An intimate and entertaining look at a fake-news program whose caustic, witty alchemy remains missed by many.
A lively oral history of The Daily Show focused on Jon Stewart’s improbable transformation from basic-cable comic to progressive conscience.
New York magazine contributing editor Smith deftly combines narrative with the recollections of people involved with the show at every level, ranging from boldface names like John McCain to correspondents like Stephen Colbert and Ed Helms. Stewart contributes the foreword, concurring with Smith that the show’s popularity resulted from its gradual development of an ethical center: “We never forgot what a privilege it was to have a platform.” Yet the show’s cultural impact was unforeseen when the fledgling Comedy Central network determined to create a parody news show to follow the show’s previous Craig Kilborn–hosted iteration, which “could be mean-spirited.” When Stewart took over in 1998, he ruffled feathers by trading the snarky persona for a political bent that “punched up” at powerful targets. As correspondent Mo Rocca recalls, “[Jon] had resolved that the show needed to have a point of view and couldn’t just be the kid at the back of the classroom throwing spitballs.” Following this backstage drama, the show found its voice during the 1999-2000 presidential contest, during which correspondents like Steve Carell and key writers like Ben Karlin added memorable guerrilla theater–style ambushes to both the torpid campaign and the ensuing tense deadlock. The election of George W. Bush and the horror of 9/11 and the increasingly absurd terror wars that followed set the tone for the show’s dark intensity and explosive popularity over the next decade. As John Oliver recalls about the show’s creative rigor, “Jon’s saying is, ‘If you take your foot off the throat of the show for a second, it will just get up and walk away.’ ” Smith effectively combines these reminiscences with an overall arc covering the show’s technical innovations, high-stakes internal negotiations (including spinoffs like The Colbert Report), and staffers’ contentious relationships, friendships, and shenanigans.
An intimate and entertaining look at a fake-news program whose caustic, witty alchemy remains missed by many.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4555-6538-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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