Comedy and humour Books

Book SynopsisNamed one of People Magazine''s 50 Food Faves of 2022! From Jerry’s kitchen to Monk’s café, food is central to many of Seinfeld’s most memorable moments, and this official cookbook teaches fans to prepare favorite dishes from the show right in their own homes!Stash the takeout menus and cancel reservations at Mendy’s, it’s time to stay in for a taste of New York City as only Seinfeld: The Official Cookbook can deliver in this collection of more than 60 recipes inspired by the hit ‘90s sitcom. For a show about “nothing” one constant throughout Seinfeld’s nine seasons is food! Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, George, and the whole gang are always talking about food, shopping for food, or grabbing a bite in Monk’s coffee shop! There are contemplations on the black and white cookie, the Big Salad, proper (or improper) shrimp cocktail etiquette, an irresistible soup stand, lobster revenge omelets, the proper ranking of babka varieties, mouthwatering mackinaw peaches, and so much more. Now these culinary comedy classics are celebrated with a variety of recipes that will help any Seinfeld fan relive their favorite moments. Seinfeld: The Official Cookbook offers a variety of recipes for chefs of all levels. From appetizers to main courses and from drinks to desserts, each chapter includes delicious show-focused food that will have diners raving, “It’s like a circus in your mouth!” 60+ RECIPES INSPIRED BY SEINFELD: Ever wondered “What’s the deal…?” with the delicious eats and treats that Jerry and crew enjoy on the show? Seinfeld: The Official Cookbook let’s you experience mealtime as part of the Seinfeld world. NO SOUP FOR YOU!: Just kidding, there’s recipes from all the greatest food moments in the show that will have fans of all ages gathering around the table to swap favorite Seinfeld scenes! THE FIRST OFFICIAL SEINFELD COOKBOOK: The only cookbook with official recipes directly inspired by Seinfeld! The perfect gift for the Seinfeld fan in your life. RECIPES FOR ALL SKILL LEVELS: With accessible step-by-step instructions and helpful cooking tips, Seinfeld: The Official Cookbook is a great guide for fans of any age and skill level, from kitchen novices to seasoned chefs.

