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Inside Comedy
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Download or read book Inside Comedy written by David Steinberg and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Steinberg's name has been synonymous with comedy for decades. The Canadian-born comedian, producer, writer, director, and author has been called "a comic institution himself" by the New York Times. He appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 140 times (second only to Bob Hope), and directed episodes of popular television sitcoms, including Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld, Friends, Mad About You, The Golden Girls, and Designing Women. From 2012–2015, Steinberg hosted the comedy documentary series Inside Comedy, which featured such comedy greats as Billy Crystal, Chris Rock, and Gary Shandling. In this entertaining history of comedy, Steinberg shares insightful memories of his journey through his career and takes the reader behind the curtain of the comedy scene of the last half-century. Steinberg shares amusing and often hilarious stories and anecdotes from some of the most legendary comedians in the industry—from Groucho Marx, Carol Burnett, Mel Brooks, and Richard Pryor to Lily Tomlin, Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Tina Fey. Inside Comedy presents in-depth portraits of some of the most talented and revered comedians in the world of comedy today.
Download or read book Truth in Comedy written by Charna Halpern and published by Meriwether Publishing. This book was released on 1994 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 'Harold', an innovative improvisational tool, helped many actors on the road to TV and film stardom, including George Wendt (Norm on Cheers). Now it is described fully in this new book for would-be actors and comics. The 'Harold' is a form of competitive improv involving 6 or 7 players. They take a theme suggestion from the audience and 'free associate' on the theme into a series of rapid-fire one-liners that build into totally unpredictable skits with hilarious results. The 'Harold' is a fun way to 'loosen up' and learn to think quickly, build continuity, develop characterisations and sharpen humour.
Book Synopsis Stand-up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America by : John Limon
Download or read book Stand-up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America written by John Limon and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2000-06-23 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stand-Up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America is the first study of stand-up comedy as a form of art. John Limon appreciates and analyzes the specific practice of stand-up itself, moving beyond theories of the joke, of the comic, and of comedy in general to read stand-up through the lens of literary and cultural theory. Limon argues that stand-up is an artform best defined by its fascination with the abject, Julia Kristeva’s term for those aspects of oneself that are obnoxious to one’s sense of identity but that are nevertheless—like blood, feces, or urine—impossible to jettison once and for all. All of a comedian’s life, Limon asserts, is abject in this sense. Limon begins with stand-up comics in the 1950s and 1960s—Lenny Bruce, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, Elaine May—when the norm of the profession was the Jewish, male, heterosexual comedian. He then moves toward the present with analyses of David Letterman, Richard Pryor, Ellen DeGeneres, and Paula Poundstone. Limon incorporates feminist, race, and queer theories to argue that the “comedification” of America—stand-up comedy’s escape from its narrow origins—involves the repossession by black, female, queer, and Protestant comedians of what was black, female, queer, yet suburbanizing in Jewish, male, heterosexual comedy. Limon’s formal definition of stand-up as abject art thus hinges on his claim that the great American comedians of the 1950s and 1960s located their comedy at the place (which would have been conceived in 1960 as a location between New York City or Chicago and their suburbs) where body is thrown off for the mind and materiality is thrown off for abstraction—at the place, that is, where American abjection has always found its home.
Book Synopsis How to Kill in Comedy: Find Your Comedic Character, 20 Amazing Formulas for Great Jokes, Slay the Audience by : Steve North
Download or read book How to Kill in Comedy: Find Your Comedic Character, 20 Amazing Formulas for Great Jokes, Slay the Audience written by Steve North and published by Bfe Press. This book was released on 2020-03-25 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A how-to book on Stand-up Comedy. Part One describes Steve North, the comedy coach's explanation of and how the reader can discover their own unique comedic character, or persona. Part two offers a workbook featuring 20 of the best formulas for writing comedy material for your character. Part three covers clubs, the 'biz', and how to navigate your career in standup.
