Kyle Mooney specializes in playing dumb. During his nine seasons on “Saturday Night Live” he gave us Chris Fitzpatrick, a high schooler convinced he can make an action movie with little more than a cellphone and a coloring book, and Bruce Chandling, a hammy stand-up who comes across like the Sweathog who got stuffed in a locker for telling one too many puns.
Those characters and other old favorites popped up Monday during Mooney’s appearance at the Fine Line that kicked off a 15-city tour. But the real reason Mooney says he’s on the road is to bid farewell to his goofy side and introduce audiences to the “real me,” a heart-on-the-sleeve musician who goes by the name Kyle M.
“It’s scary turning your back on what people know you for,” he told the crowd, sporting a haircut that seemed inspired by vintage photos of Dan Fogelberg. “It puts you in a vulnerable position.”
This is, of course, rubbish. Kyle M. can barely change chords without looking at an instructional manual. His singing is about as appealing as the voice crackling through the McDonald’s drive-thru speaker.
Mooney is aware. He’s simply following in the footsteps of Andy Kaufman and Paul Reubens, whose never-drop-the-act approach to comedy was well dissected in the recent HBO documentary “Pee-wee as Himself.”
The blurring of realism and ridicule hasn’t gone away. You never know if Nathan Fielder is using his docuseries “The Rehearsal” to truly help troubled people or just make fun of them. Mike Myers has yet to admit that he was playing British presenter Tommy Maitland on ABC’s reboot of “The Gong Show” a few years ago.
Mooney’s act isn’t as clever as what those two pulled off. Trashing supersensitive singers dates back to at least 1978, when John Belushi smashed a folk singer’s guitar in “Animal House.”
Mooney’s new album, “The Real Me,“ would drive Bluto to even more extreme violence. It brings back memories of the worst treacle from the ’70s through intentionally awful poetry about cars, sunshine and lost love.