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Book SynopsisDrawing from 20 interviews with credited episode writers, key show-runners, and Black gay men, The Generic Closet situates Black-cast sitcoms as a unique genre that uses Black gay characters in service of the series' heterosexual main cast and deconstructs the concept of a monolithic Black audience.Trade ReviewIn The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom, Alfred L. Martin Jr. embarks on a detailed case study of five U.S. shows that aired between 1996 and 2014 and outlines the circumscribed roles available to Black gay characters. Martin unpacks the television industry's imagination of Black audiences as monolithically intolerant of homosexuality, traces the implications of these industrial assumptions from the writers' room to the screen, and concludes with the voices of Black gay viewers themselves. . . . Martin's work is timely given the present climate of growing awareness of structural racism, especially in the United States. This book also underscores the need for intersectional analysis, highlighting the disparate conditions of representation for White gay characters and Black gay characters during the so-called Gay '90s and the problematic depiction of the "coming out" narrative as universal to the LGBTQ+ experience, despite studies showing that it is less salient to the Black LGBTQ+ experience. -- Aiden James Kosciesza * International Journal of Communication *The Generic Closet gives readers a language to describe the pernicious industrial strategy as a structure for containing Black gayness–something that the television industry and audiences wtill cannout seem to escape. -- Brandy Monk-Payton - Fordham University * Film Quarterly *With The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom, Martin illustrates not only how Black gayness has been mediated on the Black-cast sitcom but also why it has been mediated in the ways it has. The use of his various research methods helps to make clear how systems of power produce and recycle ideologies that satisfy racial hegemony and heteronormativity. Deviation from these industrial modes is deemed risky in terms of capital gain and losing an established audience. The possible "good intentions" in producing and sustaining narratively important Black gay characters while diversifying televisual identity is unfortunately tertiary to network fears and the heterosexist American norm. To move forward from this banishment of Black gay men to the generic closet, the assumed monolithic Black audience must first be deconstructed to make way for new representational possibilities. -- Adrien Sebro * The Communication Review *In The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom, Alfred L. Martin Jr. constructs a rigorous, persuasive account of the historical inclusion of Black gay characters in Black-led sitcoms. Zeroing in on the period in the 1990s and 2000s when, in US television, a significant increase in on-screen Black and gay representation occurred, Martin uses interviews with audiences and industry professionals to produce nuanced understandings of the industrial moment itself, the programs created during it, and, most centrally to the monograph's arc, Black gayness as it appeared in Black-cast sitcoms. . . . Notably, throughout The Generic Closet, Martin holds space for the positive and productive aspects of representations of Black gay characters, even while highlighting areas worthy of critique. This tension is something many scholars studying media industries (while also attending to implications of race, sexual identity, and other minoritized identity categories within those industries) are required to balance: while there is willingness, and even desire, to acknowledge advancements around diversity, engaging with the potential of what could be can make it difficult to maintain a critical lens toward understanding which elements have limited or continue to limit possibilities around more authentic, dynamic representations of minoritized groups. Martin successfully strikes this balance through careful deployment of his multifaceted analytical approach, the facets of which are ultimately unified by his illumination of the previously obfuscated generic closet and the revelation of how it functions to uphold boundaries around Black gay inclusion in US television. -- Lauren E. Wilks * Media Industries Journal *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Television in Black and Gay1. Building and Rebuilding Generic Closets within the Black-Cast Sitcom Industry2. Scripting the Generic Closet in the Writers' Room3. Comedy, Laughter and the Generic Closet4. Black Queens Speak: The Generic Closet, Black-Cast Sitcoms and Reception PracticesConclusion: Trapped in the Black-Cast Sitcoms' Generic ClosetAppendix A: List of Black-Cast Sitcoms with Black Gay CharactersAppendix B: Interview Script for Black-Cast Sitcom ViewersAppendix C: Interview Script for Industry ProfessionalsBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisDrawing from 20 interviews with credited episode writers, key show-runners, and Black gay men, The Generic Closet situates Black-cast sitcoms as a unique genre that uses Black gay characters in service of the series' heterosexual main cast and deconstructs the concept of a monolithic Black audience.Trade ReviewIn The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom, Alfred L. Martin Jr. embarks on a detailed case study of five U.S. shows that aired between 1996 and 2014 and outlines the circumscribed roles available to Black gay characters. Martin unpacks the television industry's imagination of Black audiences as monolithically intolerant of homosexuality, traces the implications of these industrial assumptions from the writers' room to the screen, and concludes with the voices of Black gay viewers themselves. . . . Martin's work is timely given the present climate of growing awareness of structural racism, especially in the United States. This book also underscores the need for intersectional analysis, highlighting the disparate conditions of representation for White gay characters and Black gay characters during the so-called Gay '90s and the problematic depiction of the "coming out" narrative as universal to the LGBTQ+ experience, despite studies showing that it is less salient to the Black LGBTQ+ experience. -- Aiden James Kosciesza * International Journal of Communication *The Generic Closet gives readers a language to describe the pernicious industrial strategy as a structure for containing Black gayness–something that the television industry and audiences wtill cannout seem to escape. -- Brandy Monk-Payton - Fordham University * Film Quarterly *With The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom, Martin illustrates not only how Black gayness has been mediated on the Black-cast sitcom but also why it has been mediated in the ways it has. The use of his various research methods helps to make clear how systems of power produce and recycle ideologies that satisfy racial hegemony and heteronormativity. Deviation from these industrial modes is deemed risky in terms of capital gain and losing an established audience. The possible "good intentions" in producing and sustaining narratively important Black gay characters while diversifying televisual identity is unfortunately tertiary to network fears and the heterosexist American norm. To move forward from this banishment of Black gay men to the generic closet, the assumed monolithic Black audience must first be deconstructed to make way for new representational possibilities. -- Adrien Sebro * The Communication Review *In The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom, Alfred L. Martin Jr. constructs a rigorous, persuasive account of the historical inclusion of Black gay characters in Black-led sitcoms. Zeroing in on the period in the 1990s and 2000s when, in US television, a significant increase in on-screen Black and gay representation occurred, Martin uses interviews with audiences and industry professionals to produce nuanced understandings of the industrial moment itself, the programs created during it, and, most centrally to the monograph's arc, Black gayness as it appeared in Black-cast sitcoms. . . . Notably, throughout The Generic Closet, Martin holds space for the positive and productive aspects of representations of Black gay characters, even while highlighting areas worthy of critique. This tension is something many scholars studying media industries (while also attending to implications of race, sexual identity, and other minoritized identity categories within those industries) are required to balance: while there is willingness, and even desire, to acknowledge advancements around diversity, engaging with the potential of what could be can make it difficult to maintain a critical lens toward understanding which elements have limited or continue to limit possibilities around more authentic, dynamic representations of minoritized groups. Martin successfully strikes this balance through careful deployment of his multifaceted analytical approach, the facets of which are ultimately unified by his illumination of the previously obfuscated generic closet and the revelation of how it functions to uphold boundaries around Black gay inclusion in US television. -- Lauren E. Wilks * Media Industries Journal *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Television in Black and Gay1. Building and Rebuilding Generic Closets within the Black-Cast Sitcom Industry2. Scripting the Generic Closet in the Writers' Room3. Comedy, Laughter and the Generic Closet4. Black Queens Speak: The Generic Closet, Black-Cast Sitcoms and Reception PracticesConclusion: Trapped in the Black-Cast Sitcoms' Generic ClosetAppendix A: List of Black-Cast Sitcoms with Black Gay CharactersAppendix B: Interview Script for Black-Cast Sitcom ViewersAppendix C: Interview Script for Industry ProfessionalsBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisPlaces Will & Grace in its historical context of the late 1990s and early 2000s, considering how it contributed to contemporary debates concerning queer life. Tison Pugh demonstrates that while heralding a new age of queer representation, characters were homogenized to normalize queerness for a mainstream US audience.Trade ReviewWill & Grace is a thorough overview of the cultural tensions inherent in gay representation in the ’90s sitcom and in the revival. It is refreshingly open to the possibilities of visual and performative queerness that persist in the series, despite the cultural and generic constraints it faced." - Becca Cragin, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University"As the twentieth century recedes in the rearview mirror, it becomes difficult to convey the impact of past media milestones in shaping the present. Pugh provides an insightful, comprehensive, and nuanced account that will ensure that the importance of Will & Grace is understood and remembered." - Larry Gross, author of Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America"Pugh persuasively proves that Will & Grace deserves its reputation as a classic sitcom and a milestone for LGBTQ+ representation." - Library Journal

