Made You Laugh!: The Funniest Moments in Radio, Television, Stand-Up, and Movie Comedy [With DVD]

by Joe Garner, Rob Reiner, Richard Pryor, et al.

Book Overview

What better way to recognize and honor America's funniest moments and greatest laugh artists than an insightful, anecdote-laden multimedia presentation that allows readers and viewers to fully... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0740746952
• ISBN13: 9780740746956
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
• Length: 194 Pages
• Weight: 2.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 9.3" x 11.3"

Customer Reviews

Yes they did...and still do!

This volume does indeed provide many of "the funniest moments in radio, television, stand-up, and movie comedy." (Obviously, no single volume could provide all of them.) Credit Garner with the quality and scope of the selections; also with the insightful commentaries which accompany an abundance of illustrations. The DVD included, indifferently co-hosted by Carl and Rob Reiner, contains mostly fragments of comedy routines. The book's material is cleverly organized within three Parts which focus on radio and television, stand-up, and movies, respectively. Garner inserts within each Part what he calls Sidebars. For example "Kings of Late Night"; "The Catskills, Casinos, and the Rise of Stand-Up"; and "Preston Sturges: Master of the Screwball Comedy." Each reader will have her or his own favorite sections, presumably determined by their favorite comedians. For me, it was a special treat to share Garner's thoughts about the historical significance of certain entertainers and directors in terms of their contributions to the creation and subsequent development of a unique art form. For example, listed in alphabetical order, Fred Allen, Roseanne Barr, Milton Berle, Lenny Bruce, Charles Chaplin, Bill Cosby, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, the Marx Brothers, Lorne Michaels, Richard Pryor, Hal Roach, Will Rogers, Jerry Seinfeld, Mack Sennett, and Billy Wilder. I also wish to praise Garner for not "getting in the way." He avoids doing so by providing a wealth of excerpts from material as it was originally performed. His focus (and ours) is always on the given subject. Among the best excerpts are the Lou Grant (Ed Asner) interview of Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) and "Classic Romantic Comedy Repartee: Love and Lust, Wit and Wisdom" excerpts from dialogue in classics such as She Done Him Wrong (1933), The Thin Man (1934), and Pillow Talk (1959). My only regret is that no index is provided. Otherwise, this is a brilliantly produced volume which, especially in combination with the DVD, preserves for generations to come so many of the funniest moments in radio, television, stand-up, and movies which would otherwise not be accessible from a single source. Thank you!

Great Stories of Great Humor

The sub-title says a lot. This is a collection of stories about comedy through the years. The list is too long to repeat here, but if it was funny: on stage, on radio, on television or in the movies, it's probably here. It's written that you don't need to sit down and go from beginning to end. You flip through and you find Richard Pryor, or Bill Murray, or here's the story of the Smothers Brothers TV show getting cancelled because of political sensitivities, immediately to be followed by Laugh In. To top it off, there's a CD, worth the price of the book by itself there's a DVD. On it, Carl and Rob Reiner present a compilation of clips from Charlie Chaplin to Jerry Lewis to Jim Carrey. This is a very good, very entertaining book. This is not a funny book. It's a book about being funny. What it does is make you remember those movies, those shows that MADE YOU LAUGH.