Seth Meyers' first-ever comedy special Lobby Babyhits Netflix Nov. 5, and it's a gamechanger. The revolution is not in the Late Night host's jokes or performance, but courtesy of stand-up comedy's ongoing disruptor: Netflix.
A little over halfway through Lobby Baby, Meyers addresses the elephant in the room and prepares the audience for a set of jokes about Donald Trump. But for the first time ever, he offers at-home viewers a chance to skip the political jokes entirely.
At first, even this seems like a joke, met with laughs from the crowd watching Meyers live in Minneapolis, but then an actual "SKIP POLITICS" button appears in the lower right of the screen, just like Netflix's "SKIP INTRO" option. And sure enough, if you click on it, you can do just that.
That alone is a revolutionary move to introduce to Netflix's ballooning comedy library, but Meyers cheekily takes it a step further. He concludes the section and tells his audience that the Netflix users who skipped are about to rejoin.
"But when they come back I want them to hear me say something that will make them curious enough to go back and watch it," he says, grinning with anticipation. He gives it a beat, then delivers the line to which Netflix jumps if you hit SKIP POLITICS:
"So I guess my point is I misjudged him, and I do think he's a very good President."
Seth Meyers on stage in Minneapolis to record his comedy special, 'Lobby Baby.'Credit: David Schnack/NetflixThe entire concept is both simple and remarkable. Meyers uses Netflix's user experience to his advantage, lets the audience make a choice, and then ensures that even if they do skip the section, they won't be able to resist going back and watching it (the same illusion of choice popped up in Bandersnatch, where certain story options either ended the film or led back to the same critical point until users made the protagonist act in a particular way).
"We're thrilled he was able to take advantage of the Netflix experience in such a funny and innovative way," said Robbie Praw, Netflix's director of original standup programming. Praw told CNN it was Meyers' own idea and that he approached the company about implementing it.
Lobby Babygives viewers an option that no live comedy audience will ever have; the luxury of simply skipping what they don't want to watch. Comedy purists will be terrified at the prospect of dividing specials into chapters we can skip through. Ironically, it makes the Netflix streaming experience closer to its DVD predecessor, in which we could always skip from scene-to-scene.
Meyers, however, doesn't mean to cause a big wave in comedy streaming — he said the politics button is as much a joke as any other in the special, that the intent is for people to watch it through or go back anyway.
Lobby Babyhits Netflix Nov. 5.
TopicsNetflix
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