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Book SynopsisAs the saying goes, Comedy equals tragedy plus time, but in the face of tragedies on a national scale, comedy becomes the medium through which audiences untangle accepted understandings of what it means to be American.Trade ReviewFocusing on comedy programs from the 1990s and early 2000s, including Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons, and In Living Color, the author adeptly explains how these programs not only offer a means of escape for viewers processing national trauma, but also create new narratives that bleed out into national dialogue, with perhaps unintentional but wide-reaching consequences reverberating in the United States today...A must for media and communication studies departments, this work will also appeal to many comedy fans, traumatologists, and the generally curious. * Library Journal *Tragedy plus Time feels prescient. Reading the book, I got the sense that I was immersed in a discourse that society will be examining for the foreseeable future in trying to understand the relationship between comedy and trauma...Tragedy plus Time advances a noteworthy collection of ideas about how collective trauma is (often unexpectedly) processed through humor...While aimed toward comedy scholars broadly, this book is particularly valuable to those curious about comedy’s intersection with history and politics. * Studies in American Humor *[An] insightful and innovative book...Scepanski is fairly thorough in his writing on both the general topic as well as its neatly-ordered subtopics. * Houston Press *[A] truly excellent new book...Tragedy Plus Time is sophisticated, compelling, timely and well-written. It has a wide appeal for readers of all generations and backgrounds—just like television itself. * Northeast Popular & American Culture Association *Scepanski effectively demonstrates throughout his book that the perceived status of television comedy as lowbrow entertainment, its ever-narrowing target audience, and its propensity to offend combine to place the TV comedy genre in an opportune position to address sensitive topics...Perhaps more than ever, this sort of historical and contextual perspective on television comedy is urgently needed for the complex mapping of the current American media culture and its ramifications. If comedy is an often quickly overlooked or dismissed genre, Scepanski proves that it should not be, given its significance in shaping Americans’ sense of national identity and history. * Film Quarterly *Tragedy Plus Time takes a serious look at how comedy and satire in American media make light of dark matters...thorough and engaging...Scepanki’s study is useful to understand the ways that comedy constructs a view of the past, thereby influencing perceptions of historical events. Those lessons do not disappear but become integrated into worldviews going forward, shaping how national trauma plays a role in both national and individual identity. * PopMatters *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Broadcast Nationalism, National Trauma, and Television Comedy Chapter 1: The Kennedy Assassination and the Growth of Sick Humor on American Television Chapter 2: Censored Comedies and Comedies of Censorship Chapter 3: Emotional Nonconformity in Comedy Chapter 4: Conspiracy Theories and Comedy Chapter 5: African American Comedies and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots Chapter 6: Television Comedy and Islamophobia after 9/11 Chapter 7: Comedy and Trump as Trauma in Narrowcast America Conclusion Afterword Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe FOX television show The Simpsons has been around for over 30 years, with more than 700 episodes. A satirical, animated comedy, The Simpsons has millions of fans around the world and its numerous characters are instantly recognizable. Two of the main characters, children Bart and Lisa, are in elementary school and their educational experience is satirized frequently, with episodes taking place at Springfield Elementary and featuring their teachers, classmates, and administration--often with biting criticism of curriculum, privatization, and standardized testing, to name a few. The Simpsons also features episodes retelling historical events, where the family experiences different countries and cultures, and participates in the political process. The Simpsons is unique in that the show itself is also a historical source, having been on the air since 1989. Issues that were current in the early 1990s at the height of popularity of The Simpsons are now considered historical, and there is room in classrooms to critically analyze the show with students about whether the show has adapted well to the 2020s, particularly with the show's use of cultural stereotypes.This edited book offers a collection of classroom-ready tools based on the Hollywood or History? strategy and designed to foster historical inquiry through the careful use of episodes or clips from The Simpsons. This book will be organized by the 10 Themes of Social Studies as outlined by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS, 2010). Each of these 10 sections of the book feature two or three lesson plans from the massive catalog of The Simpsons. There is also an 11th section featuring two lesson plans using episodes of The Simpsons that satirize public education more broadly, which can be used by teacher candidates in methods classrooms to examine the realities of the history of public education and current issues that affect the profession.