Book Synopsis Ethics in Comedy by : Steven A. Benko
Download or read book Ethics in Comedy written by Steven A. Benko and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-10-16 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All humans laugh. However, there is little agreement about what is appropriate to laugh at. While laughter can unite people by showing how they share values and perspectives, it also has the power to separate and divide. Humor that "crosses the line" can make people feel excluded and humiliated. This collection of new essays addresses possible ways that moral and ethical lines can be drawn around humor and laughter. What would a Kantian approach to humor look like? Do games create a safe space for profanity and offense? Contributors to this volume work to establish and explain guidelines for thinking about the moral questions that arise when humor and laughter intersect with medicine, gender, race, and politics. Drawing from the work of stand-up comedians, television shows, and ethicists, this volume asserts that we are never just joking.
Book Synopsis Music in Comedy Television by : Liz Giuffre
Download or read book Music in Comedy Television written by Liz Giuffre and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-03-27 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of television and music has expanded greatly in recent years, yet to date no book has focused on the genre of comedy television as it relates to music. Music in Comedy Television: Notes on Laughs fills that gap, breaking new critical ground. With contributions from an array of established and emerging scholars representing a range of disciplines, the twelve essays included cover a wide variety of topics and television shows, spanning nearly fifty years across network, cable, and online structures and capturing the latest research in this growing area of study. From Sesame Street to Saturday Night Live, from Monty Python to Flight of the Conchords, this book offers the perfect introduction for students and scholars in music and media studies seeking to understand the role of music in comedy onscreen and how it relates to the wider culture.
Book Synopsis A Comedian and an Activist Walk into a Bar by : Caty Borum Chattoo
Download or read book A Comedian and an Activist Walk into a Bar written by Caty Borum Chattoo and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2020-03-24 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comedy is a powerful contemporary source of influence and information. In the still-evolving digital era, the opportunity to consume and share comedy has never been as available. And yet, despite its vast cultural imprint, comedy is a little-understood vehicle for serious public engagement in urgent social justice issues – even though humor offers frames of hope and optimism that can encourage participation in social problems. Moreover, in the midst of a merger of entertainment and news in the contemporary information ecology, and a decline in perceptions of trust in government and traditional media institutions, comedy may be a unique force for change in pressing social justice challenges. Comedians who say something serious about the world while they make us laugh are capable of mobilizing the masses, focusing a critical lens on injustices, and injecting hope and optimism into seemingly hopeless problems. By combining communication and social justice frameworks with contemporary comedy examples, authors Caty Borum Chattoo and Lauren Feldman show us how comedy can help to serve as a vehicle of change. Through rich case studies, audience research, and interviews with comedians and social justice leaders and strategists, A Comedian and an Activist Walk Into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice explains how comedy – both in the entertainment marketplace and as cultural strategy – can engage audiences with issues such as global poverty, climate change, immigration, and sexual assault, and how activists work with comedy to reach and empower publics in the networked, participatory digital media age.
