Mr. Mayor is an NBC Sitcom created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. It stars Ted Danson, Holly Hunter, Bobby Moynihan, and Vella Lovell.
Neil Bremer (Danson) is a retired billboard mogul who ran a dark horse campaign to become the Mayor of Los Angeles in a misguided attempt to impress his daughter. After winning unexpectedly, he finds himself needing to actually do the job, with dubious help from his staff and a deputy mayor who wouldn't mind seeing him go down in flames.
Cancelled after 2 seasons in 2022.
This series provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: In "The Illusion of Choice", Jayden is angry that they canceled DuckTales (2017), in which Bobby Moynihan played Louie.
- Adam Westing: Chrissy Teigen, David Spade, and Andie MacDowell all appear playing the clueless "Hollywood Elite" stereotype with bad cases of NIMBY-ism.
- Bested by the Inexperienced: In "Hearts Before Parts", Tommy and Arpi are upset that Mikaela and Jayden bested them at bar trivia night.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Orly frequently berates her father for what she feels is only lukewarm interest in his new position and superficial support for liberal causes.
- Calling the Old Man Out: In "Hearts Before Parts", Neil tells Orly that when she finally has sex, it should be with someone special. The next day, a picture of him with a younger woman is posted on the internet, and Orly rightly calls him a hypocrite for sleeping around behind her back.
- Chain of Deals: Arpi goes around City Hall with Mikaela trading favors in order to get her tape.
- Christmas Episode: "Mr. Mayor's Magical L.A. Christmas", where Neil tries to give everyone a perfect Christmas experience before everyone leaves for the holidays.
- Cringe Comedy: Neil bringing Nicole, whom he dates in secret, to meet Orly, who intentionally makes her uncomfortable by implying that Neil wants a serious relationship.
- The Chessmaster: While Neil is out for the day, Arpi drags Mikaela around City Hall to demonstrate how she can deftly trade favors to manipulate different players into supporting an entirely unrelated initiative without needing to bring it up.
- Department of Major Vexation: In "Move Fast and Break Things", Neil has to take Orly to the DMV to renew her learner's permit, where even he, the mayor of LA, can't make the line go any faster.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Neil confesses to Arpi that he'd taken early retirement to be present in Orly's life after her mother passed away, but that he began feeling directionless as Orly grew up and started resenting him sitting around the house all day.
- Dodgy Toupee: Arpi asks a City Hall worker for tape, who denies having need for tape... while wearing an obvious rug. In the end, he gives her a roll of tape that is clearly labeled "wig tape".
- Establishing Character Moment: The pilot opens with Neil walking through city hall, smiling and greeting everyone. Then he turns to Tommy and says “You do realize I’m lost, right?”, quickly establishing that he has no idea what he’s doing.
- Eye Scream: In "Respect in the Workplace", Susan gets pepper spray in her eyes and has to apply popsicles to them.
- Fee Fi Faux Pas: Jayden mistakenly thinks Neil and Orly are a May–December Romance at first, much to their disgust.Jayden: Your wife makes an excellent point, sir.
Orly: EWW!
Neil: She's my teenage daughter!
Jayden: Sorry. It's very confusing in LA. - Friend-or-Idol Decision: When choosing a new speechwriter for the mayor, Jayden is torn between a highly qualified candidate and a guy who's completely wrong for the job but whom he's become friends with. He rightly chooses the qualified one.
- Fun with Acronyms:
- Arpi's proposal has the unfortunate name "Private Plane Paths Over Residential Neighborhoods. Neil has it changed to the almost-as-unfortunate RATFARTS.
- Another of Arpi's proposals is "Managing Urban Dysentry".
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: In "#PalmTreeReform", Neil manipulates Arpi to storm the meeting with business leaders and go on a rant to scare them into accepting Neil's compromise to avoid her. Arpi calls him out after realizing he manipulated her into playing bad cop.
- Groin Attack: Neil’s first pitch at Dodgers Stadium nails Jayden in the crotch. It was done on purpose as a distraction from his failed safety helmet initiative.
- Has a Type: Neil thinks Susan, the woman conducting the sexual harassment seminar, has a "vibe" between them, which she denies. She turns out to be lesbian, but then Neil meets her wife, who looks and acts just like him. Neil feels vindicated by this, as it means they did have a vibe.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: Arpi lives for the minutiae of public policy and can wax lyrical energetically about pedantic topics for hours on end.
- Intoxication Ensues: While going on a series of personal appearances, Neil takes a couple of edibles from a marijuana dispensary and acts loopy the rest of the day, culminating in him attacking an NHL mascot.
- Left Hanging: Due to the show being cancelled, the Cliffhanger ending of the second season finale, in which the mayoral recall is still on and a woman appears to claim that Neil is her father, is left unresolved.
- Luke, You Are My Father:
- In "#PalmTreeReform", a woman tells Jayden that he's the father of her baby, but Mikaela and Tommy suspect she's a con artist playing him for a fool. They discover that Jayden couldn't be the father, but the woman actually wanted Jayden to be the father because he would be a better parent than the real father or even herself.
