1. John Edmund Mulaney was born on Aug. 26, 1982 in Chicago, Illinois and is the third of four children born to Charles and Ellen Mulaney.

 

Mulaney oftenpokes fun of his childhood during his stand-up. Illinois is where he sets the stage, and he often mentions his siblings as well as his parents in his bits. His parents, Charles and Ellen Mulaney, pop in quite a lot in his stand-up, which might be familiar to you if you know the black coffee bit or the bit about Bill Clinton that appears in his stand-up Netflix special, The Comeback Kid. Charles Mulaney, an attorney/partner, and Ellen Mulaney, a law professor at Northwestern University, contributed to some of the most hysterical stories of his childhood, as Mulaney pokes fun at how the nature of their careers often spilled into home life. 

 

2. He graduated from Georgetown University.

 

Both Mulaney and his parents graduated from Georgetown University, and it’s also where his mother met Bill Clinton (the topic of one of Mulaney’s famous bits). However, instead of following his parent’s footsteps to attend Yale Law School, he moved to New York City to pursue a career in comedy. And by the looks of it I’d say he’s proved pretty successful.

 

3. He pursued a comedy career in New York City.

 

After moving to New York, Mulaney went on to work as an office assistant at Comedy Central, pitched and developed a parody to I Love The ‘80s with Nick Kroll, and became a commentator on Best Week Ever. In 2008, he auditioned for Saturday Night Live, which earned him a spot on the writing team, which he worked on for six seasons. Mulaney was nominated for and won various Emmy Awards as a writer. After SNL, the comedian worked on a number of projects, writing for TV, and starring in movies and shows, including Big Mouth as Andrew Glouberman and most recently SpiderMan: Into the Spider Verse as SpiderHam. He has also gone on to host SNL twice.

Most importantly, Mulaney pursued a career in stand-up comedy. He performed stand-up while he was still writing for SNL and continued after. He starred on Live at Gotham, Conan, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, Late Night With Conan O’Brien and Comedy Central. In 2009, Mulaney released his stand-up comedy album The Pop Tart. His later works of stand-up comedy specials include New In Town (2012), The Comeback Kid (2015) and Kid Gorgeous (2018), which are all available to watch on Netflix. 

 

4. Finally, he’s happily married and has a dog named Petunia.

 

In addition to his lengthy and successful comedy career, Mulaney is happily married to Annamarie Tendler and currently resides in New York City with her and their French bulldog Petunia. Mulaney pokes fun at the differences between his Irish Catholic descent and his wife’s Jewish heritage and never hesitates to joke about his wife. Just as equally, he never hesitates to express his adoration for her. His dog Petunia serves as another topic in his stand-up, and the comedian jests at her french breed and her bossy attitude in his jokes. Petunia stars in the opening sequence of  Mulaney’s Netflix special, The Comeback Kid.

John Mulaney will be performing at Villanova’s Family Weekend in the Finneran Pavilion on Saturday, Sept. 28th.