Olivia Munn Reveals That John Mulaney Isn’t Actually the Fun Parent

Olivia Munn says that people are surprised to learn that, in her household, John Mulaney is the disciplinarian for their two children. Those people must have never heard a single story about Chip Mulaney.

Contrary to what some comedy fans may believe, having a world-famous stand-up comic as a father doesn’t automatically mean that your childhood is going to be all fun and games. Despite how playful, boyish and gleefully inappropriate an artist’s on-stage persona may be, most comedians don’t stay in performer mode when their kids are smashing glassware with beach balls and using the ceiling fan for target practice. Mulaney, in particular, whose strict, Catholic upbringing in Chicago forms the foundation of both his personality and his comedy, doesn’t give his two kids as much leeway in the house as he and his classmates enjoyed in that one teacher’s basement back in high school.

During her return to The Daily Show last night, Munn revealed that, while many people whom she meets will incorrectly assume that her husband is in charge of bringing fun to the Munn-Mulaney household, Mulaney is by far the stricter parent in the paring. In fact, Munn is so wild with the couple’s two kids that Mulaney once compared her to the title character in the 1991 black comedy Drop Dead Fred, which, if you've seen this frame, is about the least fun reference that a parent could ever pull.

When The Daily Show's senior correspondent Desi Lydic asked Munn whether she or her husband are the fun one to their kids, Munn answered, “Funny you ask, because people with think John, because like, you know, his history,” Munn joked dryly. “But he’s the strict parent! And it does become a little bit of an issue.” Munn then offered the example, “John will say, like the other day, he was like, ‘Malcolm, no throwing balls in the house.’ And then he leaves, and I’m like, ‘Malcolm, do you want to throw the ball in the house?’”

Despite the fact that both Munn and Mulaney came from large families, while raising their two children, the movie star found that her upbringing was surprisingly different from the one that her comedian husband turned into fodder for classic stand-up specials. “I grew up in a family of five (kids), John grew up in a family of four,” Munn explained. “The difference is, we were in martial arts as kids, we were really physical. We fought. I do not think there was, like, hand-to-hand combat in John’s family growing up. It’s a very different, Irish-Catholic kind of upbringing.”

“The other day, Malcolm said, ‘Momma, can we throw the beach ball up to the fan in the ceiling?' And I said, ‘Yeah, should we turn it on first?’” Munn said of how her more physical approach manifests around her and her husband’s most fragile possessions. “The ball goes flying, it breaks a glass, obviously, and then John comes in and he says, ‘Olivia, what are you thinking?’ That’s what he says to me a lot.”

If that wasn’t enough, Mulaney compared his wife and the mother of his children to a chaotic imaginary friend who haunted Phoebe Cates and kids’ nightmares in the early 1990s. “He told me that I’m like Drop Dead Fred as a parent,” Munn recalled.

That’s only slightly less savage than telling your son that he has the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair.