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Mr. Funny Pants
I was at my wit's end. I'd had enough of this job, this life, and my relationship had broken up. Should I eat chocolate, or go to India, or fall in love? Then I had a revelation: Why not do all three, in that order? And so it was that I embarked on a journey that was segmented into three parts and was then made into a major motion picture. Later, I woke up on an airplane w...more
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published
February 22nd 2011
by Grand Central Publishing
(first published January 27th 2011)
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Not as funny as I'd hoped. There are a few actual stories from his life (clearly embellished, but funny and interesting), but most of the book reads like he was just trying to fill pages. And he does write that he had a lot of trouble writing the book. But at times the filler stuff was so incredibly repetitive that I was insulted. Or maybe he was doing something amazing and cutting edge by questioning the whole validity of memoirs. If so, I guess I was too dumb to get it. But that was my constan...more
I really think Michael Showalter's comedy is super funny. So, I expected this book to also be super funny. Some parts of it certainly were, but overall, I think it kind of missed the mark. Usually, as I read a book, when I put my bookmark in, I start thinking about what I would say if I were to write a review right then and there. Here are some of the bookmark reviews I came up with as I was reading:
"Unless you want to read about someone who's trying to write a book but not writing it but still...more
"Unless you want to read about someone who's trying to write a book but not writing it but still...more
What I Can Tell You:
There aren't too many things I can't live without. My kids, my family and friends, water, air, food and laughter. Personally, I love to laugh and since getting Netflix have looked up every stand up act on there. There aren't many that make me ROFL and even less that make me ROTFLMAO but I find a few that make me LOL. When it comes to books, I can count on one and a half hands the ones that have made me laugh out loud. This book is one of them.
Michael Showalter was one of the...more
There aren't too many things I can't live without. My kids, my family and friends, water, air, food and laughter. Personally, I love to laugh and since getting Netflix have looked up every stand up act on there. There aren't many that make me ROFL and even less that make me ROTFLMAO but I find a few that make me LOL. When it comes to books, I can count on one and a half hands the ones that have made me laugh out loud. This book is one of them.
Michael Showalter was one of the...more
I really dug into this book over the weekend and I am not quite sure what I expected of it before starting, but I can quite generally say, it was not for me. I'll qualify that a bit. For the most part, each chapter reads in a stream of conscience format covering any number of random and seemingly loosely bound ideas into a very open interpretation of a story.
You certainly cannot love everything you read and come across and I am not saying that this book is without its audience. I am simply not t...more
You certainly cannot love everything you read and come across and I am not saying that this book is without its audience. I am simply not t...more
Mr. Funny Pants is really less a memoir than a disorganized "graphic set" of underedited Michael Showalter musings. He attempts some meta-humour (with a "post-," "post-post-" and "pre-post-post-preface" and bits about him trying to get over his writer's block) but most of this comes off as self-indulgent, prolix, and really just boring. The other pieces in the book, once Showalter has gotten past his "writing about writing," are often funny and well-constructed - some prose-versions of his stand...more
Pure Genius! I never knew you could be sarcastic and earnest at the same time. This is one of the funniest celebrity pseudo-memoirs I have read in a long time Anyone who hides their guilty pleasures in music on their iPod by labeling them really cool and hip indie bands, has my vote. I would do the same thing, but I have quite figured out how to do it. Michael Showalter pokes fun at the seriousness of writing by making fun of some of the things "serious" writers do like the preface only he takes...more
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Just as funny as the book by his sometimes-collaborator Michael Ian Black, this is a random collection of humorous writings with even less cohesive focus than "My Custom Van." A good chunk of the book is writing about not being able to write/not knowing what to write about, the length alone of which makes it funny. Funnier chapters include a look at the worst mix-tape ever, a guide to writing a romantic comedy screenplay with fill-in-the-blanks, and my personal favorite, the chronologically diag...more
I finished it!
Whew!
It took an entire short plane ride but I finished it. I also enjoyed it immensely and laughed out loud on quite a few occasions.
I will admit it does take a certain sort of person to enjoy this humour. A silly sort. If you think that is you then you are in for brevity and a treat.
If you do not have "funny bones" or this does not fit within your "funny bone paradigm" then you will find much to hate, and that is kind of sad. Why are you so full of hate?
Michael Ian Black has books...more
Whew!
It took an entire short plane ride but I finished it. I also enjoyed it immensely and laughed out loud on quite a few occasions.
I will admit it does take a certain sort of person to enjoy this humour. A silly sort. If you think that is you then you are in for brevity and a treat.
If you do not have "funny bones" or this does not fit within your "funny bone paradigm" then you will find much to hate, and that is kind of sad. Why are you so full of hate?
Michael Ian Black has books...more
4.5/5, actually, but in lieu of that, I will say 5/5, because 4 would feel like an insult. A very clever, unexpected, slick and breezy read. The book never really gets anywhere per se, but it has a great time *trying* to. The book is largely made up of M.S. talking about writing a book that he never really writes, but that's kind of the running joke that makes up the final product which ends up being one of the best comedy books I've ever read. Fun, smart, silly in oh so perfect doses-and with f...more
I love Michael Showalter, so I wanted to love this book, but I found it extremely hit-or-miss. At times, I could feel the effort he was putting into being quirky and it caused the humor to fall flat. Or else the humor just fell flat all on its own. A huge theme of the book was blatantly trying to fill up space (a la Colbert, Dinello, & Sedaris' Wigfield), but the bit wore thin quickly in this case. He wasn't comically wasting space to fill out the book, he was simply wasting space. However,...more
When it was good, it was very very good, and when it was bad, it was horrid. Well, that's not entirely true. There are indeed many moments of sheer comedic brilliance, and the book was wholly enjoyable when Michael shared stories from his past. Although self-deprecating, they were written in a relatable way. However, one of the running jokes of the book are the chapters where he writes about writing the book: how he's going to do it, how many pages he will write, how he writes a couple of senten...more
Well, obviously this isn’t the type of book that I usually review. I do almost exclusively YA here with the odd non-fiction or adult fiction thrown in, and this is a humor memoir. I’m only reviewing it for two reasons: a) it’s really freaking funny; and b) I love Michael Showalter.
There. I said it. I love Michael Showalter. If you don’t know who he is, he’s a distinguished alum of MTV’s The State (if you are not familiar, acquaint yourself at once) as well as the cult comedy troupe Stella and th...more
There. I said it. I love Michael Showalter. If you don’t know who he is, he’s a distinguished alum of MTV’s The State (if you are not familiar, acquaint yourself at once) as well as the cult comedy troupe Stella and th...more
TO see this review with pictures and see if it's better than Mindy Kaling's novel read the review here:
http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/...
I literally laughed until I cried more than once when reading this book. Michael Showalter started his career on the 90’s skit MTV show The State and carried that over to films like cult hit Wet Hot American Summer and a hilarious turn on the show Stella.
The book opens with an About the Author, then moves onto About the Author (For Canadian Edition), the...more
http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/...
I literally laughed until I cried more than once when reading this book. Michael Showalter started his career on the 90’s skit MTV show The State and carried that over to films like cult hit Wet Hot American Summer and a hilarious turn on the show Stella.
The book opens with an About the Author, then moves onto About the Author (For Canadian Edition), the...more
I have to admit that I love everything Sho does. The State, Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, Stella, The Michael Showalter Showalter, Michael and Michael Have Issues -- all brilliant comedy, in my opinion. So, it should come as no surprise that I loved this book.
