David Byrne And John Mulaney Have A Broadway Connection

I spent the first eight months of 2020 stone-cold sober. It helped lead to my two beautiful children, but it was also the f***ing worst. It sucked because it needed to happen. I was miserable and having trouble sleeping, and that was before a pandemic exploded across the Earth. On my birthday that year, a day when I would have strangled someone for a bowl (pathetic), I decided to lift my spirits by watching John Mulaney And The Sack Lunch Bunch.

The special was hilarious and more than I expected. To that end, suddenly, right in the middle of the show, I was greeted by former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. My relationship with Byrne came later in life than I’d like to admit, but my fandom was firm enough at the time that seeing Byrne left me in a great mood, blissfully unaware that everything would shut down in two months.

At the time, I assumed that Mulaney managed to snag an incredible guest star for a special that already contained several. After several more collaborations between the two, it’s clear that there is something more. Now, David Byrne has shed some light on their relationship.

Sitting down on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, Byrne explained that he met Mulaney thanks to Broadway director Alex Timbers. Timbers directed Mulaney in Oh, Hello!, a stage show based on characters created by Mulaney and Nick Kroll. Timbers knew Byrne and asked if he’d like to be a special guest on the show. The rest, as they say, is history.

In addition to learning how Byrne and Mulaney met, you also get to hear David and Conan discuss being a guest on Oh, Hello! It sounds like quite a surreal experience. O’Brien and Byrne aren’t terribly similar, so it’s fun to hear them explore this odd little connection. Even Begrudgingly Sober Andrew would get a kick out of this connection, but he’d still be grumpy about it.