Bridesmaids Fits Easily Into Best Comedy Movies of All-Time

Bridesmaids fits easily into my list of "top 60 funniest movies" of all time, all of which are five-star classics.

The thing that stands out about it is that a buddy-girl film like this has never been attempted, or at least has never worked. Kristen Wiig shines with all the promise she has displayed in recent years on Saturday Night Live, but never fully captured at the box office.

Wiig plays the maid of honor who just isn't very good at wedding planning. The best scenes happen when the girls disgustingly pick out their wedding dresses, take a messy flight to their Vegas bachelorette party, and are entertained at Maya Rudolph's wedding by a certain female trio from the 90s.

Melissa McCarthy as Megan is a highlight as the chunky and spunky sister of the groom. She's full of bad ideas, like when she flirts in flight with an air marshall (played by her real-life husband). Jon Hamm, Mad Men's Don Draper, is also delectable in a different kind of sleazy way from his TV character.

***** out of ***** stars

Great Newspaper Reads: Eddie Murphy makes #2 on my list of favorite Saturday Night Live players

In honor of Eddie Murphy’s upcoming Netflix movie Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, The New York Times makes him this subject of The Interview this weekend.

Here are the highlights:

• When Murphy joined Saturday Night Live in 1980, the show was thought to be on the verge of cancellation. His memorable characters like Mr. Robinson, Gumby, Mr. White, Buckwheat, and James Brown contributed significantly to making me a life-long SNL fan.
• Murphy knew around age 13 or 14 that he would become famous.
• 1987’s Eddie Murphy: Raw remains the top-grossing standup-comedy movie ever.
• His look in that movie and also what he wore everywhere around that time was influenced by Elvis.
• He met Richard Pryor on a plane and gave him a cassette of his first album. Sitting a few rows away, he could see the back of Pryor’s head and that he was laughing. “I could have died right there,” he says.
• Murphy says he’s never seen a better comic than Pryor or a better actor than Charlie Chaplin.
• Most people likely know him from his movies, although SNL is by far his high water mark for me. That said, Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs. are classic comedies. 
• After 48 Hrs., Marlon Brando called to see if Murphy would have dinner with him. Brando told him acting was bullshit and that anyone could do it, naming “that kid” Clint Eastwood - one of my all-time favorites - as someone he couldn’t stand.
• He doesn’t drink and he turned down participating when Robin Williams and John Belushi would hang out with him while doing coke. Murphy said he smoked weed but not that much and not until his first time at age 30.
• He thought there was plenty of racism directed against him over the years. One that he points out in the interview is when David Spade made a reference on SNL to Murphy’s career being in free fall. Murphy said hearing that from his own people at the show was a cheap shot and somewhat racist. That said, he’s cool these days with Spade and SNL mastermind Loren Michaels.
• He calls Pluto Nash his worst movie.
• He describes himself as so out of touch these days that he can’t even name a single Taylor Swift song.
• His ideal day sounds a lot like mine: sit around and not do much other than play guitar and hear the kids somewhere playing around. 

Not an easy task, but I'll add my all-time 10 favorite SNL cast members (not based on what else they have done in the careers, just based off their SNL output):

10. Gilda Radner

09. Mike Myers

08. Will Ferrell

07. Steve Martin (regular guest)

06. Adam Sandler

05. Bill Murray

04. Martin Short

03. Chevy Chase (with just one season!)

02. Eddie Murphy

01. Chris Farley

Bottoms reaches comedy-weird deep to become the new Wet Hot American Summer

Have you ever wondered what high school might be like if everyone said out loud exactly what everyone was thinking? 

No? Me neither. But that doesn’t stop Bottoms, on Amazon Prime, from trying to tell such a story. And it's a pretty outrageous coming-of-age, high-school movie.

Fans of The Bear who are sick of waiting for Season 3 later this summer will especially want to enjoy Ayo Edebiri's performance as a loser lesbian supposedly fresh out of juvie. Her comedy timing and facial gestures are every bit as strong here as in her TV smash hit.

Rachel Sennott co-stars as a wackier version of the same character she played in 2021's Shiva Baby (which isn't surprising since Emma Seligman directed both films; that one was good but this one is better). 

Perhaps best of all is teacher Marshawn Lynch of pro-football fame as a lazy and porn-distracted teacher who agrees to sponsor the girls' fight club as a way to protect themselves from the nasty and unually effeminate football jocks. The girls are able to get the club going under the guise of female empowerment, but, in true dirty-teen-comedy form, all they really start it for is to have a chance at sex with cheerleaders.

I was trying to put my finger on what this film reminded me about, but then I read a Seligman quote in which she described Bottoms as a "campy queer high-school comedy in the vein of Wet Hot American Summer but more for a Gen-Z queer audience." 

Anything described to be like Wet Hot American Summer (my 34th favorite movie of all time), count me. 

4.5 out of 5 stars

Palm Royale season 1 has Kristen Wiig comedically busting into country-club society

Kristen Wiig has had a disastrous run since her wildly hilarious days at Saturday Night Live. OK, Bridesmaids is a classic. And granted, she played strong bit parts in Anchorman 2, Extract, Adventureland, and MacGruber. But super stinkers have included The Skeleton Twins, Date Night, and Friends with Kids.

The lowest of lows arrived with her last production, which I was initially pretty excited about. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar was excrement stinkier than whatever would be considered the worst of Adam Sandler (who I love of course).

But Wiig's got a winner with the 10-episode first season of Palm Royale on Apple TV. I thought I would give it a try for a couple episodes but ended up binging the period piece, which bursts with color straight out of 1969 Florida. 