Download or read book Maeve in America written by Maeve Higgins and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “If Tina Fey and David Sedaris had a daughter, she would be Maeve Higgins.” —Glamour A startlingly hilarious essay collection about one woman’s messy path to finding her footing in New York City, from breakout comedy star and podcaster Maeve Higgins Maeve Higgins was a bestselling author and comedian in her native Ireland when, at the grand old age of thirty-one, she left the only home she’d ever known in search of something more and found herself in New York City. Together, the essays in Maeve in America create a smart, funny, and revealing portrait of a woman who aims for the stars but sometimes hits the ceiling and the inimitable city that helped make her who she is. Here are stories of not being able to afford a dress for the ball, of learning to live with yourself while you’re still figuring out how to love yourself, of the true significance of realizing what sort of shelter dog you would be. Self-aware and laugh-out-loud funny, this collection is also a fearless exploration of the awkward questions in life, such as: Is clapping too loudly at a gig a good enough reason to break up with somebody? Is it ever really possible to leave home? “Maeve Higgins is hilarious, poignant, conversational, and my favorite Irish import since U2. You’re in for a treat.” —Phoebe Robinson
Download or read book The Comedy Bible written by Judy Carter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-04 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Judy Carter, guru to aspiring comedy writers and stand-up comics, tells all about the biz of being funny and writing funny in this bright, entertaining, and totally practical guide on how to draw humor from your life and turn it into a career. Do you think you’re funny? Do you want to turn your sense of humor into a career? If the answer is yes, then Judy Carter’s The Comedy Bible is for you. The guru to aspiring stand-up comics provides the complete scoop on being—and writing—funny for money. If you’ve got a sense of humor, you can learn to make a career out of comedy, says Judy Carter. Whether it’s creating a killer stand-up act, writing a spec sitcom, or providing jokes for radio or one-liners for greeting cards, Carter provides step-by-step instructions in The Comedy Bible. She helps readers first determine which genre of comedy writing or performing suits them best and then directs them in developing, refining, and selling their work. Using the hands-on workbook format that was so effective in her bestselling first book, Stand-Up Comedy: The Book, Carter offers a series of day-by-day exercises that draw on her many years as a successful stand-up comic and the head of a nationally known comedy school. Also included are practical tips and advice from today’s top comedy professionals—from Bernie Brillstein to Christopher Titus to Richard Lewis. She presents the pros and cons of the various comedy fields—stand-up, script, speech and joke writing, one-person shows, humor essays—and shows how to tailor your material for each. She teaches how to find your “authentic” voice—the true source of comedy. And, perhaps most important, Carter explains how to take a finished product to the next level—making money—by pitching it to a buyer and negotiating a contract. Written in Carter’s unique, take-no-prisoners voice, The Comedy Bible is practical, inspirational, and funny.
Download or read book We Killed written by Yael Kohen and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kohen assembles America's most prominent comediennes to piece together an oral history about the revolution that happened to (and by) women in American comedy.
Download or read book Inside Inside written by James Lipton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-10-18 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the years, Inside the Actors Studio has brought more than 200 of the world’s most celebrated actors, directors, writers and performing artists into 84,000,000 homes in America and 125 countries around the world. Now James Lipton—its host and creator—is offering the reader of this book a backstage pass to the award-winning series—and to his own amazing journey to its stage. You will witness, in unprecedented close-up, the wit, wisdom and candor of a galaxy of stars, from Al Pacino, Barbra Streisand, Robin Williams and Steven Spielberg to Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp and many more. With the same candor he demands of his guests, James Lipton also reveals a life that began under the tutelage of a poet, his father, and a teacher, his mother; continued in the orbit of theatrical giants like Stella Adler; and, as writer and producer, took him to the White House with two presidents, the Great Wall of China with Bob Hope, and legendary days and nights in New York, London, and Paris with “the heroes of his life” and ours. This book is a sincere and passionate celebration of the arts and artists we admire—and thought we knew until this moment.
Download or read book Tim & Tom written by Tim Reid and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-02-15 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the heady promise of the 1960s sagged under the weight of widespread violence, rioting, and racial unrest, two young men--one black and one white--took to stages across the nation to help Americans confront their racial divide: by laughing at it. Tim and Tom tells the story of that pioneering duo, the first interracial comedy team in the history of show business--and the last. Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen polished their act in the nightclubs of Chicago, then took it on the road, not only in the North, but in the still-simmering South as well, developing routines that even today remain surprisingly frank--and remarkably funny--about race. Most nights, the shock of seeing an integrated comedy team quickly dissipated in uproarious laughter, but on some occasions the audience’s confusion and discomfort led to racist heckling, threats, and even violence. Though Tim and Tom perpetually seemed on the verge of making it big throughout their five years together, they grudgingly came to realize that they were ahead of their time: America was not yet ready to laugh at its own failed promise. Eventually, the grind of the road took its toll, as bitter arguments led to an acrimonious breakup. But the underlying bond of friendship Reid and Dreesen had forged with each groundbreaking joke has endured for decades, while their solo careers delivered the success that had eluded them as a team. By turns revealing, shocking, and riotously funny, Tim and Tom unearths a largely forgotten chapter in the history of comedy.
