One of the best bits in John Mulaney‘s incredibly good Netflix special Kid Gorgeous at Radio City is the tale of former Chicago cop J.J. Bittenbinder, who hung up his detective’s cap for a long and fruitful career of teaching schoolkids how to avoid being kidnapped and murdered. It was established soon after the special’s release that Bittenbinder was very much a real guy, and now we have confirmation that he absolutely did not enjoy the creative liberties Mulaney took in depicting him.
Here’s the real guy in full STREET SMARTS action, in case you missed it:
The Chicago Tribune did the hard yards and literally called him to discuss his portrayal by Mulaney. His first contention? He is appalled at Mulaney’s suggestion that he would wear a three-piece suit and a cowboy hat:
I never wore my cowboy hat to the schools. Now, I have been on cattle drives. I did 11 cattle drives and 11 cattle roundups in a ranch outside of Cody, Wyoming, but that’s a separate deal. You don’t wear a three-piece suit with a cowboy hat. That just doesn’t work. Doesn’t look good.
Despite having an objectively hilarious surname, Bittenbinder doesn’t see the comedy value himself. He told the Tribune that it’s German for “barrel-maker,” an “honourable profession that my ancestors used to do.”
He’s also angry that Mulaney conflated the safety tips he would deliver to schoolkids with the ones he would deliver to audiences of adults. The hilarious bit about putting a fifty dollar bill in a money clip and throwing it to distract a would-be mugger was a tip Bittenbinder gave to adults, not to kids – or so he alleges.
But ultimately he seems vaguely glad to be remembered. “If I talked to him when he was 7 or 8 and he still remembers some of that stuff, it must have gotten through to him,” Bittenbinder told the Tribune.
There’s a lesson here: don’t roast a grizzled ex-Chicago cop in your insanely popular Netflix special or he’ll get really sad about it and whinge in a national newspaper. I think that’s a good lesson to bear in mind at all times.
