Five Minutes to Kill

How the HBO Young Comedians Special Changed the Lives of 1989’s Funniest Comics

By: Fred Stoller

Narrated by: Fred Stoller

My Seinfeld Year author Fred Stoller returns with a memoir about life, death, and stand-up.

In the 1980s and the 1990s, HBO’s annual Young Comedians Special was the ultimate launching pad for emerging comics looking to break into the world of show business. The Young Comedians Special produced some of the most recognizable—and bankable—comedic stars of all time, including Sam Kinison, Bob Saget, Jerry Seinfeld, and Judd Apatow. But what about the ones who didn’t exactly make it?

In Five Minutes to Kill, actor and comedian Fred Stoller—the Kindle best-selling author of 2012’s My Seinfeld Year—tells the story of the Young Comedians Special in 1989. He and five other talented, then-unknown comics took the stage with the hopes that their five-minute sets would propel them to fame and fortune. Some, like David Spade and Rob Schneider, hit it big; others didn’t. By turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, Five Minutes to Kill is the bittersweet story of what happened to six of America’s funniest people after their first big breaks.

©2017 Fred Stoller (P)2022 Fred Stoller

A Brilliant Book

This book is about much more than comedy. It's about the human condition. It's about how we all move through life and then onto the next step beyond. This is a must read for anyone at any stage of life.

A must for comedy nerds

A lot of inside baseball from a guy who was there, and one of the few who lived to tell about it.