- The ending of "Recall"note has a woman from Arizona claim she is Neil's illegitimate daughter.
- Manchild: Jayden is basically an eight-year-old in a schlubby 40-year-old body.
- "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: On "Avocado Crisis".Neil: This is a business problem, and solving business problems is my middle name.
Jayden: That's beautiful. Is that Polish or...? - Missing Mom: Orly's mom and Neil's wife died from something in the past, leaving videos behind for them both about raising Orly.
- Morton's Fork: In "The Illusion of Choice", James from the Innovation Team comes up with three ideas to put Neil's name out in the public eye. The first choice is a trash can with his face on it, with his mouth as the receptacle where the trash goes. The other two choices are... also trash cans, the only difference between the three being that they are each a slightly different shade of green.
- Nap-Inducing Speak: Arpi's proposal for reforming water well boring puts Mikaela to sleep. (Lampshaded in that Arpi calls it a boring proposal.) When Mikaela has insomnia, she calls Arpi to talk more about the proposal in order to sleep.
- New-Age Retro Hippie: Arpi represents a hippie district and advocates for left-wing causes on the city council. She doesn't even bother to hide her disdain when she needs to address the wealthy residents of Brentwood.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: Neil accepts Susan's rejection despite their apparent vibe after meeting her spouse, respecting her relationship. The fact that Susan is gay doesn't seem to register with him.
- No Social Skills: Arpi's default ranges from Brutal Honesty to simply insulting people, sometimes even those supporting her views. She's an elected LA city council member and passionate progressive activist however, so there are enough people who like her very blunt style it seems.
- Outdated Name: Inverted.Neil: Aren't you a little old for the name "Jayden"?Jayden: I'm the oldest Jayden you'll ever meet. I think I'm the original Jayden. I was named after my father, Jamie, and his best friend, Dennis.
- Recognition Failure: The plot of "The Illusion of Choice" starts with a report that no one in LA knows the name of their mayor — not even Jayden, who works for the mayor himself. The Innovation Team's answer is to put up trash cans with Neil's face on them, leading to the sight of people shoving trash into his mouth. When that fails because they neglected to identify that it was Neil's face on the cans, the solution is adding a voice chip that speaks in Neil's voice whenever trash is thrown into it, which just leads to teenagers making the cans say silly things.
- Retail Riot:
- Happens on the Cold Open of "Avocado Crisis" when customers at a supermarket start a melee over the last two avocados.
- In "Trampage", Tommy shows Arpi how he unwinds: by battling middle-aged ladies at a sale in a ceramics store.
- Self-Defenseless: In "Respect in the Workplace", Susan the harassment meeting mediator gets accidentally sprayed when Arpi's pepper spray malfunctions (the can got rusted because she takes it along when swimming). Later, Jayden picks up the spray and accidentally sprays himself.
- Serious Business: An avocado shortage brings LA to a standstill in Episode 7.
- Sexy Coat Flashing: Neil's date Nicole in "Hearts Before Parts" comes in wearing a trench coat and nothing else. Unfortunately, Orly is there and she has to keep it on during their dinner date.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Mayor Delgado, Neil's predecessor, had a public meltdown and ran off, leading to a special election to fill his seat. He reappears later to rejoin the race during the mayoral recall, but he quits again at the debate before it's even started.
- Silence, You Fool!: In "#PalmTreeReform".Arpi: Alright, I'm gonna need you all to do two types of up: shut and listen.
- Soapbox Sadie: Orly raves against her school's establishment and advocates for a shakeup of the social order more in line with her liberal views.
- Speaking Like Totally Teen: Neil tries to talk to Orly using modern internet slang, making her think he's having a stroke.
- Springtime for Hitler: Neil ran for office because the campaign would get him out of the house and he hoped that it would show Orly that he still had something to contribute. He didn't expect to actually win and do the job.
- Stalker with a Crush: In "Mr. Mayor's Magical L.A. Christmas", Arpi is stalked by a videographer. Mikaela is convinced he's Arpi's holiday romance ala rom-coms like Love Actually. Arpi indulges her and runs to him, seemly to confess her love; she's actually telling him to get professional help. He in turn confesses he doesn't even work there.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Neil and Arpi are combative, but work together because it's more productive to be allies than rivals.
- Training Montage: Parodied when Arpi trains Neil on how to do nothing so he can rest before throwing the first pitch for the Dodgers.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The sensitivity training class in "Respect in the Workplace" soon devolves into an identity-politics fueling morass. Second-wave feminist Arpi butts heads with Millennial professional woman Mikaela and the instructor Susan, sassy gay man Tommy snarks inappropriately, and Jayden is upset that every "bad guy creep" character in the literature looks exactly like him. Old white businessman Neil is at least smart enough to sit quietly and do nothing.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Orly is named after the airport in France, where she was conceived.
- Writers Suck: Jayden is supposed to be Neil's communications director, but he's completely clueless about messaging, recycles speeches, and often lifts lines from TV and film. He's also a socially awkward nerd whom nobody else likes being around.