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Book SynopsisThe FOX television show The Simpsons has been around for over 30 years, with more than 700 episodes. A satirical, animated comedy, The Simpsons has millions of fans around the world and its numerous characters are instantly recognizable. Two of the main characters, children Bart and Lisa, are in elementary school and their educational experience is satirized frequently, with episodes taking place at Springfield Elementary and featuring their teachers, classmates, and administration--often with biting criticism of curriculum, privatization, and standardized testing, to name a few. The Simpsons also features episodes retelling historical events, where the family experiences different countries and cultures, and participates in the political process. The Simpsons is unique in that the show itself is also a historical source, having been on the air since 1989. Issues that were current in the early 1990s at the height of popularity of The Simpsons are now considered historical, and there is room in classrooms to critically analyze the show with students about whether the show has adapted well to the 2020s, particularly with the show's use of cultural stereotypes.This edited book offers a collection of classroom-ready tools based on the Hollywood or History? strategy and designed to foster historical inquiry through the careful use of episodes or clips from The Simpsons. This book will be organized by the 10 Themes of Social Studies as outlined by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS, 2010). Each of these 10 sections of the book feature two or three lesson plans from the massive catalog of The Simpsons. There is also an 11th section featuring two lesson plans using episodes of The Simpsons that satirize public education more broadly, which can be used by teacher candidates in methods classrooms to examine the realities of the history of public education and current issues that affect the profession.

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1954, this was the first factual history of comedy films and the men and women who had since 1894 kept us laughing in the cinema. It traces the beginning of comic motion pictures and the pioneer work of Paul, Gaumont, Hepworth, Pathe and Zecca. Then comes the picture palace craze and the success of the early Italian and French comedies and trick films. The work of Al Christie and Mack Sennett in America, and the rise of American films, is fully described, as knockabout gives way to slapstick, and salaries and box-office receipts soar.Now come Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and all the other bright figures of the Roaring Twenties, with favourites like Buster Keaton and Will Rogers to the fore. The development of sound and its effect on the comedians is explained, and the story comes up to date through the thirties and forties to 1954.Some of the hundreds of names to whom tribute is paid include Mabel Normand, Larry Semon, Roscoe Arbuckle, Monty Banks, MaxTrade ReviewReviews for the original 1954 edition:"Loaded with facts, names, titles, biographies and anecdotes, but trotting along easily enough to make reading comfortable, I can’t think of any other book devoted to the cheerful screen which bundles together not only the internationally famous English-speaking comics, but also the great army of good comedians, the multitude of players and the multitude of films too." Dilys Powell wrote in The Sunday Times"Highly informative and interesting and, for the middle-aged, almost unbearably nostalgic," said the New Statesman"A little monument to painstaking research made readable by unswerving love," wrote Paul Dehn"A valuable and fascinating book," said Maryvonne Butcher in The TabletTable of ContentsPreface by Norman Wisdom. Foreword. 1. The First Comedies 2. The Hepworth Story 3. The Fun Continues 4. Early Film Studios 5. The Rise of the American Film 6. The Keystone Touch 7. Chaplin – The Perfect Clown 8. Harold Lloyd 9. The Roaring Twenties 10. The End of Visual Comedy 11. All Talking! 12. The Thirties 13. The British Quota Boom 14. Crosby and Company 15. Walt Disney 16. The Eccentrics 17. The Forties 18. The Summing Up 19. Flashback. Acknowledgements. Index of Names.

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Book SynopsisJingle all the way with the crew of Planet Express in this hilarious retelling of the Christmas classic.Join Fry, Leela, and Bender as they battle Robot Santa on Xmas Eve. This delightful book reimagines the traditional poem with the beloved characters of Groening’s award-winning Futurama series. Deck the halls along with the crew of Planet Express in this newly minted Christmas classic featuring new art and an original story inspired by the iconic holiday poem. In the vein of other pop culture holiday tales such as A Die Hard Christmas and Bob Ross’ Happy Little Night Before Christmas, this is Christmas with a thirty-first century twist. Start a new tradition with this fully authorized and fully outlandish poem of tidings and terror.

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