The Comedy Thesaurus
The Comedy Thesaurus

Author: Judy Brown

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 9781594740589

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Every book of "humorous quotations" features the same tired one-liners from dead white males like Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain until now. "The Comedy Thesaurus" features more than three thousand quips from the funniest people on the planet everyone from Margaret Cho and Conan O'Brien to Eddie Murphy and Lewis Black. Arranged A to Z by subject (accidents, aging, alcohol, etc.) and thoroughly cross-referenced, it's chock-full of hilarious observations. On politics: "You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: It wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena." Jon Stewart On shopping: "Every town has the same two malls: the one white people go to, and the one white people used to go to." Chris Rock On sex: "Engaged women have sex 2.9 times a week. And the .9 is really frustrating." Jay Leno And that's just the beginning. Full of laugh-out-loud remarks from the most popular comedians on the planet, "The Comedy Thesaurus" is a terrific resource for writers, speakers, fans of stand-up comedy, and anyone who appreciates a good joke.

Thesaurus of Humor
Thesaurus of Humor

Author: Mildred Meiers

Publisher:

Published: 1940

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13:

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How to select your material. How to write and tell jokes.

Stand-up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America
Stand-up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America

Author: John Limon

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2000-06-23

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0822380501

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Stand-Up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America is the first study of stand-up comedy as a form of art. John Limon appreciates and analyzes the specific practice of stand-up itself, moving beyond theories of the joke, of the comic, and of comedy in general to read stand-up through the lens of literary and cultural theory. Limon argues that stand-up is an artform best defined by its fascination with the abject, Julia Kristeva’s term for those aspects of oneself that are obnoxious to one’s sense of identity but that are nevertheless—like blood, feces, or urine—impossible to jettison once and for all. All of a comedian’s life, Limon asserts, is abject in this sense. Limon begins with stand-up comics in the 1950s and 1960s—Lenny Bruce, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, Elaine May—when the norm of the profession was the Jewish, male, heterosexual comedian. He then moves toward the present with analyses of David Letterman, Richard Pryor, Ellen DeGeneres, and Paula Poundstone. Limon incorporates feminist, race, and queer theories to argue that the “comedification” of America—stand-up comedy’s escape from its narrow origins—involves the repossession by black, female, queer, and Protestant comedians of what was black, female, queer, yet suburbanizing in Jewish, male, heterosexual comedy. Limon’s formal definition of stand-up as abject art thus hinges on his claim that the great American comedians of the 1950s and 1960s located their comedy at the place (which would have been conceived in 1960 as a location between New York City or Chicago and their suburbs) where body is thrown off for the mind and materiality is thrown off for abstraction—at the place, that is, where American abjection has always found its home.

Planet Funny
Planet Funny

Author: Ken Jennings

Publisher: Scribner

Published: 2019-07-09

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1501100602

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A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year The witty and exuberant New York Times bestselling author and record-setting Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings relays the history of humor in “lively, insightful, and crawling with goofy factlings,” (Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go Bernadette)—from fart jokes on clay Sumerian tablets to the latest Twitter gags and Facebook memes. Where once society’s most coveted trait might have been strength or intelligence or honor, today, in a clear sign of evolution sliding off the trails, it is being funny. Yes, funniness. Consider: Super Bowl commercials don’t try to sell you anymore; they try to make you laugh. Airline safety tutorials—those terrifying laminated cards about the possibilities of fire, explosion, depressurization, and drowning—have been replaced by joke-filled videos with multimillion-dollar budgets and dance routines. Thanks to social media, we now have a whole Twitterverse of amateur comedians riffing around the world at all hours of the day—and many of them even get popular enough online to go pro and take over TV. In his “smartly structured, soundly argued, and yes—pretty darn funny” (Booklist, starred review) Planet Funny, Ken Jennings explores this brave new comedic world and what it means—or doesn’t—to be funny in it now. Tracing the evolution of humor from the caveman days to the bawdy middle-class antics of Chaucer to Monty Python’s game-changing silliness to the fast-paced meta-humor of The Simpsons, Jennings explains how we built our humor-saturated modern age, where lots of us get our news from comedy shows and a comic figure can even be elected President of the United States purely on showmanship. “Fascinating, entertaining and—I’m being dead serious here—important” (A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically), Planet Funny is a full taxonomy of what spawned and defines the modern sense of humor.

