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Summary: this is for book 0595237983/// More Towels by Grant Jarrett
Review: i hope this review finds it's way to the write place..I enjoyed this book/found it thought provoking and moving<sprinkled with a fair bit of humor and real life drama. One truly gets the impact of the trials and tribulations of a muscians journey.
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Summary: Some reviews are mean-spirited & personal
Review: ...It's a fun book, full of fascinating stories, and if you like SNL, the odds are overwhelming you'll like Live from NY too. Thanks!
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Summary: Excellent History of Saturday Night Live
Review: Very thorough and presented in chronological order from the casting of the original show which debuted October, 1975,(is it really that many years? Yes!) to the current cast, this book presents a very large collection of recollections and musings from cast, crew, writers and some of the more frequent guest hosts. From the battles of the female writers to the varied recollections of Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, among many others, there is also much information to be gleaned about the basic workings of a long-running television show-political satire, goofy silliness as well as much cleverness included.
A large portion of the book is devoted to Lorne Michaels which is both a fascinating read and annoying in parts because I would have preferred even more focus on the Not-Ready-For-Primetime Players past and present.
A cast list is included for each year but a list of guest hosts, musical guests and sketches is not and would require an entirely different style of book (and would make a great book too!).
As a reference tool, occasional read and/or cover-to-cover can't put down book this is an excellent biography of what I consider to be one of the best television shows ever produced.
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Summary: Great stuff
Review: The best 'dish' on one of the best shows ever! The most interesting parts, I thought, was when reading things from the writers' perspectives... the unseen, unheralded talent behind it all. (Just an opinion.) Highly recommended.
Also recommended - NO ONE'S EVEN BLEEDING and DELANO
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Summary: Great Read, No Matter Who You Believe
Review: You won't know exactly who to believe when you read this book, but in the end, it really won't matter. Yes, there are some oversights in the information here; the later seasons are given short-shrift, and, just as an example, Victoria Jackson gets what amounts to the last word on some in-fighting behind the scenes during her run. Some of these oversights you can chalk up to who was willing to talk in their interviews and who wasn't. Other times, it seems to be a fault of the editorial decision to move on to the next subject before the previous one is exhausted. And yes, the first five years get the bulk of treatment here, but that's to be expected, I think--they are, arguably, the most "romantic" of the periods, when it was less a business and more a crusade. And besides, people are a lot more inclined to comment on the [stuff] they pulled twenty years ago than stuff that's relatively current. Still, this book is fully deserving of the perhaps too-often-ascribed label "page turner." You'll be able to put it down, of course, but you won't want to. You'll want to keep going, even if your head is swimming with factoids, innuendo, inside information, and some of the best tossed-off stories of famous people behaving badly. All the "dirt" aside, though, it's the more positive stuff I really relish about this book--the good stuff about Gilda, John, and the rest. There are some nice tributes here, and they really shine. Of course, if you're a huge fan of Chevy Chase, you might avoid this book, because, as others have said, he gets torn apart pretty well here. To his credit, he admits that he's been a jerk in the past, but still, from year one to now, he's been reviled by most of the cast. For me, I'm still a fan of his work, but I don't think I want to be in a cast meeting with him. With all the stories, positive and negative, it comes down to who you're going to believe. For the most part, the editors let you decide, and haven't seemed to make a decision for you. And in the end, as I said, it won't matter. It's still a good, solid read.
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Summary: This Book Tells It All!
Review: As far as show biz books go, "Live From New York" explains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what went on behind the scenes of this legendary late-night comedy show, and it certainly isn't all that attractive. From the excessive drug use, the obnoxious behavior,the upstagings, the feuds, the competitiveness, and how some actors become stars and others are overlooked, you will learn that "Saturday Night Live" is a very rough business. And you thought you had problems every day at your own workplace.
There are very interesting facts that forever have changed our thoughts about some of the people we have originally loved on the show. It was reported that, for instance, Chevy Chase was such a mean man that he had abused other cast members with insults and vainglory, and got into a fistfight with Bill Murray when he returned a year later as a guest host after leaving the show. It was also reported that Gilda Radner didn't do drugs, but rather she was a bulimic who purged and vomited off the set. Knowing that both examples were put into this book, whether one wants to believe they actually happened, makes this book very chilling. It is one of the most spectacular show biz books of all time.
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Summary: Is it Mahvelous??
