COMEDY NERD

The cringe-comedy auteur opens up his copious scrapbooks.

Apatow has arguably done as much as any one individual to shape 21st-century Hollywood comedy, conjuring memorable manchild characters as a writer (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story), director (The 40-Year-Old Virgin), and producer (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy). It’s made him famous, and he’s grateful for the attention: This hefty, image-heavy book is thick with magazine spreads and shots of awards ceremonies. Even so, he strives to foreground his humility, dedicating most of his prose to honoring mentors, writing and filmmaking partners, and inspirations. Growing up in New York, he was an obsessive fan of ’70s and ’80s comedians, inviting legends like Martin Short, Jerry Seinfeld, Paul Reiser, and others for interviews on his high school radio program. (He neglected to tell them about the “high school” part.) As he rose through the ranks of TV and film comedy, working with the likes of Garry Shandling, he brought his generational cohort with him—Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Ray Romano, and more—and helped launch newcomers (like Lena Dunham, who contributes a foreword). That means he’s amassed a large assortment of autographs, cocktail-napkin quips, and before-they-were-famous snapshots. But shouldn’t a book like this be funnier? Some of his anecdotes are comic gold—such as his successful “tweenage” effort to acquire Steve Martin’s autograph or his less-successful middle-age first pitch at a Mets game. But the bulk of the book is a speed run through his many projects, praising this star or that director. He preaches the gospel of constant rewriting and “punching up” jokes, but except for a few images of scribbled-on scripted pages, there’s little about how he hones his craft. That would make for an excellent book—one distinct from this splashy, self-celebratory one.

A personable, if only moderately insightful, glimpse into a top comic’s mind.