Crude rib-tickling for die-hard fans, but a downer for those seeking more than surface shtick.
The longtime funnyman and voice actor gets personal about his life and hard-won fame.
In his own unique, uproarious way, Gottfried approached the writing of his first book much the same way he performs his comedy act, by expressing “whatever pops into my head, very often without a conscious thought.” The result is a rollicking imbroglio of a memoir, as off-color as Gottfried followers have come to expect from the heckling jester. What the author considers the “big, sock-o opening” amounts to an explicit play-by-play from a botched tryst with a stripper. He wisely tones down the hyperactive wisecracking to recollect his Brooklyn childhood, the summer-camp histrionics, his father’s questionable hardware store and the genesis of his comedy career at age 15 in New York City. Gottfried writes of the “small success” his offbeat material and gravelly voiced delivery afforded him on the stand-up comedy circuit. Those qualities soon captured the attention of producers at MTV, Saturday Night Live, Hollywood film studios and commercial television. He jokes that his career has “walked a tightrope between early-morning children’s programming and hardcore porn.” Gottfried’s lengthy reflections from a silly stint on the Hollywood Squares are as airily entertaining as droll ruminations about his Jewish heritage, random encounters with Bea Arthur and Harrison Ford and the inside joke behind the book’s title. To the uninitiated, the comedian is an acquired taste and often strains the boundaries of good taste, while others revel in his unapologetically raunchy material. Hardly cathartic and more than a little self-indulgent, Gottfried’s narrative assails with one-liners, crude expletives and punchy self-deprecation right down to the very last page, where he thanks his publisher for “waiting until I left the room to say, ‘Who thought a Gilbert Gottfried book was a good idea?’ ”
Crude rib-tickling for die-hard fans, but a downer for those seeking more than surface shtick.Pub Date: April 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-66811-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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