Why We Keep Putting Up With Martin Short

“This one just didn’t sing,” a critic tells theater director Oliver Putnam about his dull return to Broadway in the third season of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. Short recalls that the night he greased Ed’s hair up to a point like a unicorn’s horn, “my entrance drew its biggest laugh yet.” The character of Ed Grimley, later to be popularized on Second City Television and Saturday Night Live, would forever have pointy hair. But by his fifth appearance on the show, Ed Grimley had clicked: The audience cheers when they see him, and cheers again when he announces he’s going to “practice my triangle.” Prancing around Ed’s apartment, Short milks the character for all he’s worth, until he’s visited by “the love of my life, I must say,” played by host Tina Turner. But in the hurly-burly of an anxious SNL season, Ed’s character, such as it was, quickly flattened into a gimmick, seeming to exist solely in order to deliver catchphrases: “I must say!” “It makes me completely mental!” “Give me a break!” Short was much better on SNL when he portrayed less ornate characters, like Lawrence Orbach, whose whole deal is simply that he is incredibly stupid. My style is not remotely psychological.” In front of a crowd, Short turns into a parody of a preening attention whore, one who eats up every last bit of the audience’s love and demands more: “Love me,” he proclaims upon his entrance during a recent Netflix special with Steve Martin, “even more than I love myself!” The public hasn’t exactly been crying out for more Martin Short material since those dark days of the early 2000s, but as he’s moved his focus away from the traditional signifiers of showbiz success for a 20th-century comedian—the sitcom, the high-concept movie comedy, the talk show—he’s found more profitable vehicles for his somewhat old-fashioned showmanship.