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A Futile and Stupid Gesture
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Eric Idle name-dropping, which can't be helped
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I'm Dying Up Here chronicles the collective coming of age of the standup comedians who defined American humor during the past three decades. Born early in the Baby Boom, they grew up watching The Tonight Show, went to school during Vietnam and Watergate, migrated en masse to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, and created an artistic community unlike any before or since. They were arguably the funniest people of their generation, living in a late-night world of sex, drugs, dreams, and laughter.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Nails on a chalkboard narration.
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When NBC decided to move Jay Leno into prime time to make room for Conan O'Brien to host the Tonight show - a job he had been promised five years earlier - skeptics anticipated a train wreck for the ages. It took, in fact, only a few months for the dire predictions to come true. Leno's show, panned by critics, dragged down the ratings - and the profits - of NBC's affiliates, while ratings for Conan's new Tonight show plummeted to the lowest levels in history.
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Mike has teamed up with director Eric Martin to adapt the novelization into a fully immersive cinematic audio experience, and an epic all-star cast has come together to introduce Stinker to a whole new generation of fans! It's Smokey and the Bandit meets Every Which Way But Loose meets Smokey and the Bandit Parts 2 and 3. Feel the thrill as Stinker teams up with old pals Boner and Jumbo, plus new friends Buck and Rascal the Chimp, for a crazy ride across the highways and byways of Bicentennial America.
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Millions of words have poured forth about man's trip to the moon, but until now few people have had a sense of the most engrossing side of the adventure: namely, what went on in the minds of the astronauts themselves - in space, on the moon, and even during certain odysseys on earth. It is this, the inner life of the astronauts, that Tom Wolfe describes with his almost uncanny empathetic powers that made The Right Stuff a classic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Righteous Book, Righteous Narrator, Righteous MEN!
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Regarded as a masterpiece today, 2001: A Space Odyssey received mixed reviews. Despite the success of Dr. Strangelove, director Stanley Kubrick wasn't yet recognized as a great filmmaker, and 2001 was radically innovative, with little dialogue and no strong central character. Author Michael Benson explains how 2001 was made, telling the story primarily through the two people most responsible for the film, Kubrick and science fiction legend Arthur C. Clarke. Benson interviewed Clarke many times, and has also spoken at length with Kubrick's widow, Christiane.
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The Big Picture
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In the past decade, Hollywood has endured a cataclysm on a par with the end of silent film and the demise of the studio system. Stars and directors have seen their power dwindle, while writers and producers lift their best techniques from TV, comic books, and the toy biz. The future of Hollywood is being written by powerful corporate brands like Marvel, Amazon, Netflix, and Lego, as well as censors in China. Ben Fritz chronicles this dramatic shakeup with unmatched skill, bringing equal fluency to both the financial and entertainment aspects of Hollywood.
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5 out of 5 stars
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And now you know!
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Pryor Convictions
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Richard Pryor journeys from his childhood in a family that worked in whore-houses and bars, through to his years in Hollywood - the money, the women, the drugs - and the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful and painful
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Hail to the Chin
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One of my dad’s favorite jokes about getting older was: “I went out for coffee when I was twenty-one and when I got back I was fifty-eight!” I get what he meant now. Time flies. My first book, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a "B" Movie Actor, was published back in 2001 and it chronicles the adventures of a “mid-grade, kind of hammy actor" (my words), cutting his teeth on exploitation movies far removed from mainstream Hollywood. This next book, an “Act II” if you will, could be considered my “maturing years” in show business, when I began to say “no” more often and gravitated toward self-generated material. Taking stock in the overall quality of my life, I fled Los Angeles and moved to a remote part of Oregon to renew, regroup and reload. If that sounds tame, the journey from Evil Dead to Spider-Man to Burn Notice was long, with plenty of adventures/mishaps along the way. I never pictured myself hovering above Baghdad in a Blackhawk helicopter, facing a pack of wild dogs in Bulgaria, or playing an aging Elvis Presley with cancer on his penis - how can you predict this stuff? The sheer lunacy of show business is part of the fun for me and I hope you'll come along for the ride.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hail to the Chin...Win for the Ears!
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Bored of the Rings
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
A quest, a war, a ring that would be grounds for calling any wedding off, a king without a kingdom, and a furry little "hero" named Frito, ready - or maybe just forced by the wizard Goodgulf - to undertake the one mission that can save Lower Middle Earth from enslavement by the evil Sorhed. Luscious Elf-maidens, a roller-skating dragon, ugly plants that can soul kiss the unwary to death-these are just some of the ingredients in the wildest, wackiest, most irreverent excursion into fantasy realms that anyone has ever dared to undertake.
