The Funniest People In Comedy 250 Anecdotes

Paperback edition. This book is one-half of my previous book "The Funniest People in Comedy and Relationships: 500 Anecdotes." This book contains 250 anecdotes about comedians, including this one: When Jack Benny was ill, he had to get shots in his backside twice a week. His nurse gave him his shots in alternate cheeks, but sometimes she had trouble remembering which cheek should receive the next shot. So finally Mr. Benny walked into the doctor's office, dropped his pants, and on one cheek was printed "Tues" and on the other, "Thurs."

This book contains such anecdotes as these: 1) In his Answer Man column, film critic Roger Ebert answered a question by Matt Sandler about who was the world's most beautiful woman by saying that she was Indian actress Aishwarya Rai. In a later Answer Man column, a reader stated that Mr. Ebert should have answered the question by saying, "My wife." However, Mr. Ebert had a good reason for not answering the question that way: "Matt Sandler asked about women, not goddesses." 2) To advertise its Razzles candy, Mars Candy decided to use a Cleveland, Ohio, show in which comedian Ron Sweed, aka The Ghoul, hosted several mostly bad horror movies. The Ghoul criticized the candy for weeks, and the more he criticized it, the more its sales went up. In gratitude, Mars Candy delivered a case of Razzles to The Ghoul. The case of candy remained on the set of The Ghoul's show for year--unopened.

This is a retelling in prose of Dante's "Divine Comedy." It includes his Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. In the "Divine Comedy," Dante journeys through the three parts of the afterlife.

This is an easy-to-read retelling on Ben Jonson's classic comedy "The Alchemist," whose theme is the love of money.

Ben Jonson was a master of satire who ranks with Jonathan Swift and Voltaire. In Volpone, he tackles greed. The wealthy Venetian gentleman Volpone is as cunning as a fox, and he pretends to be very ill and dying in order to entice legacy-hunters to give him valuable gifts in hopes of being named his heir. This works well for three years, but then This is an easy-to-read retelling of Ben Jonson's satiric masterpiece: "Volpone, or the Fox."

This is an easy-to-read retelling of "King Edward III," a history play that may have been written in part by William Shakespeare.