Download or read book Sicker in the Head written by Judd Apatow and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2023-04-18 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An all-new collection of honest, hilarious, and enlightening conversations with some of the most exciting names in comedy—from lifelong comedy nerd Judd Apatow. “When I need to read an interview with a comedian while in the bathroom, I always turn to Judd Apatow for deeply personal insights into the comedic mind. Place one on your toilet today.”—Amy Schumer ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Vulture No one knows comedy like Judd Apatow. From interviewing the biggest comics of the day for his high school radio show to performing stand-up in L.A. dive bars with his roommate Adam Sandler, to writing and directing Knocked Up and producing Freaks and Geeks, Apatow has always lived, breathed, and dreamed comedy. In this all-new collection of interviews, the follow-up to the New York Times bestselling Sick in the Head, Apatow sits down with comedy legends such as David Letterman, Whoopi Goldberg, and Will Ferrell, as well as the writers and performers who are pushing comedy to the limits, and defining a new era of laughter: John Mulaney, Hannah Gadsby, Bowen Yang, Amber Ruffin, Pete Davidson, and others. In intimate and hilariously honest conversations, they discuss what got them into comedy, and what—despite personal and national traumas—keeps them going. Together, they talk about staying up too late to watch late-night comedy, what kind of nerds they were high school, and the right amount of delusional self-confidence one needs to “make it” in the industry. Like eavesdropping on lifelong friends, these pages expose the existential questions that plague even the funniest and most talented among us: Why make people laugh while the world is in crisis? What ugly, uncomfortable truths about our society—and ourselves—can comedy reveal? Along the way, these comics reminisce about those who helped them on their journey—from early success through failure and rejection, and back again—even as they look ahead to the future of comedy and Hollywood in a hyper-connected, overstimulated world. With his trademark insight, curiosity, and irrepressible sense of humor, Apatow explores the nature of creativity, professional ambition, and vulnerability in an ever-evolving cultural landscape, and how our favorite comics are able to keep us laughing along the way.
Download or read book Stand-Up Comedy written by Judy Carter and published by Dell. This book was released on 2010-03-03 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you think you’re funny, buy this book! Whether you dream of becoming a star . . . A better public speaker . . . A more effective communicator . . . A funnier, happier human being . . . You can learn to leave ‘em laughing! David Letterman learned to do it. Jay Leno learned to do it. Roseanne Barr learned to do it. So can you! Now successful stand-up comic Judy Carter—who went from teaching high school to performing in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Lake Tahoe, and on over 45 major TV shows—gives you the same hands-on, step-by-step instruction she’s taught to students in her comedy workshops. She shows you how to do it: create an act, perform it, make money with it, or apply it to everyday life. Discover: • The formulas for creating comedy material • How to find your own style • The three steps to putting your act together • Rehearsal do’s and don’ts • What to do if you bomb • Ways to punch up your everyday life with humor
Book Synopsis Comedy at the Edge by : Richard Zoglin
Download or read book Comedy at the Edge written by Richard Zoglin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-02-10 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveys the stand-up comedy of the 1970s, citing the contributions of celebrity comics, from George Carlin and Richard Pryor to Robin Williams and Andy Kaufman, in an account that also evaluates the roles played by such clubs as Catch a Rising Star, the Improv, and the Comedy Store.
Download or read book Immortal Comedy written by Agnes Heller and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first attempt to think philosophically about the comic phenomenon in literature, art, and life. Working across a substantial collection of comic works author Agnes Heller makes seminal observations on the comic in the work of both classical and contemporary figures. Whether she's discussing Shakespeare, Kafka, Rabelais, or the paintings of Brueghel and Daumier Heller's Immortal Comedy makes a characteristic contribution to modern thought across the humanities.
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 594 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