A club promoter named Jew Diamond Philips. Piles of expired Lunchables. Some guy’s mom. As anyone who loves his breakout Saturday Night Live character Stefon knows, John Mulaney has a knack for specifics. His bewildered club kid character, played by co-creator Bill Hader, regularly drops by Weekend Update to tantalize tourists with descriptions of what absurdly singular attractions they can expect at some of New York’s hottest nightclubs. Mulaney’s lines are often so ridiculous that Hader can’t keep from laughing, which is probably one of the highest compliments a comedy writer can receive.

That dedication to finding just the right detail to focus on is prevalent throughout Mulaney’s work. When the hard-working comedian isn’t busy writing for SNL, he’s touring the country with his stand-up act, which often finds him complaining about his nervous disposition and aggravating pop-culture with a degree of precision normally associated with disgruntled message-board complainers. Mulaney’s one-hour special New In Town premiered Saturday on Comedy Central, and the album and DVD will be in stores on January 31. We caught up with Mulaney to talk about his intentionally dated references, his start in comedy, and, of course, Stefon.

How long were you working on getting the material together for your special?
Well, you know, I had done an album and a Comedy Central special in 2009, and after that I was doing stand-up and writing for other stuff, with the intention of doing a new special and album. When I decided to do the special in August of 2011, I ended up writing most of the material that became the special then, which was fun. Because it’s nice when stand-up is fresher. There are some jokes I had been working on for a while, but a lot of it came together in the months leading up to taping it, which makes it a lot more exciting to perform.

In your mind, is there a theme holding this together, or is that more high-concept than is necessary for this sort of thing?
A little bit. I like to have a kind of thread running through it. A lot of it is just me making fun of me, and various ways I get anxious and overwhelmed. So, a lot of them are connected in that way. But it’s not as if it’s just one tale, there’s also things about Ice-T, the actor not the drink, and various other nonsensical things that get my interest.

And you always like to go to making fun of how anxious you were as a kid.
Yeah, I talk about, and it kind of ties in with still being a nervous, shaky adult sometimes.

Between touring a lot and writing for SNL and other projects, is it hard to get enough downtime to think and reflect on things and get enough perspective to inform your comedy? Are you just always on the go, working on stuff?
Oh, that’s an excellent question. You can’t just be doing comedy, because then all you have to talk about are, “Hey, doesn’t everybody hate flying to a one-night show and your flight’s delayed, so you miss your call time?” You need experiences that are beyond just that. It is important to have some kind of regular life, just to inform yourself, and let your brain rest, but also to get ideas from. So I have found that if I am really busy with something, stand-up or comedy writing-wise, editing a special and working on Saturday Night Live, I need to decompress and hang out with friends and just have a regular few weeks. From that, your brain kind of recharges.

Is it tough to find that time for yourself?
It can be. I guess I do, because even in busy periods, like [when you’re] working on a TV show, there’s a lot of downtime, and it’s just as important when you’re not busy to fuck around and have fun and tell yourself, “There’s nothing I can do right now, except goof off in this office for two hours, and then go do what I need to do.” Lots of things in entertainment are a lot of hours, but if you really add it up it’s a lot of added downtime.

A lot of hurry up and wait.
A lot of hurry and wait, yeah. So when you’re waiting, don’t be Type A about it. Just fuck around and have a good time.

When you have something like a job at SNL, is there less pressure to make your special a breakout? Or does it motivate you to make something that will make your stand-up career as well-known as your other work?
Oh, well, what’s nice is that I have a great job at SNL where I can write for people and really, in a great way, be in control of sketches and things I’m doing, and feel very fulfilled through that, right? But at the same time, I can go be a stand-up, and I don’t even have to think, “Oh, are these on the same level?” Because the stand-up side of me has been able to grow and build and get more people to come out to shows, and the writing side of me has this great time and gets to work on exciting things like SNL, so they don’t feel like they’re in competition at all. It feels like they compliment each other.

I noticed in both your specials that you like pop-culture references that are hilariously past their sell-by date. Are you intentionally trying to get people to go, “Why is he talking about Home Alone 2?”
Well, Home Alone 2 specifically was one of those things where it was an opinion I always had, and no one’s talking about it, and I want to talk about it now. The nice thing about stand-up is you’re onstage and you do have their attention for a little bit, and if you want to bitch about a movie that came out 19 years ago, you can, and hopefully people will not walk out. I do have a lot of those things that stuck with me from when I was a kid, before I was a comedian. And now that I get to be a comedian, I’m like, “Oh, I want to talk about that.”

Is it stuff you’ve been carrying inside you, just waiting for the opportunity to finally vent about it?
Yeah, it’s been festering. And now it’s my time.

It seems like it’s a way to get that pop culture recognition buzz from the audience, but you don’t have to be one of a million people making Kardashian jokes.
Based on this schedule of pop culture intake, I’ll probably watch that in 20 years and then think of a joke about it, but I’m still combing through everything I absorbed in 1993.

Nice Def Comedy Jam impression, by the way.
Thank you very much. I really could have had a career in the Def Jam world, but the timing and other things didn’t work out.

When did you first start doing comedy? What inspired you to take a crack at it?
I’d been interested in doing comedy since I was a little kid. I listened to a lot of stand-up albums and comedy albums and watched a lot of the movies that comedy nerds watch when they’re 13 or 14. It was really going and joining an improv group in college that really made it seem like a possibility as a career, because I joined this improv group when I was a freshmen in college, and the director was a senior -- Nick Kroll, who many people now know from his special and The League and Life & Times Of Tim and his own show that’s coming up on Comedy Central. Like, I met him the third day of college, shortly after I met Mike Birbiglia, who also went to the same college.

