An overthought but sometimes-useful guide for would-be yuksters.
Hoover, a lawyer, college instructor and professional joke-writer, attempts to explain the art and science of comedy in this meticulous debut primer.
The author presents his encyclopedic knowledge of comedy to engaging effect. He covers various comedic formats and genres, including stand-up, skits, sitcoms and screenplays; reviews milestones of movie and television comedy; and celebrates the personalities and one-liners of such giants as Groucho Marx, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen and Carol Burnett. He also elaborates on comedy theory, citing Aristotle, Sigmund Freud, Mel Brooks and the creators of the 1980 movie Airplane! Hoover delves extensively into “joke structure,” asserting that the fundamental equation is “Incongruity + Surprise + Context = Funny,” and also presents typologies of the setup and punch line, the genre categories of comic plots, and a list of surefire cartoon scenarios, from the classic desert-island castaways to the contemporary “two young professionals.” The text also offers cogent tips for breaking into the comedy biz, urging readers to analyze classic sitcoms, movies, stand-up acts and scripts to see what makes them funny; to develop comic personas and characters by imagining their back stories and motivations; to hone a trial skit or screenplay into a one-sentence “log-line” for pitching to producers; and above all, to “move to Hollywood.” The book serves all this up in readable prose spiked with insightful, entertaining exegeses of comedic works, but its pedagogical value is uneven; the advice is sometimes specific and actionable (words with “K” sounds are funny) and other times too sketchy to be very useful (“Mash up the funny with the not so funny to create a third funny, which technically should not exist. Sometimes this works and sometimes not”). Lurking in the background is the assumption that doctrine, technique, practice and assiduous marketing are the keys to success, but the question of talent—and whether one can write good comedy without it—takes a back seat. Overall, the book doesn’t quite bottle the elusive soul of wit, but aspiring comedy writers may find helpful suggestions on how to refine and capitalize on their gifts.
An overthought but sometimes-useful guide for would-be yuksters.Pub Date: July 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989746502
Page Count: 218
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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