TV

From Alien to Succession, Patton Oswalt looks back on the important pop culture of his life

In his new Netflix standup special, Oswalt reflects on turning 50, so EW asked him to pick his favorite pop culture from the milestone years of his life.

By

Derek Lawrence

Published on May 19, 2020 09:30AM EDT

Anytime we celebrate milestone birthdays, it's cause to reflect back on our lives. And for comedians like Patton Oswalt, it can lead to some of their funniest — and most personal — work.

In his new Netflix stand-up special I Love Everything (streaming now), Oswalt opens by discussing turning 50 (and closes by hilariously obliterating Denny's). EW took this opportunity to have the Emmy and Grammy winner look back on the pop culture that had the biggest impact on him at some of the most important ages of his life.

10-year-old Patton

"Well, 1979 and 1980, that’s when Alien and Empire Strikes Back came out. So you had this kind of tug of war between the kind of gleaming, bright space swashbuckling adventure, and then this really gritty, working class-body, horror view of science-fiction. You had the Ridley Scott and you had the George Lucas, which those were kind of the two ends of the spectrums as far as what I thought the future look liked. [Alien] is all I wanted to see. I didn’t even see it in the theater. I don’t think I was able to see it until a few years after it came out, but I saw pictures of it and I read the Crack and Mad magazine versions of the movie, like their takes on it. I had all the trading cards, so I had a general idea of what it was, and then eventually I got to actually sit-down and see the movie."

20-year-old Patton

"Oh god, '89. I know I was in college. The big thing that really landed on me was the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. I just remember that album loomed large in my daily life, just over and over and over again. It was Paul’s Boutique and Tim Burton’s Batman, those were the two for me. Burton made like silent movie German Art Deco expressionism, and he made it funky and cool and pop culture, like that was the look for awhile. And also that was the first issue of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, so I discovered that too. That was a good year."

30-year-old Patton

"I remember what an amazing year 1999 was movie-wise. You had The Limey, Being John Malkovich, The Sixth Sense, and Three Kings. And I was in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, so that was a big year for me, just kind of seeing the future of movies and being able to be a little part of it. 1999 was an amazing year for film. So good."

40-year-old Patton

"The only thing that dominated that year was my daughter was born — that was it. I was 40 years old and I was a dad. I just wanted to be with my baby all the time. I was fascinated by her, she was so sweet. I couldn't wait to share the things that influenced me, but I also remember there were things that I discovered on my own as I was growing up that my parents were just not wired into. So I was also excited to see what new things my daughter would discover, where I’d be like, ‘What is this?’ So it was a combination of I would try to show her the good stuff but I was going to very cognizant of letting her discover her own thing and find her way."

"There’s a young adult Netflix show about a girl who has cancer and her friend is helping her. It’s called Alexa & Katie. She just loves that show. She loves shows about people who are struggling through something hard and find a way through it with humor. So Alexa & Katie was her big thing."

50-year-old Patton

"It’s weird, now that I’m older and movies and pop culture are just kind of in the air around us, I don’t really know. Obviously the show Succession kind of rocked my world. And so did Fleabag, those were a big deal. But going back and rediscovering stuff from the ‘80s, like Star Wars or noirs like Violent Saturday, there’s so many things now I don’t really think of it in terms of ‘Oh, what really hit me this year,’ I’ve just sort of been gathering up things. Now I feel like I’ve seen enough that I can watch stuff a little bit more selectively and kind of work more on my own stuff. This year was a year where you just looked at as too close to call as what’s going to last and what isn’t."

Upon realizing that 2019's era-ending The Rise of Skywalker highlighted Star Wars' significance to both 10-year-old Patton and 50-year-old Patton, Oswalt reflected, "It was always there, one way or another."

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