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The Top Part

John Mulaney

Comedy Central · Album · 2009 · 48 min

A debut album featuring a diner, a jukebox, and Tom Jones.

John Mulaney arrived fully formed. The undisputed anchor of his debut album is a story about subjecting a Chicago diner to Tom Jones’s “What’s New Pussycat?” twenty-one times in a row. It is a tightly calibrated piece of narrative comedy that relies entirely on pacing, laying out the exact psychological toll a jukebox can inflict on a room full of strangers trying to eat lunch.

Released in 2009, The Top Part was recorded at the Punch Line in San Francisco the previous November. Mulaney was in his mid-twenties and working as a writer at Saturday Night Live, but his stage persona already felt like a throwback. The tracklist introduces early staples like a structural analysis of Law & Order: SVU, stories of blacking out while drinking, and a theory about Donald Trump being what a hobo imagines a rich person to be.

The set list

7 bits
  1. Blacking out and waking up with more money than he started with.

    Explores experiences with alcohol and sarcasm regarding childhood drinking, noting that waking up with extra money after a blackout means he somehow earned money.

  2. Deconstructing Law & Order and Jerry Orbach.

    Parodies recurring tropes on the show, such as the judge who allows everything and the witness who refuses to stop unloading crates while being questioned by homicide detectives.

  3. The cost of hundred-million-dollar movies.

    Expresses exasperation at critics giving bad reviews to massive blockbusters instead of simply being amazed that someone gathered $100 million together to build fake spaceships.

  4. The Dow Jones dropping and Donald Trump's cartoonish wealth.

    Admits frustration at not understanding financial news when the Dow drops hundreds of points, and suggests Donald Trump makes decisions by asking what a cartoon rich person would do.

  5. His father trying to convince him that his mother is great.

    Reflects on his father's bizarre need to hard-sell him on the merits of his own mother.

  6. Air balling at the free throw line in basketball.

    Explains that once you air ball the first shot, the goal for the second free throw is no longer to make the basket, but just to hit some shit.

  7. The closer (spoiler). Show it

    The Salt and Pepper Diner prank. closer

    Details playing Tom Jones's 'What's New Pussycat' repeatedly on a diner jukebox interspersed with a single play of 'It's Not Unusual' to drive patrons insane.

How it plays

Tone
Clever, observational, sarcastic, and exasperated yet relatable.
On stage
Relatable and friendly like someone sharing real-life tales, driven by an undercurrent of specific exasperation and white-hot anger at everyday absurdities, with vocal inflections evoking Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black.
Pace
Atmospheric build-up without rush, razor-sharp efficiency where nary a word is wasted, moving cleanly into ultimate punchlines without conventional transitional segues.
About
binge drinking and blackouts, crime news and Law & Order tropes, commercial air travel, finance, the Dow Jones, and Donald Trump, family dynamics, sports incompetence

What the critics said

Praised as a finely crafted, criminally overlooked, and exceptionally clever debut album featuring tight, flawless joke-writing without wasted words or reliance on gimmicks.

In the room: Recorded in front of a packed house at the San Francisco Punch Line.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: imdb.com, search.worldcat.org, bvd.swanlibraries.net, allmusic.com, underthegunreview.net, huffpost.com, vulture.com, albumoftheyear.org, en.wikipedia.org.

Backstory

Recorded in November 2008 just days after Barack Obama won the presidential election, following an intense stretch where Mulaney wrote ten SNL shows in eight weeks due to Thursday election specials; Mulaney released the album hoping it would serve as an hour-long calling card since he was relatively unknown.

Details

Released
Taped
2008, San Francisco Punch Line
Runtime
48 min
Where
Comedy Central (album)
Topics
After
New in Town (2012)

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