If you have yet to watch John Mulaney’s hilariously accurate specials, you’re missing out big time. Mulaney began as a writer on SNL and moved onto becoming one of the best comedians that I know of. There has not been one special where Mulaney has failed to make me laugh, from his entertaining stories to his spot-on inflection to his brilliant punchlines… he’s a comedic mastermind.
I have rounded up some of Mulaney’s best jokes here. If you haven’t watched Mulaney’s shows, I would definitely suggest doing so. A few of these quotes are so much funnier knowing the full backstory and seeing Mulaney actually say it.
That moment of relief
“In terms of instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin.”
Let’s do nothing this weekend… absolutely nothing
“If you ever ask an adult what they did over the weekend and they say they didn’t do anything, their faces light up. “I, um… I did nothing. I did nothing at all!”
Repeat with your best Mick Jagger impression
“Not funny!”
Stop being a smart-ass
“Get out of here with your facts. You’re like the kid at the sleepover who, after midnight, is like, ‘It’s tomorrow now.’ Get out of here with your technicalities. Just because you’re accurate doesn’t mean you’re interesting.”
The accuracy of this statement
“13-year-olds are the meanest people in the world. They terrify me to this day because 8th graders will make fun of you but in an accurate way. They will get to the thing that you don’t like about you.”
“Just be safe kids” – Government
“Marijuana legalization is a good thing, but it’s also a really weird thing because this is the first time I’ve ever seen a law change just because the government was like, ‘Ugh, fine.’”
Charles Mulaney is savage
“You have the moral backbone of a chocolate éclair.”
When you start “ruining parties”
“I quit drinking cos I used to drink too much then I would blackout and I would “ruin parties.”
The savagery didn’t end with the éclair… just imagine this as a kid
“We started chanting, McDonald’s, McDonald’s, McDonald’s! And my dad pulled into the drive-thru, and we started cheering and then he ordered one black coffee for himself and kept driving.”
Don’t look at me… don’t you dare
“You remember being 12 when you’re like, ‘No one look at me or I’ll kill myself.’”
Ah, the joys of Blockbuster
“I was once on the telephone with blockbuster video, which is a very old-fashioned sentence.”
Imagining the officer’s face just about makes my day
“I’m standing in the basement and I’m holding a red cup, you’ve seen movies. And I’m standing there holding a red cup and I’m starting to black out and I guess someone said like something something police. And in a brilliant moment of word association I yelled “F*** da police!” And everyone else joined in. A hundred drunk white children yelling f*** da police.”
Turn up the AC, would ya
“I’m like an iPhone, it’s going to be worse versions of this every year, plus I get super hot in the middle of the afternoon for no reason.”
We can’t forget the oxymoron that is the delta help desk
“I’ll book a ticket on some garbage airline. I don’t wanna name an actual airline so let’s make one up, let’s just call it like Delta Airlines.”
The trials and tribulations of college
“College was like a four-year game show called ‘Do My Friends Hate Me or Do I Just Need To Go To Sleep?'”
Oh you’re busy Friday night? Let’s reschedule for next year
“I can’t listen to any new songs. Because every new song is about how tonight is the night and we only have tonight. That is such 19-year-old horsesh-t. I want to write songs for people in their 30s called ‘Tonight’s No Good. How About Wednesday? Oh, you’re in Dallas Wednesday? Let’s Not See Each Other for Eight Months and It Doesn’t Matter at All.'”
Just… please. I can’t take much more on my plate
“I am very small and I have no money. So you can imagine the kind of stress that I am under.”
Ah, Connecticut, gotta love it…
“I was in Connecticut recently doing white people stuff…”
We all needed this
I wish I’d been a Def Jam comic when that movie came out. I would have torn it to pieces! Be like, “You seen this shit? You seen this Home Alone 2: Lost in New York shit? It’s a grid system, motherfucker! Where you at? 24th and 5th? Where you wanna go? 35th and 6th? 11 up and 1 over, you simple bitch!!”
John speaks the truth
Sometimes when people order fries, they act like it’s a little adventure. They’ll be like, “If I get fries, you’ll have a couple, right? If I get fries for the table, you’ll have — I know you’ll have fries if I get fries — should we do it? Yeah, let’s be bad! C’mon, let’s do it, all right, we’re gonna take a plate of fries!” It’s like a group of couples agreeing to do ecstasy together.