John Mulaney Compares Parenting His Son to ‘Working on Ellen’s Show’ (2025)

John Mulaney is comparing his son Malcolm to …. Ellen DeGeneres?

“You know what having a 3-year-old is like?” the comedian mused during the monologue on the Wednesday, April 16, edition of Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney on Netflix. “Having a 3-year-old is what I imagine working on Ellen’s show was like. Because people come over and they’re like, ‘How is it?’ And you’re, like, ‘Oh, it’s fine. You know, we have fun. There’s games,’” he said, with a pained expression.

He continued: “‘Some days are hard. But it’s fun, you know! We have dancing, you know. So if he starts dancing, you dance, but if he stops dancing, you f***ing stop dancing right away.’”

Mulaney, 42, recalled attending a recent concert at Malcolm’s school. His son was supposed to sing a song with his classmates, but experienced stage fright ahead of showtime.

“I look at the whole concert and I look at the kids, and I bend down and I say to my son, ‘Hey, this doesn’t matter at all. Nothing matters. So if you’d like to sit in my lap and watch the show, that’d be fun.’ And he said, ‘Yeah. Yeah, I want that,’” the talk show host said. “His teacher comes over and goes, ‘Malcolm, are you sure?’ Your class worked very hard. Everyone’s excited to hear the song.’”

Mulaney’s response: “Oh, excuse me Ms. Inez, you have no idea how much you can disappoint an audience and still bounce back in this business.”

The talk show host observed that “it’s hard to get toddlers to perform together. They’re all divas of their own kind. It’s hard to get them in a group. Because every toddler at heart is the star of their own show.”

Mulaney shares Malcolm and a 7-month-old daughter, Mei, with wife Olivia Munn. He often tells stories about his family in the weekly Everybody’s Live monologue.

On Wednesday, he discussed the challenge of getting Malcolm dressed ahead of the school concert, where he was required to wear light jeans.

“So Friday night, before we leave for the show, my son and I get into a knock-down, drag-out fight, where we are both screaming the words ‘light jeans’ back and forth,” he recalled. “I’m like, ‘You can put your sandals on in the car! You don’t have to wear a T-shirt! You just have to put on light jeans!’ He’s like, ‘Dada, I don’t wanna wear the light jeans!’”

He joked, “I yell at my kid sometimes like I’m Dennis Hopper and he’s Keanu in the movie Speed.’ I’m always like, ‘That’s not one of the options, hotshot!’”

Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney airs on Netflix Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET.