John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch

John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch is a children's musical comedy special created by John Mulaney that debuted on Netflix on December 24, 2019. The show, directed by Rhys Thomas, was written by Mulaney and Marika Sawyer and inspired by classic children's television series Sesame Street, The Electric Company and The Great Space Coaster. Eli Bolin composed the music, with lyrics from Mulaney and Sawyer.
Performing with Mulaney are 15 child actors and singers, aged 8–13. Celebrity cameos include Richard Kind, André De Shields, David Byrne, Natasha Lyonne, Annaleigh Ashford, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
The program is a one-hour long variety special that presents itself as one episode of a larger series. The special consists of several songs, skits, and activities interspersed with scripted segments of Mulaney chatting with the Bunch as well as unscripted interviews with both the children and the adult guest stars about their greatest fears and acting background.
Prior to working on the special both Mulaney and his co-writer Marika Sawyer had sought to do some kind of comedy bit involving children. One idea was a segment on Weekend Update called "Lil Weekend Update" which would have been anchored entirely by children. Another concept was a Mulaney-written stand up special performed by a ten year old. Neither of these projects ever came to fruition. Mulaney noted that during development, it was difficult for him to articulate to people exactly what he wanted, saying "It was a lot of telling people what it wasn't".
Mulaney noted that often adults talk down to kids, telling Entertainment Weekly: "When I see people interact with kids, I was always like, 'Why are you talking down to them? Why are you crouching on the floor talking in a high voice?' I don’t recall needing that as a kid." He theorizes that "kids think that they’re older than they’ve ever been. They believe they’re adults"; and as such he wanted a special that children and adults could watch together and laugh at the same jokes instead of the normal "this joke's for adults and this joke's for kids" approach often seen in children's entertainment.
While appearing on Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, Mulaney described the special as being inspired by other educational children's programs such as Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, The Electric Company, and even more specifically, shows like Free to Be... You and Me, and 3-2-1 Contact.
The special is co-written by Marika Sawyer (Saturday Night Live) and music composer Eli Bolin (Sesame Street, Original Cast Album: Co-Op), who drew inspiration from musical influences including Burt Bacharach, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, and Trinidadian calypso legend Mighty Sparrow. They turned to pieces like Maurice Sendak and Carole King's "Really Rosie", which Mulaney remembered from childhood, and Harry Nilsson's "The Point," which were also fueled by catchy songs and extremely relatable anxieties. "As a kid, we watched movies like Little Shop of Horrors and Clue, and they didn't seem inappropriate – and I don't think they are," Mulaney says. "But they had a lot of tension to them."
On November 22, 2019, Mulaney tweeted a poster of The Sack Lunch Bunch in a parody of the artwork from the original Broadway cast recording of A Chorus Line.
On December 12, 2019, Netflix released a promotional teaser, also directed by Thomas, that doubled as homage to Bob Fosse's classic film All That Jazz, consisting of nearly shot-for-shot recreations of the 1979 musical's opening, with Mulaney dressed all in black (just as Roy Scheider portrayed the character Joe Gideon).
On December 16, 2019, there was a premiere event hosted for The Sack Lunch Bunch where the film was screened for the first time.
On April 2, 2020, a Twitter Live event was hosted at 7PM in which anybody could watch The Sack Lunch Bunch and live tweet about it using the hashtag, #SackLunchWatch. Viewers could tweet their questions using the hashtag and members of the cast and creatives of the film would respond.
The special received a 96% "fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes and has an 87 on Metacritic. Critic Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone Magazine, wrote "It is, like Galaxy Quest, The Princess Bride, or Jane the Virgin, one of those gems that manages to simultaneously parody a genre and be an excellent recreation of it." Critic Erik Adams, from The A.V. Club gave the special an A rating, writing, "The Sack Lunch Bunch is an unconventional package, but its ingredients are pure John Mulaney". Richard Roeper of The Chicago Sun-Times, and John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal both praised the special, describing it more as "effective conceptual art than a variety show".
Mulaney has suggested in an interview with Vulture that he hopes to do another Sack Lunch Bunch special, and that he has material that did not make it into the first one that he hopes to explore in later specials. In July 2020, it was announced that Mulaney has signed a deal with Comedy Central for two more Sack Lunch Bunch specials, reportedly with the same cast.