Martin Mull could turn up in a sitcom, a murder mystery or a room full of paintings and look entirely at home. Who Is Martin Mull? arrives on Netflix in the United States on October 7, bringing those parts of his career together in a feature documentary co-directed by Bob Saget and Neil Berkeley.
If you know him as Colonel Mustard in Clue or Gene Parmesan in Arrested Development, the film has more to introduce than a list of familiar appearances. It follows a performer who also recorded music and spent decades making visual art. Netflix lists Steve Martin, Tom Waits and David Alan Grier among the friends who help tell that story, alongside Mull’s own recollections.
The trailer moves between a younger Mull performing with a guitar, television appearances, conversations with friends and time in his art studio. In one scene he sits at a table with a paintbrush, surrounded by pictures and drawing materials. In another, he talks in a garden with a row of gnomes beside his chair. There is plenty of Mull himself alongside the famous guests.
When and where can you watch it?
The film starts streaming on October 7. As of October 4, it is an upcoming U.S. arrival. Its running time is 94 minutes, making it a single feature-length documentary rather than a multi-episode series.
The documentary has its own Who Is Martin Mull? title page, with the release details and the people involved. You do not need to finish a particular sitcom before watching it. The premise is biographical: Mull and those who knew him look back at his work across several forms of entertainment and art.
For longtime fans, the archive material offers a chance to revisit earlier performances. If you recognize his face but cannot immediately place the name, the music and studio scenes introduce work you may not have seen. His friends also give viewers a different perspective from the one they would get by watching a familiar sitcom episode.
Bob Saget started the project in 2018
Saget’s involvement goes back well before the Netflix announcement. His official site dates the project’s beginning to 2018, identifying him as an executive producer and co-director with Berkeley. It says Berkeley took the helm in 2022, and that Saget also appears in the documentary.
The documentary is Saget’s final project. His official site describes him and Mull as friends, giving the film a personal connection alongside its career history. Saget helped begin the project and took part on camera; Berkeley continued it after Saget’s death in 2022.
Netflix credits Sean Bradley, Tara Billik and Berkeley as producers. Its executive-producer list includes Saget, Kevin S. Bright, Morgan Neville and Caitrin Rogers. The finished documentary includes Mull’s own stories as well as recollections from people who knew him, so viewers will hear more than one account of his life and work.
Who’s who in the documentary?
More cast
- Tom Waitsas Himself
- David Alan Grieras Himself
- Bob Sagetas Himself / Co-director
The music is part of the story, not a novelty
The trailer’s guitar footage makes sense alongside Mull’s recorded work. His Apple Music catalogue includes Martin Mull and His Fabulous Furniture in Your Living Room, released in 1973, and Near Perfect, from 1979. It also lists I’m Everyone I’ve Ever Loved, released in 2011.
Those dates show that recording was not restricted to one brief period before television took over. The catalogue stretches across decades. Tracks such as Dueling Tubas and Licks off of Records sit within that musical career, giving viewers something specific to explore if the documentary’s performance footage catches their attention.
If you want to listen before the film arrives, those album titles are useful places to start. The 1973 record and the 2011 release come from very different points in his life. Hearing them alongside his comedy appearances is one way to get acquainted with the performer shown holding a guitar in the trailer.
The screen career fans already recognize
For film fans, Clue offers an immediate point of recognition. Paramount’s official credits identify Mull as Colonel Mustard in the 1985 comedy, part of an ensemble that includes Tim Curry as Wadsworth, Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White and Christopher Lloyd as Professor Plum.
The movie takes the board game’s recognizable suspects into a live-action murder comedy. Mull is one member of that group, not the actor playing the butler or Professor Plum. If those faces and character names have blurred together since your last watch, Colonel Mustard is the role to remember when approaching his documentary.
Netflix’s documentary preview also singles out his Gene Parmesan appearances for Arrested Development viewers. That is a different route into the same career: one fan may first think of a movie ensemble, while another remembers a recurring television character. The documentary’s archive footage can put those memories beside work that was less visible to a sitcom audience.
Painting was a long-running career of its own
Mull’s art background predates many of the roles that made him familiar on screen. Rhode Island School of Design records his BFA in Painting in 1965 and MFA in 1967. He also studied classical painting at the American Academy in Rome.
RISD’s 2020 American Dreams exhibition describes his early work as highly realistic scenes of domestic life. By the late 1990s, his paintings had become less sharply defined. The exhibition traced that change in technique across several decades, with familiar American homes and everyday scenes appearing throughout his work.
His work also appears in museum records. The Metropolitan Museum of Art lists Waiting for Hot Water, a 1991 hand-colored lithograph, in its collection. Hallmark’s collection includes Silverdale, a 2002 oil painting on linen, named for the street where he grew up.
Those specific works give the studio scenes a useful context. When the trailer shows Mull surrounded by pictures and working materials, it is showing another established part of his life. The comedy audiences, album listeners and gallery visitors did not necessarily see the same work, even though they were following the same artist.
Mull gets to speak for himself
The documentary combines friends’ memories with Mull’s own words. Steve Martin, Tom Waits and David Alan Grier bring their perspectives, but Netflix’s description also includes Mull’s short summing-up of his life:
“had a hell of a ride.”
The new film gives that line room to mean more than a run of television credits. There are recordings to hear, paintings to look at and years of work behind the face many viewers already know. When Who Is Martin Mull? arrives on October 7, those are the parts of his story it promises to bring into the same conversation.