Looking like somewhat of a grown-up Marcia Brady. Wiig grifts her way into country-club society in elite Palm Beach, battling the strong forces of Ricky Martin, Josh Lucas (who I fondly recall hot tubbing with at his sister's wedding), Allison Janney, Bruce and Laura Dern, and many others (including Natalie of Facts of Life).

The story is totally wacky but has several strong Agatha Christy-ish storylines, not least the one involving a mostly comatose Carol Burnett. The show's design is as strong as that of Mad Men, which is saying a lot.

The final episode ends on a major cliffhanger, which would suggest a season 2 is on the way. Critics were not super kind to the show, but I think it's one of the better comedies I've seen over the past year (perhaps an admittedly low bar). The zany plotlines about a beached whale, Richard Nixon, a prince, an astronaut, and Wiig's Maxine being stranded in the middle of the ocean are creative and entertaining.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Woody Allen still has the brilliant absurdist-essayist touch

When I was younger, I frequently turned to Woody Allen’s comedy collections Getting Even, Without Feathers, and Side Effects (I haven’t read 2007’s Mere Anarchy) for comedic and writing inspiration. These are admittedly more complicated to turn to since the film legend’s personal controversies, but I was interested to at least see if he still has the same sociologically insightful magic, so I dug into his latest collection - from 2022 - called Zero Gravity.

Daphne Merkin, a writer for The New Yorker, offers an introduction that takes us down the memory lane of some of the “cerebral jokester’s” best lines. She notes that the collection includes 19 pieces, one of which is a 50-page short story called “Growing Up in New York” that is appearing for the first time. To see if I want to read the entire collection, let’s start with a report on the first four stories.

“You Can’t Go Home Again - And Here’s Why:” The narrator, a big-time mineral trader, gets a letter that a movie company would like to film at his house. The housekeeper and wife are excited by this prospect but the trader doesn’t want to endanger any of his beloved things - first-edition books and Chinese vases and whatnot. He gives in when the director promises him a major part. Away the production goes and, although they have promised not to disturb his shrine, they indeed massively transform it into a Muslim brothel, with the couple's furniture “stacked haphazardly outside on the curb despite some rather heavy rain.” Sure enough, playing a character named Grimalkin, the trader appears in the movie, but as a dead body, then the crew quickly wraps up and assures the trader that he and the housekeeper can put the house back in order nicely. There are lots of improbable laughs in this one, but be sure to have a dictionary handy. Not far from classic Allen. 4 out of 5 stars

“Udder Madness:” This story leads off with an excerpt from the newspaper about how 20 people are killed each year by cows, with most of them happening when the cow purposely kills the person. The story is then told from a cow’s perspective. The lyricist of a Broadway musical comes to his New Jersey farm to relax. The narrator cow comes to despise the man and decides he will kill him. He’s just about to do so when his tail is caught in a closet door. The man looks up at the sound of "moo" and tries to spray the cow with his mace, but the mace sprays into his own face. The man does not die but he is taken away to be institutionalized, as he endlessly babbles “something about attempted homicide by a Hereford.” This one is not Earth-shaking, but it is creative and so darn ridiculous that it at least gets 4 out of 5 stars

“Park Avenue, High Floor, Must Sell - Or Jump:” This one I just don’t get. It seems to be an inside joke for rich people and their real-estate agents trying to sell properties. Not good at all. 1 out of 5 stars

“Buffalo Wings, Woncha Come Out Tonight:” This story brings Allen back to the animals. Actor Harvey Grossweiner gets a call from his agent about a job entertaining chickens at “a poultry farm a good three hours from Rodeo Drive. The owner, Al Capon, a small-time egg baron whose fortunes rose and fell with every new study on cholesterol” hires Harvey to entertain his chickens, who don’t produce enough eggs if they’re bored. Lots of fowl jokes ensue as Harvey just can’t get the chickens to care, but finally he has the idea to teach them to type. At first everything is gibberish, but soon they are writing award-winning scripts and Harvey quits acting to be the leader of the Broadway Hen House. I still haven’t found anything in new Woody Allen to match some of his master classes in essay writing deom the 1960s and 1970s, but this is an absurd blast. 4 out of 5 stars

Despite "Park Avenue," the verdict is in that this is a collection - when you're in need of total intellectual wackiness - worth reading in full.

How Steve Martin became (and stayed) a titan of comedy

Steve Martin was around 10 when he realized that, even though he didn’t have a talent, he wanted to be on stage. His workaround was to learn magic tricks and say “welcome ladies and gentlemen.” Voila, that put him in show business, and the rest is history ... at least as told in Apple TV+'s new, three-hour documentary STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces.

About that same time, young Steve started a job at Disneyland and his childhood from there was as happy as could be, at least outside his house. His dad was a jerk, and Martin came to the realization later in life that his dad had just not been that good of a person. 

Anyway, he eventually realized that magic was a bit of a dead end but comedy might not be. He met a girl who helped convince him to find the meaning of life and to find himself, and he started going to Long Beach State to study philosophy. 

He discovered he wanted to find “real laughter … like the kind you have with your friends.” Bob Hope and others built up the tension then released it with punchlines. but Martin thought real laughter could come more from building up the tension and not releasing it. The audience would have to pick their own places that made them laugh. 

He transferred to UCLA and took advanced logic then began having new experiences: travelling across the country and also dating a girl whose family was fun-loving in all the ways his own family wasn’t. 

