “job offer” was actually a form letter that everyone gets, he gets a gig as a gofer thanks to right-place-right-time-ism. “It’s crazy how some things work out,” says Andy in a smooth voiceover over that plucky, hypnotic acoustic guitar.

There are conflicts in There’s…Johnny!, sure, but their edges are sanded off by the show’s look and feel. Producer Joy (Jane Levy) deals with production headaches, sexism, and a bad boy ex, but the show doesn’t linger on that for too long. When Johnny Carson walks out on stage (via archival footage, as the show within the show), all of Andy’s blunders end up working out for the best and we get a happy ending.

All of this adds up to a television experience unlike any I’ve seen on TV in recent years. Sure, Fuller House is a low-stakes show that plays fast and loose with logic, but it’s the opposite of gentle. It’s bizarre and actively befuddling, and likely to keep you up at night if you think too hard about it. There’s…Johnny! is an effortless watch, similar to the light-hearted sitcoms of the early ’70s–except it drops way more F-bombs than That Girl. This show unfolds like a dream, a memory fondly recalled.

Where to stream There's...Johnny!