Performing Arts : Comedy

Who is The Zsa Zsa Man? What are the demands of The Sydney Darlow Dancing Troupe? What lurks Behind The Fridge? What was The Glidd Of Glood's true nature? Why can t we go to Heaven when we die? What was the true genesis of Monty Python's Parrot Sketch? Why is Morton P. Fergleberger terrified of titanium rods? Who is Morton P. Fergleberger anyway? The Peter Cook Appreciation Society has the answers. How Very Interesting contains interviews with those who worked with Cook during his long and varied career and who saw him as an inspiration: his colleagues, collaborators, co-writers, producers, directors, fans and friends, including John Fortune, Barry Fantoni, Eleanor Bron, the staff of Private Eye, Trevor Baylis, Robyn Hitchcock, Chris Morris, Will Self, Jerry Sadowitz, Malcolm McLaren, Elvis Costello, Nigel Planer, Mel Smith, John Cooper Clarke, Barry Cryer, Auberon Waugh, Clive Anderson, and more - including the great man himself. Alongside the interviews, revelations and slanging matches, How Very Interesting unearths rare pieces of Cookiana, cocks an ear at Private Eye's Famous Flexies and Derek & Clive, sits through The Hound of the Baskervilles and Cook's many screen outings, and otherwise digs, delves and disappears into the universe of Peter Cook, and all that surrounds it. more...

Price: $17.99

After a decade spent in isolation in the Ugandan jungles thinking about stuff, David Cross has written his first book. Known for roles on the small screen such as "never-nude" Tobias Funke on Arrested Development and the role of "David" in Mr. Show With Bob And David, as well as a hugely successful stand-up routine full of sharp-tongued rants and rages, Cross has carved out his place in American comedy. Whether deflating the pomposity of religious figures, calling out the pathetic symbiosis of pseudo-celebrity and its leaching fandom, or merely pushing the buttons of the way-too-easily offended P.C. left or the caustic, double-standard of the callous (but funnier) right, Cross has something to say about everyone, including his own ridiculous self. Now, for the first time, Cross is weaving his media mockery, celebrity denunciation, religious commentary and sheer madness into book form, revealing the true story behind his almost existential distaste of Jim Belushi ("The Belush"), disclosing the up-to-now unpublished minutes to a meeting of Fox television network executives, and offering up a brutally grotesque run-in with Bill O'Reilly. And as if this wasn't enough for your laughing pleasure in these troubled times, some of the pieces splinter off with additional material being created online in exclusive video and animated web content created solely for the book-a historical first (presumably)!. With a mix of personal essays, satirical fiction posing as truth, advice for rich people, information from America's least favorite Rabbi and a top-ten list of top-ten lists, I DRINK FOR A REASON is as unique as the comedian himself, and cannot be missed. more...

Price: $23.99

I tell ya, nothin' goes right.Last week I found a guy's wallet ... Inside was a picture of my two kids.Anybody can repeat a Rodney Dangerfield joke, but nobody can tell one like the man himself. That's because his humor, built on the premise that he "don't get no respect," is drawn from a life so hard that the only way to survive was to laugh at it -- though all the drugs and hookers certainly didn't hurt.In It's Not Easy Bein' Me, Dangerfield comes clean (even if he still works blue) about his brutal life and the unlikely triumph he made out of it. His father was in vaudeville, and his mother was from hell, which is why a young Jack Roy grabbed a mike and got up on a stage straight out of high school. He was looking for laughs, some approval ... and a few easy women. He struggled for years, getting by but never getting over, playing dives and opening for strippers, hypnotists, and snake charmers. Then at thirty, Dangerfield walked away from all that glamour. He quit show business, got a "real" job -- as an aluminum-siding salesman -- and started raising a family in Englewood, New Jersey. He was out of comedy for twelve unhappy years, but all the while he was writing jokes, scheming, and dreaming of his comeback.Eventually, he changed his act, changed his name, and changed American comedy forever. He developed one of the most popular characters in all of show business -- the poor schnook who gets no respect. Not from his parents, his wife, his kids, not even from his physician, Dr. Vinnie Boombatz.But his millions of fans not only respected him, they loved him, reciting dozens of his jokes from memory and quoting chapter and verse from Caddyshack, the movie that made Dangerfield into a comedic superstar. Today, Dangerfield stands as a true pillar of American comedy (though at eighty-two, he says, he's crumbling a little) and after the life he's led, it's amazing he's standing at all.Wild, hip, and hilar more...

Price: $10.99

Who are Laurel and Hardy? Only the most recognisable comedy team that cinema has ever produced. British-born Stan Laurel and American Oliver Hardy were teamed up at the struggling Hal Roach studios in the 1920s and embarked on a series of hilarious short silent films. They soon established a classic screen partnership and became instantly recognisable comic icons in their crumpled suits and bowler hats. Laurel and Hardy were the most successful of all the film comics who made the difficult transition from silent shorts to sound and then to feature films, enjoying unparalleled success from the 1920s through to the 1950s, when they undertook a series of triumphant tours of Britain. Regular and repeated screenings of their work through the 1970s and 1980s on television brought shorts like the Oscar-winning classic The Music Box to new generations, while in recent years the entire rarely-seen back catalogue of silent Laurel and Hardy films has become available to film buffs, comedy fans and collectors on a series of DVD releases. Everyone knows and loves Laurel and Hardy, and their everlasting appeal to new generations of fans shows no sign of ending, over 80 years on from their first work together. As well as an introductory essay and biographies of both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the book covers each Laurel and Hardy short film, the move from silent movies to the sound classics of the 1930s and the feature films of the 1930s and 1940s, complete with information on the inspiration for each film and the reaction of critics and audiences. Not only that, but there's a handy reference section listing other books about Laurel and Hardy, interesting web sites and availability of their 106 films. In fact, the Laurel and Hardy Pocket Essential is the one-stop celebration of the films and lives of Stan and Ollie. more...

Price: $7.99

From the most popular routines and the most ingenious physical shtick to the snappiest wisecracks and the most biting satire of the last century, MAKE 'EM LAUGH illuminates who we are as a nation by exploring what makes us laugh, and why. Authors Laurence Maslon and Michael Kantor draw on countless sources to chronicle the past century of American comedy and the geniuses who created and performed it-melding biography, American history, and a lotta laughs into an exuberant, important book. Each of the six chapters focuses a different style or archetype of comedy, from the slapstick pratfalls of Buster Keaton and Lucille Ball through the wiseguy put-downs of Groucho Marx and Larry David, to the incendiary bombshells of Mae West and Richard Pryor . And at every turn the significance of these comedians-smashing social boundaries, challenging the definition of good taste, speaking the truth to the powerful-is vividly tangible. MAKE 'EM LAUGH is more than a compendium of American comic genius; it is a window onto the way comedy both reflects the world and changes it-one laugh at a time. Starting from the groundbreaking PBS series, the authors have gone deeper into the works and lives of America' s great comic artists, with biographical portraits, archival materials, cultural overviews, and rare photos. Brilliantly illustrated, with insights (and jokes) from comedians, writers and producers, along with film, radio, television, and theater historians, MAKE 'EM LAUGH is an indispensible, definitive book about comedy in America . more...

Price: $45.00