The Comedians

The Comedians PDF Author: Kliph Nesteroff
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802190863
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
“Funny [and] fascinating . . . If you’re a comedy nerd you’ll love this book.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, National Post, and Splitsider Based on over two hundred original interviews and extensive archival research, this groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past one hundred years. Starting with the vaudeville circuit at the turn of the last century, the book introduces the first stand-up comedian—an emcee who abandoned physical shtick for straight jokes. After the repeal of Prohibition, Mafia-run supper clubs replaced speakeasies, and mobsters replaced vaudeville impresarios as the comedian’s primary employer. In the 1950s, the late-night talk show brought stand-up to a wide public, while Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and Jonathan Winters attacked conformity and staged a comedy rebellion in coffeehouses. From comedy’s part in the civil rights movement and the social upheaval of the late 1960s, to the first comedy clubs of the 1970s and the cocaine-fueled comedy boom of the 1980s, The Comedians culminates with a new era of media-driven celebrity in the twenty-first century. “Entertaining and carefully documented . . . jaw-dropping anecdotes . . . This book is a real treat.” —Merrill Markoe, TheWall Street Journal

The Comedians

The Comedians PDF Author: Kliph Nesteroff
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802190863
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 460

Get Book Here

Book Description
“Funny [and] fascinating . . . If you’re a comedy nerd you’ll love this book.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, National Post, and Splitsider Based on over two hundred original interviews and extensive archival research, this groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past one hundred years. Starting with the vaudeville circuit at the turn of the last century, the book introduces the first stand-up comedian—an emcee who abandoned physical shtick for straight jokes. After the repeal of Prohibition, Mafia-run supper clubs replaced speakeasies, and mobsters replaced vaudeville impresarios as the comedian’s primary employer. In the 1950s, the late-night talk show brought stand-up to a wide public, while Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and Jonathan Winters attacked conformity and staged a comedy rebellion in coffeehouses. From comedy’s part in the civil rights movement and the social upheaval of the late 1960s, to the first comedy clubs of the 1970s and the cocaine-fueled comedy boom of the 1980s, The Comedians culminates with a new era of media-driven celebrity in the twenty-first century. “Entertaining and carefully documented . . . jaw-dropping anecdotes . . . This book is a real treat.” —Merrill Markoe, TheWall Street Journal

The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Book

The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Book PDF Author: Entertainment Weekly, Inc
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416510575
Category : Performing arts
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
This annual issue is filled with questions to stump even the most devoted popculture fanatic. Brimming with trivia, it contains hundreds of brain teasers, ultimate fan challenges and tests of classic TV.

American Book Publishing Record

American Book Publishing Record PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 1132

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Book Description


Planet Funny

Planet Funny PDF Author: Ken Jennings
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1501100602
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year The witty and exuberant New York Times bestselling author and record-setting Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings relays the history of humor in “lively, insightful, and crawling with goofy factlings,” (Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go Bernadette)—from fart jokes on clay Sumerian tablets to the latest Twitter gags and Facebook memes. Where once society’s most coveted trait might have been strength or intelligence or honor, today, in a clear sign of evolution sliding off the trails, it is being funny. Yes, funniness. Consider: Super Bowl commercials don’t try to sell you anymore; they try to make you laugh. Airline safety tutorials—those terrifying laminated cards about the possibilities of fire, explosion, depressurization, and drowning—have been replaced by joke-filled videos with multimillion-dollar budgets and dance routines. Thanks to social media, we now have a whole Twitterverse of amateur comedians riffing around the world at all hours of the day—and many of them even get popular enough online to go pro and take over TV. In his “smartly structured, soundly argued, and yes—pretty darn funny” (Booklist, starred review) Planet Funny, Ken Jennings explores this brave new comedic world and what it means—or doesn’t—to be funny in it now. Tracing the evolution of humor from the caveman days to the bawdy middle-class antics of Chaucer to Monty Python’s game-changing silliness to the fast-paced meta-humor of The Simpsons, Jennings explains how we built our humor-saturated modern age, where lots of us get our news from comedy shows and a comic figure can even be elected President of the United States purely on showmanship. “Fascinating, entertaining and—I’m being dead serious here—important” (A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically), Planet Funny is a full taxonomy of what spawned and defines the modern sense of humor.