Is it a little strange? Sure. Is it sometimes over the top, containing things like a "Pre-Post-Post-Preface"? Of course. Is it partially incomprehensible stream-of-consciousness gobbledygook? Yes. But it's also hilarious and often ge...more
Is it a little strange? Sure. Is it sometimes over the top, containing things like a "Pre-Post-Post-Preface"? Of course. Is it partially incomprehensible stream-of-consciousness gobbledygook? Yes. But it's also hilarious and often ge...more
I loved this book for several reasons, here are my top three:
1. The word "conundrum" is used multiple times.
2. Showalter makes his novel accessible to Americans and Canadians alike.
3. This book made absolutely no sense at all.
I did not give this book 5/5 stars for these reasons:
1. The last few chapters were...meh...compared to those in the beginning of the book.
2. Reading this book in public caused me to look like the crazy person who no one wants to sit next to on a plane.
3. I learned the hard...more
1. The word "conundrum" is used multiple times.
2. Showalter makes his novel accessible to Americans and Canadians alike.
3. This book made absolutely no sense at all.
I did not give this book 5/5 stars for these reasons:
1. The last few chapters were...meh...compared to those in the beginning of the book.
2. Reading this book in public caused me to look like the crazy person who no one wants to sit next to on a plane.
3. I learned the hard...more
enjoyed a lot, enjoy this style of writing. like any "comedian book" has a few small errors but easier to not care about when you enjoy it a lot, which i did. there's a lot of words spent on explaining pointless concepts or semantics and being increasingly tangential and if you like that (I do!) you'll like this a lot and if you don't you probably won't. I am pretty much only familiar with his stuff from podcasts and maybe one episode of Stella. this is a good book I liked reading.
it's dificult to explain why I find Mike Showalter to be so funny... impossible, actually, because typically either people think he is already, or they don't know who he is at all. or they just know he's the guy who stands next to Michael Ian Black sometimes.
loved this. better to see him live, but Brooklyn is too far away. I'm not really completely done with the book, but I decided to write this anyway.
loved this. better to see him live, but Brooklyn is too far away. I'm not really completely done with the book, but I decided to write this anyway.
I was so annoyed at the beginning of this book. It was like Michael Showalter was such a dick that he was pissed at us for liking him so much that he had to write a book, so he wanted to make that book as excruciating as possible to punish us for wanting it to exist. But then things got kind of funny. So it was pretty all right by the end. He is forgiven.
Would Thanksgiving be as popular of a holiday if it were called Turkeybutt Party?
* * *
And let's be honest, jogging is bad for you. I already mentioned the part about the pooping on the leg, but it also gets your heart rate pumping and that could make you have a heart attack. I don't want that. That's why I smoke!
* * *
I said that I didn't have it in me to write "creative nonfiction" because I'm not from San Francisco. He said that wasn't true. He said that San Francisco had nothing to do with it.
* * *
And let's be honest, jogging is bad for you. I already mentioned the part about the pooping on the leg, but it also gets your heart rate pumping and that could make you have a heart attack. I don't want that. That's why I smoke!
* * *
I said that I didn't have it in me to write "creative nonfiction" because I'm not from San Francisco. He said that wasn't true. He said that San Francisco had nothing to do with it.
So far, this is one of the funniest books I have ever read in my life.
Srsly- I am banned from reading this book at work b/c I distracted my coworkes from my muffled guffaws and chuckles and I just sounded like a creepy elmer fudd since I was trying to hide how fucking funny all this shit is.
HOLY FUCK I LOVE THIS BOOK.
The poems, the fake books with the Lakers, the story about being the smelly hipster on the plane, of being given a psychiatric drug for being annoyed with noise from his frat neighb...more
Srsly- I am banned from reading this book at work b/c I distracted my coworkes from my muffled guffaws and chuckles and I just sounded like a creepy elmer fudd since I was trying to hide how fucking funny all this shit is.
HOLY FUCK I LOVE THIS BOOK.