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3 out of 5 stars
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nonsense cliff notes lord of the rings
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That's Not Funny, That's Sick
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- By: Ellin Stein
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
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- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 15
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 14
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Story4 out of 5 stars 15
Labor Day, 1969: Two recent college graduates move to New York to edit a new magazine called the National Lampoon. Over the next decade, Henry Beard and Doug Kenney, along with a loose amalgamation of fellow satirists such as Michael O’Donoghue and P. J. O’Rourke, popularized a smart, caustic, ironic brand of humor that has become the dominant voice of American comedy. Ranging from sophisticated political satire to broad raunchy jokes, the National Lampoon introduced iconoclasm to the mainstream, selling millions of copies to an audience both large and devoted.
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This Is Not Fame
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- By: Doug Stanhope
- Narrated by: Doug Stanhope, Chad Shank, full cast
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 998
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 912
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 907
Doug Stanhope has been drunkenly stumbling down the back roads and dark alleys of stand-up comedy for over a quarter of a century, roads laden with dank bars, prostitutes, cheap drugs, farm animals, evil dwarfs, public nudity, menacing third-world police, psychotic breaks, sex offenders, and some understandable suicides. You know, just for levity. While other comedians were seeking fame, Stanhope was seeking immediate gratification, dark spectacle, or sometimes just his pants.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The extras are whats worth it.
- By Patrick H. on 05-18-18
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Mustache Shenanigans
- Making Super Troopers and Other Adventures in Comedy
- By: Jay Chandrasekhar
- Narrated by: Jay Chandrasekhar
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 516
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 477
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Story5 out of 5 stars 473
Jay Chandrasekhar has spent the past two decades writing, directing, and acting in film and TV. With his comedy group, Broken Lizard, he has produced and directed beloved movies such as Super Troopers, Beerfest, and Club Dread. Now, with the coming release of the long-awaited Super Troopers 2, Jay is ready to tell the ridiculous, madcap, dead-honest story of how he built his career, how he formed Broken Lizard, and, ultimately, how he made Super Troopers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Broken lizard behind the scenes
- By Brian on 03-29-17
Publisher's Summary
This ultimate biography of National Lampoon and its cofounder Doug Kenney offers the first complete history of the immensely popular magazine and its brilliant and eccentric characters. Relying on wonderful stories about the comedy scene in New York City in the 1970s and National Lampoon's place at the center of it, author Josh Karp chronicles how the magazine spawned a popular radio show and two long-running theatrical productions that helped launch the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Gilda Radner and that went on to inspire Saturday Night Live.
That history along with interviews conducted with more than 130 people connected to Kenney and the magazine - including Chevy Chase, John Hughes, P. J. O'Rourke, Tony Hendra, Sean Kelly, Chris Miller, and Bruce McCall - and behind-the-scenes stories about the making of Animal House and Caddyshack help to capture the nostalgia, humor, and popular culture that National Lampoon still inspires.
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- Steven Awalt
- 02-07-18
Excellent History of Golden Age in American Comedy
Loved the book, wish it went even longer. Lutkin’s narration was clean, well-read, but every time he said the word “parody” as “parity”, I wanted to punch a nun. A book on comedy, you’ve gotta be sure your reader can pronounce a few key words, eh?
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 12-19-18
wasnt for me
Hard to finish i beleave trying to understand the language or something made this book a slow read for myself. This book might be a better read for others I just find it to be slow and hard to keep an interest.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Aug Stone
- HIGHLAND BEACH, FL, US
- 07-22-18
Rich wonderful book
I loved listening to this. The story is great, Karp fills in lots of wide-ranging details about the many characters who made up National Lampoon and how humor and history moved through the strange times of the 60s and 70s. I found myself with tears in my eyes at the end dealing with Doug's death. The Netflix special piqued my interest but the story is much more vast and we get that all here. A word about the narrator - I had seen the other reviews talking about his pronunciation of "parody" as "parity" and I couldn't believe it. How right they are though, and since that word comes up many times in the book, someone really should have corrected Lutkin about this. He says ending 'd's as if they were 't's, we get this with "Kennedy" too.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Hunter Kesey
- Atlanta, GA
- 02-16-18
Great book despite the mispronounciations
The narrorator pronounces "parody" like "parroty" and calls Caddyshack's Judge Smails "judge Smalls," but his pronunciation aside this was an amazing book and a wonderful tribute to both Doug Kenney and National Lampoon. It's the basis for the Netflix movie of the same name which is also good.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Joe Hill
- 02-12-18
Forever Young, Brilliant, and Tragic
I love Doug Kenney. I never met him, but this book and subsequent movie makes me admire and venerate him. I’ve gone from this book looking to learn and read more about National Lampoon, and hope to see more of this brilliant young man that I just read about here. A great look back on Kenney’s life and I recommend it to anyone.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- David Wolpaw
- 05-23-18
Movie was better
I bought this book because I loved the movie. Unfortunately the movie was better. The author of the book is obsessed with getting all the details right about the politics at National Lampoon. I did not find it very interesting. It is more of a history of doug and National Lampoon than an entertaining story. I recommend you see the movie and skip the book.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful