Fun Hollywood fact: John Mulaney’s brilliant (and definitely weird) live nightly talk-show experiment, John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A., is called that because pretty much everybody is in L.A. right now for the “Netflix Is a Joke” comedy festival. With so many A-list comedians in town, Mulaney and his producers have ample opportunity to make some really special programming and bring together legends in ways you’d never see otherwise. Following the model of beloved unproblematic talk-show Hall of Famers like Ellen DeGeneres and Jimmy Fallon, Everybody’s in L.A. gathered some of the “biggest Tina Fey and Amy Poehler fans in Los Angeles” for a heartwarming celebrity surprise. In a pretaped segment that aired in the May 7 episode, women of different ages, including a pair of friends and a mother-daughter duo, were brought into a room, told to “take a deep breath,” and profess what Fey and Poehler mean to them as women, while speaking to cardboard standees of the comedians placed in front of a curtain. After earnestly talking about finding solace and inspiration in the pair’s work, the fans were met with a “very special surprise”: comedy writers Jeremy Levick and Rajat Suresh!
Wow! To a certain type of comedy fan, a Jeremy and Rajat Spagett surprise would be a huge deal, but these don’t appear to be those fans. After a lot of awkward silence, the duo (who write for Everybody’s in L.A.) introduced themselves as “Tiny and Amy fans, too.” Jeremy said, “I thought you’d be excited to meet us because we’re comedy writers like Tiny and Amy,” which led to more silence. Then Rajat roasted their asses for talking to the Fey and Poehler cutouts and revealed that they had been listening in on their inspirational speeches, confusing a burn book for a Death Note.
Trying to save the fans from further disappointment, Jeremy and Rajat led them into a new room with another surprise: a cardboard cutout of Patton Oswalt with the real Oswalt hiding behind it! Amazing! But even after explaining that he’s the voice of Ratatouille, what happened next won’t surprise you at all. Still, we salute Netflix for this beautiful attempt at female empowerment!
