Poking A Dead Frog

Author : Mike Sacks
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0143123785
Total Pages : 475 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Poking a Dead Frog written by Mike Sacks and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR Amy Poehler, Mel Brooks, Adam McKay, George Saunders, Bill Hader, Patton Oswalt, and many more take us deep inside the mysterious world of comedy in this fascinating, laugh-out-loud-funny book. Packed with behind-the-scenes stories—from a day in the writers’ room at The Onion to why a sketch does or doesn’t make it onto Saturday Night Live to how the BBC nearly erased the entire first season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus—Poking a Dead Frog is a must-read for comedy buffs, writers and pop culture junkies alike.

Author : Mike Sacks
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101613270
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Poking a Dead Frog written by Mike Sacks and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR Amy Poehler, Mel Brooks, Adam McKay, George Saunders, Bill Hader, Patton Oswalt, and many more take us deep inside the mysterious world of comedy in this fascinating, laugh-out-loud-funny book. Packed with behind-the-scenes stories—from a day in the writers’ room at The Onion to why a sketch does or doesn’t make it onto Saturday Night Live to how the BBC nearly erased the entire first season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus—Poking a Dead Frog is a must-read for comedy buffs, writers and pop culture junkies alike.

Author : Mike Sacks
Publisher : Writers House
ISBN 13 : 9781630640118
Total Pages : 526 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book And Here's the Kicker written by Mike Sacks and published by Writers House. This book was released on 2014-05-28 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT ? Every great joke has a punch line, and every great humor writer has an arsenal of experiences, anecdotes, and obsessions that were the inspiration for that humor. In fact, those who make a career out of entertaining strangers with words are a notoriously intelligent and quirky lot. And boy, do they have some stories. In this entertaining and inspirational book, you'll hear from 21 top humor writers as they discuss the comedy-writing process, their influences, their likes and dislikes, and their experiences in the industry. You?ll also learn some less useful but equally amusing things, such as: How screenwriter Buck Henry came up with the famous "plastics" line for The Graduate. How many times the cops were called on co-writers Sacha Baron Cohen and Dan Mazer during the shooting of Borat. What David Sedaris thinks of his critics. What creator Paul Feig thinks would have happened to the Freaks & Geeks crew if the show had had another season. What Jack Handey considers his favorite Deep Thoughts.? How Todd Hanson and the staff of The Onion managed to face the aftermath of 9/11 with the perfect dose of humor. How Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais created the original version of The Office. What it's really like in the writers? room at SNL. Funny and informative, And Here's the Kicker is a must-have resource - whether you're an aspiring humor writer, a fan of the genre, or someone who just likes to laugh.

Author : John Kachuba
Publisher : Writer's Digest Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book How to Write Funny written by John Kachuba and published by Writer's Digest Books. This book was released on 2001-07-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A discussion of the basics and genres of the comic point of view includes essays and interviews with such authors as Dave Barry, Sherman Alexie, and Melissa Bank.

Author : Pamela C. Swallow
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0142408964
Total Pages : 41 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Groundhog Gets a Say written by Pamela C. Swallow and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-12-27 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There’s so much more to being a groundhog than just putting on a show once a year, and Groundhog has decided it’s time to tell the world the Hog truth. With the help of a few of his fans, Groundhog is ready to tell everything about himself, from how loud he can whistle (loud), to how fast he can run (not fast), to how many things he uses his teeth for (a lot). Groundhog may be full of himself, but chances are good that, by the end of this book, you’ll agree he’s pretty wonderful! From the illustrator of the Junie B. Jones books and the author of the Melvil & Dewey books comes a funny, fact-filled look at what happens when one very proud groundhog speaks out.

Author : Ilene Hochberg
Publisher : Avery
ISBN 13 : 9780140256734
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Good Mousekeeping written by Ilene Hochberg and published by Avery. This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A surprisingly large number of Good Housekeeping's 24 million readers are cat owners. They, and every fan of Ilene Hochberg's magazine spoofs (Catmopolitan; Dogue) will love this parody of their magazine and its ads. Sleek with celebrities, from Morris to Socks, this clever book also features feline fashions and tips on chow, health, peak predatory shape, and crafts. Color illustrations.