As he aged a little more, he looked like someone from the Eagles then decided to shave his beard, lose his country outfits, and create a new look for a new future. He began opening for his friends in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, as well as lots of other bands, from The Carpenters to Black Oak Arkansas. 

He thought the 500-person venues were too hostile and started headlining his own shows in front of 40 people or so, and it worked. He was killing it with college audience but fell flat to older adults in a week-long run at the Playboy Club in San Francisco. He decided his comedy needed to appear in weird places. 

By 1975, Martin was in his early 30s and thought he was flying the flag for the new world of comedy. Then he saw something come onto TV called Saturday Night Live and worried. But fortunately he became a regular guest on SNL and by the time he retired what could be called his 1970s classic standup act, in 1980, he had become the biggest standup comedian in history.

There isn’t much about 1979’s The Jerk in the documentary, other than that his dad didn’t give it the time of day. I would’ve liked more focus on that (The Jerk is my 21st favorite comedy movie of all-time) and his other best films The Man With Two Brains and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (my 49th favorite). 

Perhaps he doesn't include much about any one of his movies because he says his stand-up career had a beginning, middle, and end, but with movies, they are each like little anecdotes rather than full chapters of a book. In fact, one of his hobbies detailed in the doc is creating dialogue for comic strips that a friend then draws. Many of those are about the anecdotes from and of his films.

There are also stories about his other hobbies, which include having dogs and collecting paintings. And finally, the doc covers his relationship with comedy buddy Martin Short and his wife Anne Stringfield, whom he met when she was fact checking his writing for The New Yorker.

I especially enjoyed the stories in the documentary from his childhood and coming of age in the comedy scene. Listening to his records, reading his short-essay collections, and seeing Martin on SNL were among my fondest childhood memories. His life was long overdue for a telling in this format, although the documentary could have been tightened up just a little bit.

4 out of 5 stars

RIP Golden Richards and more

For me, Golden Richards was the epitome of the pretty-boy Dallas Cowboys of the 1970s. I also think Richards, the talented wide receiver who passed away in Utah this week at the age of 73, played a role in helping my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers become the team of that decade.

Seems like a funny thing to say, right, about someone who caught a total of zero catches in the four Super Bowls the Steelers won, and the Cowboys were the victims in two of those championships? 

Let me explain. Richards' best years were 1974 through 1976, when he consistently averaged about 450 yards and four touchdowns per season. Not bad for the pre-fantasy, pre-pass-happy NFL. But even though the Cowboys made the playoffs all four seasons from 1974 to 1977, he didn't catch any passes in two of those four playoff runs. 

Richards had a good playoff stretch in the 1975 season, but didn't have any catches in the loss to the Steelers in Super Bowl X. His Cowboys won Super Bowl XII against Denver, and Richards had his career highlight in that game, catching a fourth-quarter, 29-yard touchdown pass from fullback Robert Newhouse. 

Early the next season, Tony Hill essentially took Richards' job and the golden one was traded to the Chicago Bears. A few months later, the Cowboys lost Super Bowl XIII to the Steelers.

Hence, Golden Richards played a bit of a role in helping the Steelers become so dominant. For that, I will always be grateful.

It's been a tough week in the obituary department:

Comedian Richard Lewis, who has been a valuable contributor to Curb Your Enthusiasm, died at age 76 of a heart attack.

Jose DeLeón was one of my favorite St. Louis Cardinals for a while, especially in 1999 when he led the National League with 201 strikeouts. He finished with a career record of 86-119, but he was an electric and entertaining performer much of the time. He passed away from cancer at age 63 in his native Dominican Republic.

Exploring our Hawaii obsession with comedian Sarah Vowell

I've written quite a bit on my obsession with getting to Hawaii someday. And I've started (but never finished) many times reading James Michener's epic Hawaii. Well, I finally found a better option than spending three months on that tome: hilarious comedian Sarah Vowell's 2011 book Unfamiliar Fishes. Along with being funny, she is a true history scholar with an impressive collection of books authored, including this one on how Hawaii came to be a mishmashed U.S. state. Along with the "lunch plates" that contain a little bit of many cultures, there are plenty of other things imported to Hawaii that make Hawaii Hawaii, such as their famous Banyan trees, which came from India.

It’s only two pages in before Vowell mentions the Brady Bunch, which I firmly believe gives the place a good bit of its allure, after the classic multipart series when the TV family visits Hawaii. What a tourism initiative that was! Vowell says the concrete high rises that starting springing up after 1959 give downtown Honolulu a “Very Brady brutalism.”

Hawaii really became what it is now when the 25th U.S. President William McKinley invaded Spanish-speaking colonies Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and acquired Hawaii, mainly so they could all become bases for attacking other parts of the world when deemed necessary.

Hawaii, after having been annexed to the U.S. in 1898 became a state in 1959, even though there are still many native Hawaiians who think it’s ridiculous to call them Americans, as it kind of is.

Going back to 1776, Vowell details how Hawaiians killed British explorer Captain Cook, who had tried to kidnap the high chief, but not before Cook’s sailors spread venereal diseases left and right to the islanders.

From all this at the promising start of the book, Vowell veers down some arguably uninteresting and sidewinding paths on the early colonizing missionaries. That said, to the credit of and with the help of the missionaries, between 1822 and the end of their operations in 1863, the Hawaiian people … went from having no written language to 75 percent of all Hawaiians learning to read and write in the native language.” It had become one of the most literate places in the world.

