And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 25 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft (Extended Edition)
Mike Sacks
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 2:00037344
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT ?
Every great joke has a punch line, and every great humor writer has an arsenal of experiences, anecdotes, and obsessions that were the inspiration for that humor. In fact, those who make a career out of entertaining strangers with words are a notoriously intelligent and quirky lot. And boy, do they have some stories.
In this entertaining and inspirational book, you'll hear from 21 top humor writers as they discuss the comedy-writing process, their influences, their likes and dislikes, and their experiences in the industry. You?ll also learn some less useful but equally amusing things, such as:* How screenwriter Buck Henry came up with the famous ?plastics? line for The Graduate.
* How many times the cops were called on co-writers Sacha Baron Cohen and Dan Mazer during the shooting of Borat.
* What David Sedaris thinks of his critics.
* What creator Paul Feig thinks would have happened to the Freaks & Geeks crew if the show had had another season.
* What Jack Handey considers his favorite ?Deep Thoughts.?
* How Todd Hanson and the staff of The Onion managed to face the aftermath of 9/11 with the perfect dose of humor.
* How Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais created the original version of The Office.
* What it?s really like in the writers? room at SNL.
Funny and informative, And Here's the Kicker is a must-have resource - whether you?re an aspiring humor writer, a fan of the genre, or someone who just likes to laugh.
Eddie Murphy Raw — I'm not so sure he'd be able to get away with half of that material today; particularly, his jokes about homosexuals. No, it was very adolescent. But here's the thing: The last time Eddie was a private person was when he was an adolescent. So that's where he left off; that's his point of reference. Before he moved into his New Jersey mansion, Bubble Hill. Yes, exactly. A lot of people in show business get to an age where they stop growing emotionally. What age did you stop?
“red-diaper babies” or “Eisenhower babies.” My parents didn't seem to know anything of that; I might as well have been raised during the Depression. My parents grew up poor in households that spoke mostly Yiddish. They were from the Old World. How did your parents feel when you achieved success? Did they understand your cartoons? Sort of, but they were more excited that I had insurance [laughs]. Did your parents allow you to own comic books? My parents were very serious; they did not like pop
changes. Do not act mean to our assistants, as they tend to get promoted quickly, and you never know who will be working for whom one day. So be extra nice when speaking to assistants — they are not there for your every want or need. Bruce Jay Friedman INTERVIEW BONUS During his four-decade (and counting) writing career, Bruce Friedman has published eight novels, four story collections, numerous plays, and such screenplays as Stir Crazy (1980) and the Academy Award-nominated Splash
entendres. I've seen all the melon and hot dog confusion I need for one lifetime. How about things that do work for you? Any advice for novice writers — technical tricks you've found helpful? Where rewriting is concerned, I always think, The bologna rises to the top. When I am in the midst of writing, I tend to hear my words in a sort of sing-songy verse and chorus that's almost musical. But once I put the work down for a while and then return to it, I have forgotten the melody I was using and
school. We've all been in the jail that Lindsay now finds herself in. Some people liked that situation; some people didn't. Some had varying degrees of resignation to it. Lindsay sees it for what it is, and that, for me, becomes the best type of character. That's interesting. It's almost like the Peggy Sue character in Peggy Sue Got Married. Lindsay is both removed from and living through the experience at the same time. Right. The big difference is that she's still that age and she's still