Schulz Saves America

From Decider:

“Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Schulz Saves America’ On Netflix, One Comedian, Four Rants About 2020”

Andrew Schulz is a stand-up comedian, but here, for his Netflix debut, he’s sitting down and delivering four 15-minute rants about 2020, covering pandemics, predators, protests and presidents.

SCHULZ SAVES AMERICA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Despite looking a bit like a bulked up Lukas Haas looking to blend in with Leonardo DiCaprio’s “pussy posse,” Schulz emerged out of a more comedic bro-ternity, MTV’s Guy Code. That’s where Schulz and Charlamagne tha God became not just colleagues, but also collaborators. They have their own podcast together, “The Brilliant Idiots.” Schulz also anchors his own podcast team, talking mostly sports on “Flagrant 2” and film and TV on “Westerbros.” After MTV, Schulz landed a few recurring gigs on TV, including co-starring on the IFC hockey sitcom, Benders, and roles on Amazon’s Sneaky Pete and the Seeso series about Johnny Carson, There’s…Johnny! (It’s now on Peacock). But in stand-up, he had to keep hustling his own path via YouTube, self-releasing two comedy specials there in 2019, each of which racked up millions of views. And after watching one of Bill Maher’s “New Rules” videos this spring, Schulz and his friends decided they could do better, and began producing weekly monologues of their own. They also found millions of likes and shares across Instagram and YouTube, including ones from Justin Bieber, who shared them with his manager, Scooter Braun. Braun is an executive producer on this four-episode project, along with JAX Media (which already inhabits the comedy-talk space via Desus & Mero, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and Wilmore). It makes more sense to compare Schulz’s work here with that of other talk-show hosts. Like Hasan Minhaj, for example. Is it weird that Netflix cancelled Minhaj’s Patriot Act in 2020, only to give four episodes to Schulz to recap the year, or is that just 2020 being too on brand? Bring us the alpha macho white male, one last time for 2020. Regardless, it’s important to note here that while Schulz is the only face of this year-in-review project, like all talk show hosts, he’s got a team of writers and a graphics guru working behind the scenes to pull it all together for him.

Memorable Jokes: The way it’s all structured, almost breathlessly dense, works for and against it comedically. You might miss a lot just trying to follow along. There’s a lot of wordplay, with graphics popping up and gone in a moment to amplify a pun or suggest an alternate perspective. Since Schulz is a comedian big into sports, you’ll see lots of sight gags involving professional athletes or his fellow stand-ups. But there are some dated references only a road comic could love, too, from Terri Schiavo to Rachel Dolezal to Monica Lewinsky. This clip gives you a full flavor of the Schulz experience, with sex jokes involving Harry Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Robert Kraft, a joke at the expense of Michael Strahan’s teeth, a graphic showing a shoe when he says “don’t eat beef and broccoli,” going after California politicians for their hypocrisy, and two different jokes where the punchline is prison rape. And that’s only half of it. Perhaps the most memorable bit happens when Schulz and crew break the fourth wall to see if viewers have been paying as close attention to them as they are to us.

Our Take: One of the primary pieces of promotional art shows Schulz spitting hot fire, or is it just a bunch of hot air? The first thing he does is sit down and spread his legs out wide. In New York City transit, even the MTA call that manspreading and disavows the practice. It’s a very alpha macho male tactic, announcing: Not only am I taking up space, but see how ballsy I am. Seriously. Look at my balls! But how much of Schulz’s toxic masculinity is just an act? How much of it is huffing and puffing, trolling us just for the sake of our attention? As he mentions in the second episode, called “Predators” but more focused on conspiracy theories such as QAnon: “Epstein was the fuel, corona was the flame, and social media was the oxygen,” he said, adding: “That sweet algorithm that gave me my career also drove us down the pathway to paranoia.” For every time Schulz might slide into both-sides-ism, he does tend to eventually hope to find some common ground of reasonableness. After all, the series is called Schulz Saves America. So he supports Black Lives Matter as a movement, even if he might quibble with its leadership. He believes in police reform, but suggests adopting the phrase “restructure the police” instead of abolishing or defunding as a way forward. And in the fourth and final episode, titled “Presidents,” Schulz really takes issue instead with the mainstream media for pitting Americans against each other for profits and ratings.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Why would anyone want to relive 2020? This should be the time for us to leave the past behind and look to a brighter future. He only touches on that oh-so-briefly here, though. So if you like what Schulz has to say, I’d steer you to his podcast or topical monologues instead.

^ I watched this on Netflix and I completely disagree with this article. I don’t think people should “skip” watching Andrew Schulz. He is funny and cleaver and goes after all sides – maybe that’s why the author of this article said we should “skip it” – because they are trying to be so politically correct and one-sided rather than see the good and bad from every angle. People need to get the whole truth – the good and bad from the Left, the good and bad from the Right and the good and bad from the Middle. If you only focus on one side then you create a bubble around yourself and don’t get the whole picture of what is going on. Schulz has done just that in an informative and entertaining way. ^

https://decider.com/2020/12/17/schulz-saves-america-netflix-stream-it-or-skip-it/