Another element of this time had to do with the whale ships based out of New England and elsewhere that were killing thousands of whales for the many resources, including ship oil, that could be harbored from them. Luckily for the whales, they were able to not go completely extinct because “the whole world was about to go ape for fossil fuels” and the “Pennsylvania petroleum boom of the 1860s slowed down sperm whales’ extinction.” This wouldn’t hurt Hawaii’s economy much because sugar cane was filling the gaps.

I’ve only made it through the first half of Unfamiliar Fishes, but I’ll likely return to it because I’m intrigued to see what Vowell finds in Hawaii’s more modern history.

So far, I give the book 3.5 out of 5 stars. 

MAD Magazine takes a look at classic TV sitcoms of the 1970s

MAD About TV is a top-notch 1999 collection of TV spoofs from MAD Magazine. Here I’m reviewing the takeoffs on All in the Family, Columbo (side note: I just re-watched an episode and it very much stands the test of time, tons of suspense and great 1970s acting), The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and M*A*S*H.

“Gall in the Family Fare” riffs on how offensive and vulgar Starchie Bunkerhill is, and MAD pushes the envelope in terms of racist, offensive words used in the bit to portray the lead character in this, from the magazine’s “Little Bigot Man Dept.” Starchie’s old war buddy, Dolf, visits and it goes so well that network executives show up to offer him his own spinoff show. Instead of Edith, her name is Meathead. And she offers the same zany dingbat observations as usual, blind to Starchie's bigotry, and simply wanting to go out for a movie date. Gloriosky and Meek are the liberal kids who wonder why they live with such a racist. The Brady Bunch kids also stop by briefly, asking if anyone is up for a pillow fight before realizing they’re at the wrong house. 5 out of 5 stars (like the offensive and important show itself).

“Clodumbo” focuses on the 1970s TV detective’s knack for wearing his tan coat no matter how hot it may be and also his rambling lack of focus. He badgers an innocent doctor so relentlessly that the doc finally admits to the murder in order to get locked up, get some peace and quiet, and get away from the badgering Clodumbo. Like with all these stories, the artwork is nothing short of amazing and the story is pretty hilarious too. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

“The Mary Tailor-Made Show” riffs on the fact that, despite the program being about the workings at a TV news organization, there never seemed to be any reporters (other than anchor Ted Baxter, played by Ted Knight) reporting the news. Mr. Grunt bosses Mary around to do lots of important jobs like dusting off his bottle so he can start drinking in between her frequent wardrobe changes that might be a little unrealistic for a “$92-per-week office flunky.” The men of the newsroom gawk at Mary’s looks in super creepy ways that make me want to go back and rewatch some episodes to see if it was really that perverted. 5 out of 5 stars.

“M*A*S*H*UGA” is what it might mean in Yiddish to think something so foolish as “war is a heck of a lot of fun.” Spoofing this classic sitcom is tough to do and this is the weakest of these four. Cockeye and Crapper joke their way through operating on their patients and act even more reprehensible to women than in the actual show. They are both miserable and want out of their TV contract even more than out of the Korean War itself. 4 out of 5 stars.

Looking back at Curb Your Enthusiasm's Season 7 Seinfeld reunion

I gobbled up the first six seasons of Curb Your Enthusiam, which ran from 2000 to 2007 on HBO. For some reason, I never returned to the show, which is now up to a whopping 12 seasons. So I binged season 7 - highlighted by its storyline of a Seinfeld reunion - over the past couple of weeks. I'm happy to find that Larry David's character Larry is just as obnoxious as ever, bordering on a modern-day Archie Bunker. Here's my recap of the season, which has at least three episodes (1, 3, and 10) that could be part of the Curb greatest-hits collection.

In Episode 1, Larry confronts the possibility of having to take care of his girlfriend who is diagnosed with cancer. The doctor says there won’t even be any time for golf in his schedule, which leads Larry to brainstorm ways to get out of the relationship. When Larry bumps into the doctor and his boyfriend at a party, Larry is taken aback by the doctor being gay and tells the boyfriend, “You seem slightly gay." Then there’s guest star Catherine O’Hara playing Bam Bam, his friend Funkhouser’s sister, who has just been released from an asylum, has sex with Larry's best friend Jeff, and then goes around singing “I love the fat boy” around Jeff’s wife. This episode really sets the scene for the season when Larry bumps into his ex-wife Cheryl, sparks rekindle a bit, and she says she misses him and could maybe handle “three hours of Larry” per day like back when he was working on Seinfeld and wasn’t home with her all day. 5 out of 5 stars

In Episode 2, it takes a running gag about blow jobs in cars to finally end Larry’s relationship with his cancer-stricken girlfriend, played likeably by Vivica A. Fox. The fact that she is so likeable makes Larry’s game to end the relationship over her cancer all the more despicable. 4 out of 5 stars.

In Episode 3, “tippers are solo” is one of the classic lines as Larry proposes a Seinfeld reunion for all the wrong reasons - mainly so he can offer the role of George's ex-wife to Cheryl in order to win her back. It seems very unclear whether the reunion will happen after Larry tells off the head of NBC for giving him cruddy Lakers’ tickets. Along with the Seinfeld gang, Meg Ryan guest stars as - uh oh - George’s potential TV ex-wife. 5 out of 5 stars.

