John Mulaney may not be hosting the 2026 Emmys, but he was responsible for some of the sharpest jokes of the night. While introducing the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series category, the comedian pulled no punches, sarcastically pointing out Hollywood’s long history with gender discrimination and love of tropes.
“This is the best part of the night. Lead actor in a drama, this award is for the guys. Finally, something for the fellas,” Mulaney said. “And what a what a crop of prom kings we have. They’re not soft like the dad on ‘Bluey.’”
He then joked that, since the creation of television, men have been underrepresented. “For the first three years TV existed, there were no men on it,” Mulaney said. “It was just beauty contests and children talking to hand puppets until the early ’60s. Until a man walked out and said, ‘Enough! My name is Fonzie, and the president’s been shot.’”
Mulaney then declared that the Best Actor nominees — which included Sterling K. Brown for “Paradise,” Gary Oldman for “Slow Horses,” Mark Ruffalo for “Task,” Rufus Sewell for “The Diplomat” and Noah Wyle for “The Pitt” — can play anything. “These nominees, they’re not just doctors. They can play a cop or an FBI agent or a secret agent, and then that’s it. No other examples,” he said.
The comedian then noted that it was DJ Khaled who said, “Real men don’t go down on their wives,” a sentiment that was muted by NBC’s standards and practices.
In case all of these examples of male excellence weren’t enough, Mulaney also came equipped with a prop. Towards the end of his nominee introduction, Mulaney pulled out a copy of actor Frank Vincent’s 2006 book “A Guy’s Guide to Being a Man’s Man.”
“”A man’s man can be wearing the best clothes, drinking the finest wine, sitting with the most beautiful woman in Las Vegas, but if he doesn’t treat everyone around him with respect and class, he’s not a real man’s man. He’s just a jabroni in a good suit,’” Mulaney read to a room full of Hollywood’s most elite.
Mulaney’s monologue wasn’t just full of tongue-in-cheek humor about what it means to be a man’s man. He started his monologue by declaring Emmys weekend a way to “find out just how much you mean to your billion-dollar streamer.”
“‘We love you. We want you to know how important you are to the storytelling family,’” Mulaney said, pretending to be a billion-dollar streamer (who can say which one? Definitely not Netflix, Mulaney’s latest streaming home). “Can I get a plus one? ‘Get out of here!’”