The Ultimate Beatles Quiz Book

The Ultimate Beatles Quiz Book PDF Author: Michael J. Hockinson
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312071042
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
What was the first song the Beatles recorded for "Sgt. Pepper?" When Beatles fans get together, this is just one of the questions they hurl at each other. The Ultimate Beatles Quiz Book is the most elaborate and entertaining collection of these questions ever published.-of-a-kind mine of facts, photos, and Fab Four lore.

Inverne's Stage & Screen Trivia

Inverne's Stage & Screen Trivia PDF Author: James Inverne
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781567317336
Category : Motion pictures
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This special edition is published by MJF Books in arrangement with Arcane, an imprint of Sanctuary Publishing Limited.

Bob and Ray, Keener Than Most Persons

Bob and Ray, Keener Than Most Persons PDF Author: David Pollock
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 1480354988
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
(Applause Books). By the established comedy conventions of their era, Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding were true game changers. Never playing to the balcony, Bob and Ray instead entertained each other. Because they believed in their nuanced characters and absurd premises, their audience did, too. Their parodies broadcasting about broadcasting existed in their own special universe. A complete absence of show-biz slickness set them apart from the very institution they were mocking, yet were still a part of. They resisted being called comedians and never considered themselves "an act." Bob and Ray, Keener Than Most Persons traces the origins and development of the pair's unique sensibility that defined their dozens of local and network radio and TV series, later motion picture roles, Carnegie Hall performances, and hit Broadway show Bob and Ray The Two and Only . Together for 43 years (longer than Laurel and Hardy, Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello, and Martin and Lewis), the twosome deflected all intrusions into the personalities behind their many masks and the dynamics of their relationship, and rarely elaborated on their career trajectory or methodology. Now, with the full cooperation of Bob Elliott and of Ray Goulding's widow, Liz, together with insights from numerous colleagues, their craft and the culture that made them so relevant is explored in depth.

Brainiac

Brainiac PDF Author: Ken Jennings
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 1588365522
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A witty, charming, and engaging dive into trivia’s colorful history, from America’s highest-earning game show contestant of all time and host of Jeopardy! “Insightful, informative, and written with a strong dose of humor and humility. . . . I loved this book.”—Will Shortz, crossword editor, The New York Times Ken Jennings is trivia’s undisputed king—and as he traces his rise from anonymous computer programmer to nerd folk icon, he explores his newly conquered kingdom: the world of trivia itself. Trivia, he has found, is centuries older than his childhood obsession with it. Whisking us from the coffeehouses of seventeenth-century London to the Internet age, Jennings chronicles the ups and downs of the trivia fad: the quiz book explosion of the Jazz Age; the rise, fall, and rise again of TV quiz shows; the nostalgic campus trivia of the 1960s; and the 1980s, when Trivial Pursuit® again made it fashionable to be a know-it-all. Jennings also investigates the shadowy demimonde of today’s trivia subculture, guiding us on a tour of trivia across America. He goes head-to-head with the blowhards and diehards of the college quiz-bowl circuit, the slightly soused faithful of the Boston pub trivia scene, and the raucous participants in the annual Q&A marathon in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, “The World’s Largest Trivia Contest.” And, of course, he takes us behind the scenes of his improbable 75-game run on Jeopardy! But above all, Brainiac is a love letter to the useless fact. (Who knew that there’s a crater on Venus named after Laura Ingalls Wilder? Ken Jennings, that’s who.) Engaging and erudite, Brainiac is an irresistible celebration of nostalgia, curiosity, and geeky obsession—in a word, trivia.

The Big Book of Tiny Cars

The Big Book of Tiny Cars PDF Author: Russell Hayes
Publisher: Motorbooks International
ISBN: 0760370621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
The Big Book of Tiny Cars presents entertaining profiles of automotive history’s most famous—and infamous—microcars and subcompacts from 1901 to today. Illustrated with photos and period ads.

An Object of Beauty

An Object of Beauty PDF Author: Steve Martin
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 0446573663
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Lacey Yeager is young, captivating, and ambitious enough to take the NYC art world by storm. Groomed at Sotheby's and hungry to keep climbing the social and career ladders put before her, Lacey charms men and women, old and young, rich and even richer with her magnetic charisma and liveliness. Her ascension to the highest tiers of the city parallel the soaring heights--and, at times, the dark lows--of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today.