Review: Yes, this book certainly is marvelous, but not "mah"velous. It gives a very interesting account of all things SNL: the cast, the writers, the antics, the drugs, the highs, the lows and, of course, Lorne Michaels, the man behind it all. When I picked up this book , I thought I was just going to skim through it, you know, pick and choose what I wanted to read. But as I read, I realized that almost everything was interesting. The scenarios are usually very humorous, or dramatic, so you can't really go wrong when telling about them. Even the people I wasn't familiar with(writers and producers as oppossed to the performers) were interesting to hear from. Although everything was entertaining, I wish they had discussed certain things in greater depth. Whenever the creation of a certain character was discussed (such as the Czech brothers or the ...plumber man) it was interesting as to how the performers wrote it, and how the cast perceived other people's character's and how people pereceived their own characters. Not much time was spent on this, and I felt that if more attention had been paid to actual sketches (such as "The Thing That Just Wouldn't Leave!" or "Linda Richman's Coffee Talk") instead of discussing the overall process of writing for SNL over and over again (long nights, fierce competition), then the book would have been far more insightful and entertaining and less repetitive. Overall, the book is entertaining, but don't expect too much. Basically, its the same few topics and a few key events (i.e. the deaths of Belushi, Hartman and Farely, and "What do you perceive Lorne Michaels as?") discussed by every cast member and writer twenty differnt ways. You'll enjoy the actual reading of "Live from New York" but its aftertaste is a little sour. "Live from New York" is good as far as it goes, but it left me wanting much more.
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Summary: Interesting Chronicle of a showbiz phenom.
Review: Maybe I'm in the minority, but after reading every couple of pages of these very interesting interviews, I found myself saying "They're talking about SNL, right?" I mean, this book reaks of self-aggrandizement after you realize that their only contribution to the modern lexicon in the past five years is, "Schwetty Balls." Come on! This is SNL! But with the reverence some of these people are granting it, it sounds like they're talking about World War II. Indeed, a lot of people compare their experiences on the show with going to Vietnam (come on, you got a little coked up and you wrote some hilarious "Conehead" sketches. You didn't go anywhere near Vietnam.) What's undeniable, however, is the amount of really talented people who passed through its doors. That's what really makes this book interesting: Larry David, Bob Odenkirk, Conan O'brien, Norm Macdonald, Robert Smigel, all the good cast members, Chevy, etc. Without SNL, they might not've had the full careers that they've gone on to. But still, it's plain to see that they weren't being used to their full potential. I mean, even they had Proust on their staff, or Faulkner, or J.D. Salinger, I imagine their recollections would be the same. "I wrote out a hilarious sketch that was smart and had an ending, but Lorne said it wasn't topical enough and got me working on a cheerleader sketch with three other people including Cheri O'teri." With some memorable time periods aside, I've always considered SNL to be a dumb show, where people go to get famous quickly, and where hilarious catchphrases are expected to be churned out weekly. Shales' ogling should be reserved for at least the first five years of SNL, or Monty Python, or Mr. Show, or Upright Citizens Brigade, or Kids in the Hall, or SCTV, or somebody else that deserves it.
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Summary: It's Saturday Night Exposed!
Review: If you like gossip books, you'll love "Uncensored History". It sort of confirmed to me who were the jerks and who were the good guys. Funny, raucous, pathetic... that's how the cast of characters play out in this tell-all. Sometimes there's a little more info than I needed to know (Chris Farley pool cue incident), but overall, thoroughly entertaining.
Another very funny book I recommend is a goof on teaching and Hollywood entitled "No One's Even Bleeding".
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Summary: History, Schmistory. It's all Hearsay.
Review: I was sucked into "Live from New York" within a few seconds and didn't let go until I was done. It appears that other reviewers have mixed feeling about this book, which consists of outtakes from numerous interviews with the producers, cast and crew of "Saturday Night Live" arranged in a roughly according to theme, citing other books that do the job better, but I liked this one just fine. Perhaps it's my own personal trashy streak that makes me love it so. I love dirt. I love behind-the-scenes action. I love knowing the story that few people ever get to see. There's a lot of that sort of thing here. Dirt on guest hosts, dirt on the cast. Who were the favorite guests? Who were the worst? Which cast members messed up onstage and had to be fired? It's all here. The beauty of this book, as compared to a straight history, is the fact that the editors (calling Tom Shales, and James Andrew Miller "authors" is being way too generous) do not strive for truth. Alternate versions of each story are told by concerned parties and observers alike, so the book resembles a huge comedy-themed "Rashomon". We may never know the truth, but it's enormous fun sifting through other people's memories. One flaw I noticed was the fact that the book is fairly bottom-heavy; the early years are covered in minutes depth and detail, while the most interesting years on the show (the "lost years" of Charles Rocket, Randy Quaid, Julia Louise Dreyfuss, Anthony Michael and Janeane Garafalo) are barely touched upon. And the current cast is noticeably silent, perhaps because the fear repercussion or reprisal. If you like gossip and Saturday Night Live, this book mixes them together beautifully.
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