From the Publisher
Praise for Mr. Show:"
A burst of pop-cultural commentary and cutting-edge irony." —The New York Times
"A twisted and often brilliant stream of comic consciousness ... fast, furious and funny stuff." —Rolling Stone Magazine
"Some of television's smartest and darkest comedy." —L.A. Times
Praise for David Cross' I Drink For a Reason:"
Funny and illuminating . . . His voice makes an easy jump to the page." —A.V. Club, The Onion
"Cross doesn't mince words . . . His stance on Jim Belushi is pretty clear." —TIME
"Immortally titled." —Vanity Fair
Library Journal
11/01/2013
For three years in the mid-1990s, HBO ran the irreverent and darkly twisted comedy sketch series Mr. Show with Bob and David. Odenkirk and Cross juxtaposed live comedic sketches with pretaped vignettes that featured a diverse and talented cast including Jack Black, Sarah Silverman, Jay Johnston, and the sublime Posehn. Now, Mr. Show fanboys and fangirls who have heretofore subsisted on a steady diet of YouTube and Mr. Show: The Complete Collection DVDs can gorge themselves on this compilation of full-length scripts ("Bob and David Make a Movie" and "Hooray for America") and a pastiche of random sketch pieces ("Fagit & Morello," "Nineteen Fifty-Bleven," and "Famous Pussies"). Sadly, the overall conceit is flat, the material lame, and the jokes? Well, sorry, Mr. Show geeks, but they pretty much suck. All of which is to say that Mr. Show sans Jack, Sarah, or Jay is a no-show. VERDICT Verily, a disappointment given the anticipation of Odenkirk and Cross's return. It isn't a stretch to see why Hollywood said no; hard-core Mr. Show fans notwithstanding, you should, too.—Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX
Kirkus Reviews
This collection extends the publishing concept of "cleaning out the closet" to the extreme. The target readership for this book would seem to be small but specific: comedy cultists and Mr. Show completists. The series ran for four years on HBO during the mid-1990s, and both of the co-authors have earned higher-profile TV credits in the 15 years since (Cross with Arrested Development and Odenkirk with Breaking Bad). If there was ever a time when Mr. Show might have spawned some movies, the market for those has long since dissipated. The former dates from 1998 and offers broad political satire on the corporate co-opting of the presidency and the development of the ultimate gated community: a new planet restricted to the rich people who have plundered the Earth. One bit features Abraham Lincoln as a gangsta rapper: "Damn it's me G. A.B.E. to the L.I.N.C. Doin' a drive-by on slizzavery." The latter (which opens the book, though it was written in 2003) is a series of sketches loosely connected by the concept of two comedians trying to get their movie made. The funniest one concerns "Noodlefest," a Woodstock for jam bands, which features only one band playing one interminable song and reaches a state of medical emergency by boring its attendees to death. "This marries our hatred of jam bands with our detestation of sleazy Hollywood producers," the authors explain in a postscript annotation that further pads the volume. In the case of these scripts, Hollywood was right.