Episode 4 sees Larry going to Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen’s anniversary party. He tells Christian Slater that he's taking too much caviar then interrupts Jeff’s daughter’s gift to Ted and Mary of a serenade of “You’re Just Too Good to Be True." His bad karma builds up - including for criticizing a man on a plane for wearing shorts - and he gets beaten up for dating a woman with a boyfriend. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

In Episode 5, Larry stumbled into dating a woman in a wheelchair named Denise, gets in fights with Rosie O’Donnell, and ends up having Denise and another woman in a wheelchair chasing him around a friend’s sophisticated party. Not as many laughs as usual but the depths Larry goes to are spellbinding. 4 out of 5 stars

Episode 6 sees Larry deciding to fire Jerry Seinfeld’s assistant because the midriff shirts she wears show too much of her flabby belly. But Julia Louis-Dreyfus says he has to hire her back because the woman’s mom is suicidal. That mom is the hilariously wacky highlight of this episode, which almost sees the mom/daughter duo heading out for a cross-country tour to spread the Jesus gospel. Instead, Larry is the one they save, with the help of the woman’s afore-mentioned love handles. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Episode 7 is my least favorite of the season. Larry kills a black swan that is possibly attacking him on the golf course, which leads to his gang being nearly kicked out of the club. As usual, there are a handful of belly laughs, but this one is inessential. 3 out of 5 stars.

Episode 8 brings Larry to Banana Republic, where a fire drill sends him outside without his own pants, instead he's wearing unpurchased ones he was trying on and still have the security tags. This is mixed with a storyline in which Jeff’s wife finds women’s panties in Jeff’s glovebox. So Jeff convinces Larry to tell her that they’re his and he likes to wear women’s panties. It’s a funny episode and even includes Larry yelling at kids selling lemonade that he doesn’t like. 4.5 out of 5 stars

Episode 9 features the classic line “how’s her p—sy?" Cheryl by now has won the part of George’s ex-wife and the Seinfeld reunion table read happens. George’s pen troubles with Larry and Larry’s troubles with a nine-year-old daughter of one of his crew lead the funny storylines, with Kramer’s disease and his play off Michael Richards’ real-life race troubles don’t work as well. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Episode 10 More memorable lines cascade out of this episode, including “busy with your beans” and “do you respect wood?” While Larry gets very close to possibly getting Cheryl back, the Seinfeld reunion ends magically (unlike the end of the original show, which many people didn't like). This one is a must-watch as a landmark in both Curb and Seinfeld’s histories, at the very least. 5 out of 5 stars.

Jon Stewart proved he could play in the same league as Steve Martin and Woody Allen

Jon Stewart’s Naked Pictures of Famous People has been sitting on my bookshelf unread for many years, alongside some of my favorite comedy essay collections by the likes of Woody Allen and Steve Martin. It was time to finally read the 1998 book. Here are my brief thoughts on each piece; most of which you could read while taking a bathroom break.

Breakfast at Kennedys imagines what would happen if the Jewish narrator went to the Kennedy compound, which ends up being a strange mishmash of the Kennedy compound, a concentration camp, and a carnival.  Seems Stewart is just getting warmed up on this wacky tale. 4 out of 5 stars.

A Very Hanson Christmas, 1996-1999 details the letters of the Hanson band's mom, who shifts radically from being a loving Christian into an anti-abortion mama to a schizophrenic with a fear of all things in the world. The glimpse into 1990s superstardom in Oklahoma is a highlight of the collection. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

While many of the tapes were "recorded over with Grateful Dead bootlegs," Lack of Power: The Ford Tapes presents a look into the bumbling Gerald Ford presidency. 4 out of 5 stars.

Martha Stewart’s Vagina starts out really funny as a take on keeping care of one’s private parts. But the second half goes a little too far as the essay suggest setting up an office in one’s vagina as a real possibility. 3 out of 5 stars.

The New Judaism is a great light-hearted review of the differences between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism and the direction the the religion should go if it has learned from history. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Pen Pals is the best story in the collection, offering the correspondence between Mother Theresa and a very obnoxious Princess Diana. 5 out of 5 stars.

Local News is a brief report on the Taco Bell chihuahua being killed in a bar fight. Minor at best. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

The Last Supper is a reimagining of Jesus and his frat pals getting a last meal in at a place called Jerry’s, except the employees aren't too keen on helping them very quickly. Pretty hilarious stuff. Jesus in this story, he’s, well, alright. Hilarious stuff. 5 out of 5 stars.

Things get a little forgettable in the middle of the collection. Da Vinci: The Lost Notebook and The Cult are filler.

Five Under Five is an amusing take on the increasingly silly lists of people - whether they are 40 under 40 senior aides or 60 over 60 parking attendants - that nearly every magazine and website seem to regularly feature, especially back when magazines were still a thing. 4 out of 5 stars.

The Recipe: Inside joke? I don't really get it, but just in case I someday might, I rank it "Incomplete." 

The Devil and William Gates is a sci-fi tale told from many generations in the future, in a look back at an incident in 1975 that happened to the future and now former World CEO. At that time, Gates sold his soul to the devil, but when he comes to collect 25 years later, Gates defeats the Devil with a small loophole and the world carries on. 2.5 out of 5 stars. 

Vincent and Theo on AOL proves that we were already dumb in 1998, as Van Gogh steps into a handful of chat rooms, pontificating on various intellectual matters of importance, only to be inundated with misspelled comments about Viagra, old creepy men pretending to be horny young women, and the Hanson brothers. By the end, Vincent decides to give up painting and attend DeVry. Inane but poignant. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold: A man has been planning bad things to unleash on his former classmates at his 30-year reunion. But when he arrives, most attendees are doing revengeful things and only a few are there for good-time reuniting. A strange tale that doesn’t quite work. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Adolph Hitler: The Larry King Interview is every bit as entertaining as it sounds. Another classic from this book. Hitler says he did it because he was bullied and only had one testical. He said he wanted to stop at Czechoslovakia but then Poland was right up the road and he couldn’t stop. He says he killed Eva Braun in the bunker and escaped wearing her clothes. He chalks up his killing of many of his best scientists - in his aim to perfect the races - as his own classic fear of success and sabotage of himself. Great idea for a short story and funny stuff. 5 out of 5 stars.