Everyone You Hate Is Going to Die
Everyone You Hate Is Going to Die

Author: Daniel Sloss

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2021-10-12

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0525658149

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One of this generation's hottest and boldest young comedians presents a transgressive and hilarious analysis of all of our dysfunctional relationships, and attempts to point us in the vague direction of sanity. Daniel Sloss's stand-up comedy engages, enrages, offends, unsettles, educates, comforts, and gets audiences roaring with laughter—all at the same time. In his groundbreaking specials, seen on Netflix and HBO, he has brilliantly tackled everything from male toxicity and friendship to love, romance, and marriage—and claims (with the data to back it up) that his on-stage laser-like dissection of relationships has single-handedly caused more than 300 divorces and 120,000 breakups. Now, in his first book, he picks up where his specials left off, and goes after every conceivable kind of relationship—with one's country (Sloss's is Scotland); with America; with lovers, ex-lovers, ex-lovers who you hate, ex-lovers who hate you; with parents; with best friends (male and female), not-best friends; with children; with siblings; and even with the global pandemic and our own mortality. In Everyone You Hate Is Going to Die, every human connection gets the brutally funny (and unfailingly incisive) Sloss treatment as he illuminates the ways in which all of our relationships are fragile and ridiculous and awful—but also valuable and meaningful and important.

Classical Hollywood Comedy
Classical Hollywood Comedy

Author: Kristine Brunovska Karnick

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-02-01

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 1135213232

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Applies the recent `return to history' in film studies to the genre of classical Hollywood comedy as well as broadening the definition of those works considered central in this field.

The Well-Spoken Thesaurus
The Well-Spoken Thesaurus

Author: Tom Heehler

Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.

Published: 2011-02-01

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1402262485

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The Well-Spoken Thesaurus is designed to help you improve your communication skills by expanding your vocabulary. The book includes over 200 words, arranged in easy-to-use categories, such as "positive emotions," "negative emotions," "intellectual terms," and "descriptive terms." Each entry includes a definition, synonyms, antonyms, and usage examples. The Well-Spoken Thesaurus is particularly useful for writers who want to improve the precision and impact of their language. By providing a range of synonyms for common words and phrases, the book helps writers avoid repetition and clichés, while also encouraging them to use language that is more vivid, specific, and memorable. Some of the benefits of using The Well-Spoken Thesaurus include: Making a stronger impression: By choosing words that are more precise and impactful, you can help your writing stand out from the crowd and make a stronger impression. Demonstrating your communication skills: Using a wide range of vocabulary can demonstrate that you are articulate, sophisticated, and able to communicate effectively. Conveying your personality: Includes a range of descriptive terms that can help you convey your personality and character traits in your writing Overall, The Well-Spoken Thesaurus can be a valuable resource for anyone who wants to improve their writing and communication skills.

Shocked But Connected
Shocked But Connected

Author: Michael Roemer

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2012-09-16

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1442217588

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Why do funny movies make us laugh? In this thoughtful essay, by turns stimulating and meditative, distinguished filmmaker and Yale professor Michael Roemer shares his musings on what causes us to chortle, snort, and guffaw when we watch antics onscreen or onstage. Roemer keeps us chuckling as he dissects punchy one-liners, Shakespearean plays, and everything in-between. Incorporating theories from such great thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Charles Baudelaire, Henri-Louis Bergson, and Soren Kierkegaard with the work of classic comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and the Marx Brothers, Roemer examines the purpose of comedy in our lives and in society. Shocked But Connected provides a serious reflection on a lighthearted subject.

Shakespeare's Words
Shakespeare's Words

Author: Ben Crystal

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2004-04-01

Total Pages: 1347

ISBN-13: 0141941529

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A vital resource for scholars, students and actors, this book contains glosses and quotes for over 14,000 words that could be misunderstood by or are unknown to a modern audience. Displayed panels look at such areas of Shakespeare's language as greetings, swear-words and terms of address. Plot summaries are included for all Shakespeare's plays and on the facing page is a unique diagramatic representation of the relationships within each play.

The Hidden Tools of Comedy
The Hidden Tools of Comedy

Author: Steve Kaplan

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781615931408

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A paradigm shift in understanding the mechanics and art of comedy, providing practical tools that help writers translate that understanding into successful, commercial scripts. Kaplan deconstructs secrets and techniques in popular films and TV that work and don't work, and explains what tools were used (or should have been used ).