'Everyone's Live': John Mulaney Shares Olivia Munn's Sweet, Inappropriate Cancer Brain Story

John Mulaney returned last night with his Netflix late-night talk show, Everyone’s Live with John Mulaney, and it may be the best thing to happen to late night in years. I liked the first iteration, but a nightly talk show —especially in this attention economy — was unrealistic. Once a week, though? Perfect. This is the way. This should be the model: John Oliver gets Sunday, Jon Stewart takes Monday, Seth Meyers handles Tuesday, John Mulaney on Wednesday, Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday, and sure, give Fallon Friday, with SNL on Saturday.

That’s the exact right amount. It also helps that Everyone’s Live has a refreshing, unpolished, low-fi format. Mulaney delivers a monologue from a clipboard, Richard Kind — an inspired announcer choice — goes full Willard Scott and announces celebrity birthdays, and then Mulaney brings out guests around a central theme. This week’s theme? Loaning money to people. He even had an expert on the subject, as well as Michael Keaton. Mulaney, Keaton, and the expert fielded live calls from randos asking about loaning money to friends and family. Then, because why not, Mulaney brought out Joan Baez to also talk about money.

He closed the show with a 17-piece orchestra backing Cypress Hill in a jazzy, classy rendition of “Hits from the Bong” while Joan Baez and Richard Kind danced on stage. Does it get better than that? No. No, it does not.

Yes. That's Joan Baez dancing to Cypress Hill, live on Netflix #EverybodysLive

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— Netflix (@netflix.com) March 12, 2025 at 11:14 PM

Except, I will say, my favorite segment was when Mulaney brought out a panel of actors who had played Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman — from Christopher Lloyd to Rob Morrow to actors from high school productions. He then asked them random questions, and they answered in character as Willie Loman. To wit:

“Willie, how much screen time should a child get?”
“As much as you can get! Whatever it takes.”

“Wilma” (the lead in a gender-reversed high school production), “What do you think of drag story hour?”
“At least kids are reading.”

[Mulaney shows them a picture of a cup of coffee and asks them what comes to mind.]
“Nature’s alarm clock!”
“What about decaf?”
“I wash my car with it.”

And then they all (sort of) recited the “promises made” speech in unison.

Great show. In fact, the short, non-traditional monologue is probably the least compelling part. That said, it did produce a story from Mulaney about Olivia Munn’s “cancer brain” (not brain cancer). Anyone who has gone through treatment, or knows someone who has, is familiar with cancer brain. During treatment, the old processor doesn’t run quite as well. There’s a certain brain fog.

“It’s a sweet, wonderful dumbness that happens after all that treatment,” Mulaney said. (Munn had an aggressive form of breast cancer that required months of chemo and radiation, plus five surgeries.) “I’ll give you an example,” he continued. “We went to a fertility doctor… and we were going to make embryos for what would become our daughter this fall. And we were standing in the doctor’s office, and this conversation happened, word for word:

Doctor: The great news is, nine eggs survived the thaw.
Olivia: So, now we, um, um, combine the eggs with his, um… cum?
John: Baby, baby. It’s semen!
Doctor: Guys, it’s sperm.

“You don’t hear that word thrown around in polite conversation. And you know how she would’ve spelled it, too.”

And that is my review of Everyone’s Live with John Mulaney: If Letterman and Conan were the semen of spermatozoa, John Mulaney is the cum.