Lenny Bruce: The Making of a Sitcom offers an hilarious string of letters from ABC executives to comedian Lenny Bruce in 1961 as they attempt to iron out the plot of a sitcom starring the highly controversial comic. It’s as if Seinfeld were the demon while getting his show launched. Needless to say, the ideas from both camps diverge greatly, until ABC eventually rejects Bruce altogether shortly before CBS picks up the script and calls it The Dick Van Dyke Show. 4 out of 5 stars.

The book ends with Microsoft Word ‘98 Suggested Spelling and Usage, which is a bit of a relic of the early internet age. That said, think of how easy it can be to misspell or for spellcheck to mess up your words while texting, and this essay still resonates. Stewart spellchecks words he has used earlier in the book and it seems he has outsmarted the computers. 4 out of 5 stars.

RIP Lacey Underall

When I was a kid, my friends and I watched Caddyshack over and over again. We must have watched it 10 times at my friend Dewey's house alone. Sure, Chevy Chase, Ted Knight, Bill Murray, and Rodney Dangerfield were the main draws. But there's no doubt Cindy Morgan, who died recently in Florida at the age of 69, played a role in bringing us back to our repeat viewings of the classic 1980 comedy.

I have to admit I haven't thought of her name as an actor in a very long time, if hardly ever at all. But I've never forgotten her character's name. As the niece of the stuffy and out-of-touch Judge Smails (Knight), Lacey Underall struts around Bushwood Country Club with an air of youthful freshness and dangerous (at least to the judge and his friends) sex appeal. Of course the judge would never suspect his perfect niece of being the wild child he eventually discovers her to be. Some of her scenes are the most iconic ones from the movie: emerging from the pool in her white bikini, verbally sparring with new-age golfer Ty Webb (Chase), and the flings and flirtations she has with young Danny and others at the club.

Legacy.com quoted Morgan: “We were absolutely having the best time possible. It was a challenge certainly working with four of the funniest men on the planet, and there was quite of bit of improvisation. It was the longest and best party I’ve ever attended.”

I was never much of a fan of her biggest other role, Tron, but many people share an equal amount of praise for that Jeff Bridges' flick as I do for Caddyshack.

This Fool strikes comedy gold in South Central L.A.

Everyone is rightfully talking about The Bear (including me). But they should also be talking about Hulu’s amazingly hilarious This Fool, about a kid who grows up on the straight and narrow in South Central L.A., then as a grownup still lives at home helping operate an unorthodox rehab center calls Hugs Not Thugs for ex-cons.

With a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it truly is surprising that not enough people seem to watch or even know about This Fool. I have yet to watch the 10 episodes of Season 2, but the 10-episode first season is as close to perfect as TV gets. Chris Estrada is the mastermind. Working at a warehouse and as a stand-up comic, he developed the show (mainly about how we love our family and friends but also how they drive us nuts) and Hulu bought it, with Fred Armisen later recognizing the brilliance and executive producing the series and starring in some episodes as a rich freak who might help fund Hugs Not Thugs.

Estrada, as Julio, begins the show going to prison to pick up the just-released cousin who bullied him as a kid. The cousin is wacky Luis, played lovingly by Frankie Quiñones, a comedian who previously gained some acclaim for his Jane-Fonda-for-gang-members web series Cholofit.

Some of Season 1's highlights include episode 2 when Luis gathers a group of ex gangsters to (try to) get in a fight, episode 4 in which Julio tries to avoid his birthday and can't shake his feelings for ex-girlfirend Maggie (also played excellently by Michelle Ortiz), and episode 9 when the head of Hugs Not Thugs - Minister Payne (in a cult-leader-like offbeat performance from Michael Imperioli of Sopranos and The White Lotus fame) - is caught up in some awkward situations with the potential rich funders of his non profit.

Do yourself a big favor and get on board with This Fool.

Season 1: 5 out of 5 stars

Unstable Season 1 is a very funny quick watch from Rob Lowe

I’ve been a big fan of Rob Lowe’s podcast Literally! for a while now. He's a funny and likeable actor who has lots of famous friends and his discussions with them are always insightful. 

So I figured his new show on Netflix, Unstable, had to be great as well. And it is.

Lowe plays the CEO of a sustainable plastics company also working on trying to capture carbon pollution into cement and his wife of 30 years has recently died, putting him and his son in fragile mindsets. He successfully gets his son to give up the music lessons he’s teaching in New York City and move back to L.A. to work as one his scientists.

The father-son relationship takes center stage, but there are several other funny interactions taking place throughout the quick-to-watch, eight-episode first season. Anna (Sian Clifford) tries to keep Lowe's company, called Dragon (his character's name is Ellis Dragon), together while its owner falls apart with a litany of eccentricities. One of my favorites is when he attempts to become a chainsaw-wielding tree trimmer. Ruby (Emma Ferreira) and Luna (Rachel Marsh) are hilarious working in the lab. And John Owen Lowe is pretty much the epitomy of his dad and is caught in the middle of everyone. Oh, and of course Fred Armisen keeps showing up in possibly even-more-bizarre-than-usual fashion.