Author : Judd Apatow
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0812997581
Total Pages : 576 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Sick in the Head written by Judd Apatow and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE A.V. CLUB • Includes new interviews! From the writer and director of Knocked Up and the producer of Freaks and Geeks comes a collection of intimate, hilarious conversations with the biggest names in comedy from the past thirty years—including Mel Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman, Harold Ramis, Seth Rogen, Chris Rock, and Lena Dunham. Before becoming one of the most successful filmmakers in Hollywood, Judd Apatow was the original comedy nerd. At fifteen, he took a job washing dishes in a local comedy club—just so he could watch endless stand-up for free. At sixteen, he was hosting a show for his local high school radio station in Syosset, Long Island—a show that consisted of Q&As with his comedy heroes, from Garry Shandling to Jerry Seinfeld. They talked about their careers, the science of a good joke, and their dreams of future glory (turns out, Shandling was interested in having his own TV show one day and Steve Allen had already invented everything). Thirty years later, Apatow is still that same comedy nerd—and he’s still interviewing funny people about why they do what they do. Sick in the Head gathers Apatow’s most memorable and revealing conversations into one hilarious, wide-ranging, and incredibly candid collection that spans not only his career but his entire adult life. Here are the comedy legends who inspired and shaped him, from Mel Brooks to Steve Martin. Here are the contemporaries he grew up with in Hollywood, from Spike Jonze to Sarah Silverman. And here, finally, are the brightest stars in comedy today, many of whom Apatow has been fortunate to work with, from Seth Rogen to Amy Schumer. And along the way, something kind of magical happens: What started as a lifetime’s worth of conversations about comedy becomes something else entirely. It becomes an exploration of creativity, ambition, neediness, generosity, spirituality, and the joy that comes from making people laugh. Loaded with the kind of back-of-the-club stories that comics tell one another when no one else is watching, this fascinating, personal (and borderline-obsessive) book is Judd Apatow’s gift to comedy nerds everywhere. Praise for Sick in the Head “I can’t stop reading it. . . . I don’t want this book to end.”—Jimmy Fallon “An essential for any comedy geek.”—Entertainment Weekly “Fascinating . . . a collection of interviews with many of the great figures of comedy in the latter half of the twentieth century.”—The Washington Post “Open this book anywhere, and you’re bound to find some interesting nugget from someone who has had you in stitches many, many times.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “An amazing read, full of insights and connections both creative and interpersonal.”—The New Yorker “Fascinating and revelatory.”—Chicago Tribune “Anyone even remotely interested in comedy or humanity should own this book.”—Will Ferrell

Author : Robert Gottlieb
Publisher : Pantheon
ISBN 13 : 037542122X
Total Pages : 1362 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Reading Dance written by Robert Gottlieb and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 1362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Gottlieb’s immense sampling of the dance literature–by far the largest such project ever attempted–is both inclusive, to the extent that inclusivity is possible when dealing with so vast a field, and personal: the result of decades of reading. It limits itself of material within the experience of today’s general readers, avoiding, for instance, academic historical writing and treatises on technique, its earliest subjects are those nineteenth-century works and choreographers that still resonate with dance lovers today: Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake; Bournonville and Petipa. And, as Gottlieb writes in his introduction, “The twentieth century focuses to a large extent on the achievements and personalities that dominated it–from Pavlova and Nijinsky and Diaghilev to Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, from Ashton and Balanchine and Robbins to Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp, from Fonteyn and Farrell and Gelsey Kirkland (“the Judy Garland of Ballet”) to Nureyev and Baryshnikov and Astaire–as well as the critical and reportorial voices, past and present, that carry the most conviction.” In structuring his anthology, Gottlieb explains, he has “tried to help the reader along by arranging its two hundred-plus entries into a coherent groups.” Apart from the sections on major personalities and important critics, there are sections devoted to interviews (Tamara Toumanova, Antoinette Sibley, Mark Morris); profiles (Lincoln Kirstein, Bob Fosse, Olga Spessivtseva); teachers; accounts of the birth of important works from Petrouchka to Apollo to Push Comes to Shove; and the movies (from Arlene Croce and Alastair Macauley on Fred Astaire to director Michael Powell on the making of The Red Shoes). Here are the voices of Cecil Beaton and Irene Castle, Ninette de Valois and Bronislava Nijinska, Maya Plisetskaya and Allegra Kent, Serge Lifar and José Limón, Alicia Markova and Natalia Makarova, Ruth St. Denis and Michel Fokine, Susan Sontag and Jean Renoir. Plus a group of obscure, even eccentric extras, including an account of Pavlova going shopping in London and recipes from Tanaquil LeClerq’s cookbook.” With its huge range of content accompanied by the anthologist’s incisive running commentary, Reading Dance will be a source of pleasure and instruction for anyone who loves dance.

Author : Stephen Rosenfield
Publisher : Chicago Review Press
ISBN 13 : 1613736959
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Mastering Stand-Up written by Stephen Rosenfield and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2017-11-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stephen Rosenfield, founder and director of the American Comedy Institute, the premier comedy school in the United States, has taught literally dozens of major standup comics in North America, and has also pioneered comedy as an academic discipline in many universities, a trend that is rapidly spreading. Mastering Stand-Up draws on Rosenfield's own extensive experience (and those of countless stars like Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Rodney Dangerfield, Louis C.K., Steve Martin, Roseanne, and Johnny Carson) to show the reader—and would-be comic—what works, what doesn't, and why. Forty sharply written chapters cover every conceivable angle of the joke and how to tell it. There are a number of books on comedy and how to do it, but none has the breadth and authority Rosenfield brings to his theme. It's not for nothing that the New York Times has described him as "probably the best-known comedy teacher in the country." Rosenfield's book is sure to become the classic text on its subject. And it should help thousands who long to make others laugh to realize their fondest hopes.

Author : Mike Sacks
Publisher : Archway Editions
ISBN 13 : 9781576879733
Total Pages : 170 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Stinker Lets Loose written by Mike Sacks and published by Archway Editions. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “She may be an insane chimp, but she’s my insane chimp!” Two ingenious metanarratives that take comedy writing to surreal, uproarious new heights. Mike Sacks is writing the apotheosis of avant garde comedy—books written as found documents, trawling through the ephemera of suburban America, jokes low-brow, bizarre and visceral in a package more formally taut and wildly ambitious than nearly anything published as literary fiction today. Stinker Lets Loose is the deadly accurate novelization of a non-existent ’70s drive-in film, complete with images from the set; it explores the implications behind Eastwood and Reynolds vehicles while one-upping them in puerility and wildness.