John Mulaney’s Short-Lived Sitcom ‘Mulaney’ Was About His Sobriety Before It Moved to Fox: “I Lost the Thread”

John Mulaney is reflecting on his short-lived sitcom Mulaney, which he created and starred in at NBC before it got canceled after a single season.

Speaking on the Hollywood Reporter‘s comedy actor roundtable with Steven Yeun, Mo Amer, Tyler James Williams and Jason Segel, Mulaney candidly explained what might have led to the show’s demise.

“There was another version at NBC called Mulaney Don’t Drink, which was about me getting sober at 23,” Mulaney shared. “It was based on the time in my life when I got sober at 23 and had two roommates and was just trying to figure out: What does a good person do? That was an actual part of my life, or a pointless gauntlet I threw down in front of myself.”

The comedian opted to get rid of the show’s focus on sobriety when it moved to Fox. Instead, it became about a stand-up comedian who gets a job working for an eccentric game show host, played by Martin Short.

“There was really something lost when I, on the advice of others higher up, took that out,” he said. “But I take full responsibility. I lost the thread that made it something.”

The episodes often began with Mulaney’s character performing stand-up, much like Seinfeld. The show aired for 13 episodes in 2014.

The sitcom was critically panned when it premiered. It still holds a 17% score on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critic consensus reads: “John Mulaney, we know Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld was funny. Mulaney, you’re no Seinfeld.”

When the comedian was asked if he would ever try to make a semi-autobiographical show again like Amer did with the Netflix hit Mo, Mulaney was skeptical.

“My immediate thought was, ‘Oh, should I?'” he said with a laugh. “But I’m not sure. I’ve enjoyed doing it through stand-up. And one thing I learned from doing it was that I wasn’t sure what my story was. Like, what exactly am I bringing to everyone and do they need it?”

Soon after the show was canceled, Mulaney said he will look back on making the show “really fondly.”

“It’s my noble failure. I tried, and I wanted to do it this way. Some people liked it — just not enough,” he said at the time.