I recommend Unstable for a wide audience demographic. For one, these episodes are barely 20 minutes each, which makes for a thankfully brief commitment compared to much of today's must-see-TV. And for another, it's one of the best comedies available on Netflix.

4 out of 5 stars

Wilson is a must-read graphic novel about a pathetic, yet perceptive, anti-hero

Wilson is a balding, bespectacled little man who walks his dog around Oakland, making observations about jerks with their ridiculously over-sized trucks, his confusion about why his parents used to often stare at the ocean for long periods of time, and jerks who don’t tell him his dog is cute.

He’s pathetic as can be, but somehow he’s relatable and funny. Definitely observant from his own perspective. I love it when he calls bullshit on equity managers and I.T. dudes who can’t seem to speak clearly about how they see and fit into the world.

Although the panels of this 2010 graphic-novel collection, beautifully illustrated with colors popping from Ghost World author Daniel Clowes, appear at first to not tell a running storyline, we learn a little ways in that they are indeed. Wilson heads by airplane and shuttle to see his dad, dying of cancer in a hospital as he is condescended to by a nurse who can’t believe he won’t eat his ice cream while Wilson informs the nurse his dad was a lit professor at Columbia.

Wilson regrets his life. He didn’t know enough about his parents. His wife left him years ago. He misses how good he had it as a child. His regrets lead him back to find his now “hooker” ex-wife Pippi. He also hires an investigator named Boggie - not Bogey - to find his given-up-for-adoption daughter.

For lovers of graphic novels, this is a must read. (It was also turned into a 2017 film with Woody Harrelson as Wilson. I don't know if that's any good but it's available on streaming services.)

5 out of 5 stars

Old Dads offers Bill Burr’s podcast in movie form

There aren’t too many people who I could listen to for about 90 minutes each week just ramble about sports, life, self help, comedy tours, and whatever else strikes him. But I do that with Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast, which airs Mondays (about an hour) and Thursdays (about a half hour, "he's just checking in on us"), and is an absolute hoot.

Burr has had minor acting roles in Breaking Bad, Outer Banks, The King of Staten Island, and plenty more, but he’s largely a stand-up comedian. But now Netflix has given him his star vehicle, a comedy he wrote and stars in called Old Dads. 

Fans of the podcast will recognize the themes. He and two of his fifty-ish buddies (played hilariously by Bobby Cannavale and Bokeem Woodbine) get wake-up calls that their respective anger, being scared of the wife, and failing to commit are personal traits that have to end. It takes a Hangover-like trip to a casino and strip club outside L.A. (they had originally set off for Vegas but it was too far for the old achy guys) to finally help the fellas make sense of the way they should be living their lives. The Uber ride back with driver Bruce Dern may or may not help too.

Old Dads has an Adam Sandler vibe to it, but it is also thoroughly Burr. If you don’t know this guy, you should check out his comedy. To me, he’s the best there is right now. 

4 out of 5 stars

RIP Suzanne Somers

In my tweens, one of my very favorite things was ABC's Tuesday-night lineup. I watched Happy Days at 7 Central, Laverne and Shirley at 7:30, Three's Company at 8, sometimes I took a break during Too Close for Comfort at 8:30, then my mom and I finished the evening with Hart to Hart.

Arguably the highlight each week would be the nutball situations Jack, Janet, and blonde-haired Chrissy Snow would get into at or near their Santa Monica, California apartment. Suzanne Somers, who played Chrissy, died Sunday at 77 of breast cancer in Palm Springs.

Really oddly, I got a Regal Beagle (the restaurant/bar frequented in the show) t-shirt from my brother-in-law and sister-in-law just hours before getting a breaking-news alert about her passing. She died a day before her birthday (she and I shared a birthday, October 16).

Somers ditzy persona was mesmerizing and hilarious, but in truth she was a powerhouse, getting fired from the show for demanding the same pay as John Ritter (she was getting $30,000 per episode and he was receiving $150,000) and later becoming a successful business leader, especially with the ThighMaster excercise product that she seemed to endlessly be hawking in TV infomercials.

I'll always fondly remmber her many so-dumb-they're-hilarious lines, like ""Eat your salad before it gets cold" and, when the landlord Mr. Roper showed up the shampoo the trio's rug, she asked, "Why? Does it have dandruff?"

Great Magazine Reads: Remembering School of Rock 20 years later

The perfect storm for a great comedy, in my book, mixes how touching a film is, hilarity, and a great soundtrack. That’s probably why School of Rock landed at #16 on my top 60 funniest movies ever list.

Rolling Stone has a great oral history of the film in its latest issue, celebrating a look back at the 2003 classic, which was clearly Jack Black’s crowning achievement. Here are some of my favorite insights from the article:

