Did John Mulaney Rip Off Chris Gethard Again?
Even the comedically generous Chris Gethard has to be saying, “Come on, man.”
From the beginning of Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney, fans have accused Mulaney of ripping off The Chris Gethard Show, a cable-access comedy talk show (later on Fusion and truTV) on which Mulaney was a multiple-time guest.
@chrisgeth
“Mulaney’s show on Netflix is just a ripped, high budget & cleaned up version (of Gethard’s show),” complained user June0424 in the r/JohnMulaney subreddit earlier this year. “It’s also not as good.”
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Some similarities — the shows’ slapdash, anything-goes structure, oddball panels, a helter-skelter sidekick — can be attributed to parallel thinking. Others, like both shows’ reliance on weirdo viewer phone calls, seem a little less coincidental. Mulaney had previously praised The Chris Gethard Show for its uniqueness before borrowing many of those unique qualities for his own show.
The latest example, as pointed out by LateNighter, was this week’s blindfold episode, in which Mulaney navigated the entire show with a bandana tied around his eyes. It’s an appropriately off-the-wall idea for a “let’s try anything” talk show — and of course, Gethard beat him to it long ago.
Gethard even dubbed it “The Blindfold Show,” telling jokes and taking viewer phone calls just like Mulaney did on Wednesday night. It was an especially popular episode, one that Gethard recommended to new fans as an entry point to his show’s weirdness. It also inspired “The Blindfold Show II.” As Chris Gethard Show comedy concepts go, the blindfold bit was one of his best-known.
So far, Gethard has been magnanimous about Mulaney ripping off, er, paying homage to his show. “You can’t just have another boring talk show that looks like every talk show since 1950. Mulaney has cracked that open,” the comedian told LateNighter last year, even after noting that several people have suggested the two shows have, shall we say, a similar vibe.
So why does Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney continue to borrow bits from Gethard in such an obvious way? At this point, it’s almost like Mulaney is trolling fans, daring them to find the YouTube clips that inspired this week’s episode. Why not at least invite Gethard to guest on one of the panels as a wink to the audience that the guy was an influence?
“He’s a very brilliant guy,” Gethard said. “John Mulaney does not need to rip me off in any way.”
Agreed — so maybe he should just stop doing it.