Wow, I didn’t know that.
He has a film coming out at Sundance that’s going to be really great. It’s not in a name-droppy way, I just met them so quickly in school, and then watched them graduate and start to do comedy for money, and I was like, “Oh, OK. There’s an actual path to doing it.” So while I was interested in being a comedian since I was very young, watching those dudes do it was [what made me think] I could move to New York and do comedy on the stage.

In your mind, when did you start to get good at this?
Well, I have high self-esteem, so I probably thought I was good before I was. When I was a little kid I was doing great.

What was it like when you moved to New York and started doing the clubs? How long did it take to start getting regular appearances?
I was doing clubs and I was also doing a lot of smaller rooms around New York. Nick Kroll and I started a weekly show together where we would host and do different characters or do stand-up, and then we’d have other people on. As soon as we did that, I had a guaranteed weekly gig. From there people will want to do a spot on your show so they give you a spot on their show, and I remember after a year and a half starting to go, “I can do this most nights of the week, and that’s great.” So I started doing more clubs, and since clubs have more spots per night, I started to think, “I can do this every night of the week.” It really is kind of finding a little community where you can get up and do shows, and then expanding that and realizing there’s a lot of comedy shows in New York City. So after two years of living there I was having a great time and was able to perform a lot.

What was the name of your show?
It was called the Oh Hello Show, and it was at a club on 11th Street called Rififi.

The New York comedy scene is sort like the internet nowadays. With so many different outlets and different comedians, is it hard to get people’s attention?
I think comics who are good and who steadily perform in New York and are good joke writers and performers, I think they still stand out. There’s a lot of shows and there’s a lot of comedians, but people like to book good people, and if there’s a new comic who is working hard and seems to do really well, people are happy to book you and help you along. The cream rises to the top, if that’s what that expression means. I don’t know what else it could mean. But yeah, what’s nice is you get to have time where you’re performing and no one knows who you are, and you get to have fun and make friends. At that stage it’s a lot of fun, too.

How did you end up writing for SNL?
I had met Seth Meyers through the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and they’d seen me do shows around, and I had written for a show called Important Things with Demetri Martin, and they actually asked me to audition for the show, which I did in 2008. They told me, “We’re not going to hire you as a cast member. Would you like to write for the show?” and I said absolutely. It was so exciting to be able to take any part in it.

Of all the hosts on SNL since you started writing, who is the one you’ve been the most starstruck by?
It’s part starstruck, and it’s also just being in the same room with certain people. I am a huge fan of John Malkovich, but being in the same room as him was so bizarre and exciting. I just remember thinking, “Wow, I didn’t even know it was possible to sit across from and talk to John Malkovich.” And then, after that, we were all geeking out the first time Jon Hamm hosted, because we were such Mad Men fans -- everyone on staff was really excited. And obviously Steve Martin, Betty White and Elton John were really exciting. It was really cool to just talk with Elton John for a half hour in between rehearsals and stuff. That’s a very unique experience that comes from doing a show like that.

It seems like ever since, say, the second season of SNL, there’s always a group of people saying “Eh, it’s not as good as it was a few years ago.” Is that something you just have to learn to take in stride when you work there?
Oh, “the not as good as it used to be” thing? Yeah, beyond take in stride…you know it’s just…I don’t want to deny people their opinion, but it’s always…there’s been great moments throughout every year. And what’s nice is that we have such a busy schedule, there’s just little time to think about that kind of thing.

You’ve gotten a lot of attention recently for helping to create Stefon, who is one of the biggest characters they’ve had in a while. How did that come about?
I had a friend of a friend who was trying to start a club night, and would list things the way Stefon does. “It’s going to have everything, it’s going to have jacked old men and a baby.” And he would just name things and it would have in that cadence. [Stefon is also based on] somebody that Bill Hader had met, a guy who worked at a coffee shop he went to. We put those two together in a sketch, and then we started talking about how it might just be funny to do these right to the camera, like club-promoting -- just suggesting places to go.

It’s funny, people have been saying that it’s only a matter of time before there’s a Stefon movie. Is that a weird thing to hear?
It’s a very flattering thing to hear that people would want one. Or expect one, I guess, I don’t know. That’s very nice that people have said that they think it could be a movie.

Has there been any discussions about that?
About doing a movie?

Yeah.
Oh, umm, nothing to speak of.

On the DVD for your special, you have a commentary track from Anthony Jeselnik.
And Dan Mintz.

And Dan Mintz. Where did that idea come from?
For years I had thought that for the first comedy special I did [I would have an] audio commentary of people criticizing it. So that was my plan for the DVD, that the commentary features would be different comedians making fun of me. And then we decided to film it as a picture in picture commentary so you can watch them watch it and make fun of me. I thought it would be a good feature to have on the DVD, because I like being made fun of, and I thought it would add something.

I haven’t heard it yet. Do you have any favorite digs that they took at you?
Uh, I don’t want to blank on it now. There were so many that I enjoyed. Jeselnik definitely picked up on my lack of current references. I think he was really marveling at what year the special was made at a certain point, because I’m wasting people’s time talking about Urkel and Home Alone 2 and Berry Gordy, and he was just beside himself about it. They were really relentless and it was great.

When you asked them to do this, were you like, “Please be as mean as possible?”
Yes. But it did not take much convincing.