• Director Richard Linklater’s film made about $20 million, which was the record for music-themed comedies at the time. It’s aged very well and has been a huge net good for society as real schools of rock have proliferated since then.
• The screenplay was written by one Mike White, who not only co-starred in School but also went on to create the must-watch TV show The White Lotus. Black says of White, “He just made me laugh so much. I was always fascinated by his strange magic.”
• Linklater, already a hot commodity from Slackers and Dazed and Confused, didn’t want to direct the movie because he thought it was cheesy, unrealistic (all that noise in a classroom?), and formulaic, but “Black, Linklater, and White all met up at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles to discuss the script.” It turned out that Linklater and White didn’t get along, so that was another hurdle at the start.
• Linklater, as he famously does, picked a cast of kids that were not necessarily even child actors, but he did want ones who could sing and play instruments.
• At first, Black was nervous about working with kids. He says, “In retrospect, it seems ridiculous because I’m such an immature idiot that it was a perfect match to be with a bunch of kids. We had a blast — horsing around and making jokes and making fart noises in between takes.”
• Linklater had to fire one kid a week into shooting because he was complaining of not having a big enough part, but there was no room for egos when the rock was needing to be delivered!
• Sonic Youth’s Jim O’Rourke was brought in to be the music consultant and started the kids off working on simple songs, like Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane.”
• “The character of Summer was not a great singer, but [the actor] was. O’Rourke had to teach her how to mangle an off-key ‘Memories’ from Cats.”
• Linklater had tried to get the rights for a Led Zeppelin song for Dazed but was unsuccessful. This time, he had Black and the kids make a video pleading for them to be able to use “Immigrant Song” and it actually got the band’s attention and worked!
• Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, the Osbournes, and the Jackass guys inspired some of the kids to put Jack in their Cokes at the film’s L.A. premiere.
• The kids still have a group text called Schnayblay.
• Kevin Clark, who played Freddy the drummer, died in 2021 when a driver hit him while he was riding his bike. “In his last few years, he had been teaching at a School of Rock.”
• Black now says, “… That character with the love of rock and not really fitting in the world of rock … it does mirror my experience with the entertainment industry. It felt like the planets aligned and I got to do the movie that I was born to do.”

Business Insider also has a good roundup of what the kids have been up to since School of Rock.

Al Michaels shows why SmartLess is probably the best podcast

Al Michaels is a master class in sports journalism. And SmartLess is a master class in comedic and heartwarming podcasts. The two collided when Michaels was recently a guest on the show, which I consider a must-listen podcast every week.

But Michaels was filled with juicy nuggets of sports history and behind-the-scenes antics of sports journalists. I highly recommend you listen to this episode if you are at all a fan of sports. It makes it pretty clear to me why he's my favorite sports commentator these days.

And Jason Bateman and Will Arnett are a couple of my favorite comedians/actors. Round that out with co-host Sean Hayes and you always have funny banter about, at the very least, nothing.

Back to Michaels. He's a really interesting person, and some of those interesting things include:

He is the only play-by-play commentator to have covered the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, and Stanley Cup Final.

He is known for his iconic calls, such as "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" during the "Miracle on Ice" hockey game at the 1980 Winter Olympics, and "Touchdown! The Giants win! The Giants win the Super Bowl!" during the New York Giants' upset victory over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

He has won numerous awards for his broadcasting work, including five Emmy Awards, the Pete Rozelle Radio & Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford C. Frick Award.

He is a graduate of Arizona State University, where he majored in radio and television and minored in journalism.

He is a lifelong Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and his favorite baseball player is Jackie Robinson

Now get started listening to SmartLess. There are 168 other episodes besides the Al Michaels one.

Did Comedy Bang! Bang! lose its mojo near the end of its fifth TV season?

Tegan and Sara visit the set.

Comedy Bang! Bang! contunues on as a podcast but ran in TV form on IFC from 2012 to 2016 and it was perhaps my favorite comedy TV show of those years. 

It was offbeat and frequently cryingly hilarious. I was always a Reggie Watts guy, and when Weird Al Yankovic replaced him for the fifth and final season (Kid Cudi was the bandleader at the end of Season 4), I was no longer as interested. I decided to go back and re-watch some of those fifth season episodes to give it another try.

Season 5 Episode 4, in which one of my favorite wave-pop groups Tegan and Sara visit. They are adorable and funny, being interviewed while host Scott Auckerman, looking like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, is distracted and convinced one of his weird crew members has killed another crew member. SNL’s Bobby Moynihan is nuts as a little orphan boy offering tips on making it in Hollywood. There are other plays on Alfred Hitchcock films through the episode, which is as good as Season 5 gets. 4.5 out of 5 stars

Season 5 Episode 9 is dominated by Weird Al’s soap-opera-acting brother, played by Al, swooping in with his soapy music, romantic ways, and clips from his Handsome Harbor show. I usually love guest Kristen Schaal but she never really seems too comfortable in her interview, which descends into her longing to return to her childhood sheep farm. Paul Rust, of the great Netflix show Love, also stops by for an intense, uncomfortable, and nonsensical bit called “New No Nos.” 3.5 out of 5 stars

Season 5 Episode 10 starts with glimpses of Haley Joel Osment before Scott announces that it’s the 100th and final episode and that he is getting married to a woman named Vanna to celebrate it. But then it turns into a skit show - not something that usually happens - and Scott gets amnesia, failing to remember major events in his life like when he was a doo-wop star and when he gave up a role he won to Zack Galifianakis because Scott was a bigger star and generous. The episode does not end up actually being the last. It's one of my least favorite Comedy Bang! Bang! episodes of all time. 2.5 out of 5 stars

Season 5 Episode 11 really starts to show the petering out of the show. Despite Kaley Cuoco’s cute interview, featuring her paranoia that the cameramen are really paparazzi, the group of early-history figures like Paul Bunyan that Scott attempts to employ to make America great again is a bit that really doesn’t work well. Guest Karen selling her Karen Water is off-the-wall and helps save the episode from the ruins. 3 out of 5 stars

Season 5 Episode 13 features Gillian Jacobs dressed as Pee Wee Herman in an episode that truly goes nowhere, overtaking the afore-mentioned Episode 10 as the worst Comedy Bang! Bang! episode I’ve ever seen. 2 out of 5 stars

It’s unfortunate to say bad things about such a great show. I highly recommend you check out Seasons 1 through 4 but skip Season 5 altogether, except for the episode with Tegan and Sara.