The poems, the fake books with the Lakers, the story about being the smelly hipster on the plane, of being given a psychiatric drug for being annoyed with noise from his frat neighb...more
This book wasn't as funny as I wanted it to be; not that I didn't laugh quite a bit. Parts of the book are hilarious, and other parts are just groan worthily bad (as an example his poetry, with the exception of the one he wrote in high school). The best part about the book however is how awkward Michael Showalter is with other people. Some of the best moments are interactions he has with other people and then the retorts that he comes up with and is too scared to actually say.
I would read a foll...more
I would read a foll...more
I love Shoawalter's work on screen and was anxious to read this book. It starts out kind of slow and it seems like it has a lot of filler (literally - not just as part of the "bit"); however, I suggest sticking with it. There are a lot of gems in there. It's a fast read, and I'm glad I read it. It's the kind that you can pick up and set down and come back to it again over the course of time-- might be good on an e-reader. I really wish GRs allowed for partial stars, as this would merit more than...more
Yeah, crazy and stream-of-conscious works well for him in movies and shows, but it is damn frustrating to read, especially when the first 40 or 50 pages (out of maybe 250 pages) is just him talking about how he was going to write a book, and what he thought the book could be about, and all his proposals for the book, and so on. This after the disappointment of Michael Ian Black's book. David Wain, it's all on you now...
This book is, in fact, completely pointless. Most of it is about writing a memoir: how he will start, what he's going to write when he gets started, his future works, etc. There are a few stories but, for the most part, this will not spell out the history of Mr. Showalter. It will, however, make you laugh out loud in several places.
I'm so sorry, I love him so much. But he spent 75% of the book joking about procrastinating while writing the book. It was funny for about 1 chapter. That chunk of it was really boring. But I LOVED his ecstasy story and his interactions with women who pretend they are single until they are already out to dinner.
Mr. Funny Pants should be called Mr. Potty Mouth. The first few pages were so funny I laughed out loud and read parts to my husband and children and then had to abruptly edit. It was very, very vulgar and in total poor taste. What a waste of talent and humor. Too bad. It just didn't have to be that way.
It's a funny book, though it's less funny when he's cannibalizing his standup bits and claiming to be writing them contemporaneously, or when he writes about procrastinating on writing a book. The best parts are when he transcribes a "conversation" between himself and another, fictional person played by himself, because he has a lot of fun playing with that concept.
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There were a few times where I wanted to strangle him and yell "Get to the point Showalter" but the meta-wait was always meta-worth it. He's too goddamn funny for me to care that most of the book is random silliness about how exactly he plans on writing the book and related nonsense.
I feel like could have written 99% of this book, but that happens to be the lower 99 percentile. The top 1% of this book made me literally LOL, and, until I recalibrate my standards, I will continue to stalk Showalter in everything he does for that rare but intoxicating high.
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Michael Showalter is the star/creator of Michael & Michael Have Issues, The State, Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, Stella, Die Hard* and Die Hard 2: Die Harder**. He lives in Brooklyn with his lady and a bunch of cats."
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“In my perfect world order, it is cold all the time. Everyone wears sweaters and drinks coffee. People don't speak to each other; they read the newspaper. There is no loud music, and cats are in charge.”
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12 people liked it
“Like I could take a nap at 4:15 p.m. and then I'll wake up twenty minutes later and have absolutely no clue where I am. I'm like, "What era is this? Is it the 1920s? Am I a flapper? Should I go and put on a flapper costume and go flap at a party?" Then I'm like, "Is that what flappers even do? Flap? Is flapping a verb?" I'm that out of it. And I'm also drenched in sweat. Like some little Dutch boy in knickers ran over to me while I was sleeping and poured a bucket of water on me. Or like I have malaria and it's 1932 and I'm surrounded by mosquito netting. I'm drenched. I'm covered in goo. I'm like a baby deer covered in placenta hobbling around trying to learn how to walk, thinking that it's the 1920s and I'm a flapper and there's a little Dutch boy running around with a bucket of water. That's what naps are like for me.”
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2 people liked it
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