The Marvelous Specificity of <em>Oh, Hello</em> Comes to Netflix
When pondering the continued rise of alternative comedy into the mainstream, and the avenues offered by streaming services to grant a wider audience to weirder material, there’s no better example than the strange careers of Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland. They’re two men of indeterminate (but senior) age who live together in a rent-controlled apartment on the Upper West Side in Manhattan—Gil a struggling actor, George a writer with delusions of being the next Philip Roth—who putter around ranting about politics, New York marginalia, and all the imaginary wrongs they’ve suffered in their long careers.
These elderly cranks are long-running characters portrayed by Nick Kroll (Gil) and John Mulaney, Alan Alda’s autobiography,” Kroll . “We followed them around for a bit and just fell in love. They typify a very specific kind of New York personality.” As two of the city’s up-and-coming comics, Mulaney and Kroll honed Gil and George, collectively billed as “Oh, Hello” (for their preferred salutation, always said with a leering drawl), in various alternative comedy rooms as an improvised double-act.
