Funny: The Book: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Comedy

By David Misch

(Applause Books). Funny: The Book is an entertaining look at the art of comedy, from its historical roots to the latest scientific findings, with diversions into the worlds of movies (Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers), television ( The Office ), prose (Woody Allen, Robert Benchley), theater ( The Front Page ), jokes and stand-up comedy (Richard Pryor, Steve Martin), as well as personal reminiscences from the author's experiences on such TV programs as Mork and Mindy . With allusions to the not-always-funny Carl Jung, George Orwell, and Arthur Koestler, Funny: The Book explores the evolution, theories, principles, and practice of comedy, as well as the psychological, philosophical, and even theological underpinnings of humor, coming to the conclusion that (Spoiler Alert!) Comedy is God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hal Leonard LLC
• Release date: Apr 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781557839657

Reviews for Funny

[abvr_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Longtime television comedy writer David Misch (How longtime? He worked on Mork and Mindy, which went off the air in 1982) turns his attention, here, to comedy in general. Among the book’s many short chapters, there are discussions of the history of comedy (from the ancient Greeks to modern stand-up), profiles of significant comedians, and explorations of comedy’s intersections with mythology, biology, philosophy and even theology. Misch is a clear, fluid writer—and, as you’d imagine, a funny one--—so all this goes down easily, but the book lacks a sense of purpose or even of organization. The chapters seem to come in random order and, despite periodic cross-references in the text, the they feel very loosely knit together. There’s no sense of a larger point being made, or of any rationale for why Misch chose some subjects and not others to write about. Even the individual chapters on specific comedians (Steve Martin, the Marx Brothers, Richard Pryor) don’t feel like comprehensive overviews so much as brief dips into their lives and work.Trying to get around the problem of including video clips of performances in an ink-on-paper book, Misch inserts numbered call-outs in the text that direct the reader to a list of links in the back of the book. Paste the link into your web browser, and you’ll see the routine that Misch is talking about in the text. It’s a brave attempt at innovation, but ultimately it doesn’t work: Having to find the relevant link and type the string of nonsense characters that make up its address into your web browser breaks concentration too much, and what would feel natural on the electronic page fails miserably on the printed one.Funny could easily have been subtitled: “A bunch of random cool stuff I found out about comedy—with added jokes.” Adjust your expectations accordingly and enjoy.