This work offers a critical examination of 130 commercially-released film comedies of the 1970s. It considers the socio-political circumstances of each year of the decade, then critiques each film released that year with a focus on its effect on the film industry and the art of big screen comedy, as well as the emergence of talents whose work influenced (or was influenced by) the zeitgeist of the decade. Covering popular titles like M*A*S*H, Blazing Saddles, American Graffiti, The Bad News Bears, Smokey and the Bandit and many more, it argues that the 1970s may rightly be considered the last golden age of film comedy.

This work offers a critical examination of 130 commercially-released film comedies of the 1970s. It considers the socio-political circumstances of each year of the decade, then critiques each film released that year with a focus on its effect on the film industry and the art of big screen comedy, as well as the emergence of talents whose work influenced (or was influenced by) the zeitgeist of the decade. Covering popular titles like M*A*S*H, Blazing Saddles, American Graffiti, The Bad News Bears, Smokey and the Bandit and many more, it argues that the 1970s may rightly be considered the last golden age of film comedy.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR Amy Poehler, Mel Brooks, Adam McKay, George Saunders, Bill Hader, Patton Oswalt, and many more take us deep inside the mysterious world of comedy in this fascinating, laugh-out-loud-funny book. Packed with behind-the-scenes stories—from a day in the writers’ room at The Onion to why a sketch does or doesn’t make it onto Saturday Night Live to how the BBC nearly erased the entire first season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus—Poking a Dead Frog is a must-read for comedy buffs, writers and pop culture junkies alike.

Lileks delivers a jaw-dropping retrospective of the worst of the worst rec rooms, dens, bedrooms, and other interior spaces of homes in the years when shag rugs ruled. Everything here is straight out of the pages of 1970s interior design magazines, books, and other supposed arbiters of style and taste.176 pp.

An alphabetical encyclopedia of 1970s and 1980s pop culture is at once a send up and celebration of the icons of the times, offering nearly one thousand entries that range from eight-tracks and Farrah Fawcett to Valley Girls and break dancing. Original.

At 18, Hal Kanter first came to Hollywood to work as the ghost writer for a comic strip for the princely sum of $10 per week-before he was fired. It was then he heard an Eddie Cantor radio show and realized that he could write better jokes than the famed comedian's writers were providing him. Interestingly enough, Cantor's writers agreed with him, at least to some degree, and hired the brash young man to work with them on the Jack Oakie radio show. Thus was born one of the more interesting and varied careers in Hollywood. Kanter's writing career went from radio shows to screenplays to television series. Along the way he worked with such luminaries as Bob Hope, Frank Capra, Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and a host of others. Awarded an Emmy for writing The George Gobel Show, he was the creator of Julia, the ground-breaking television series. Though he went on to enjoy great success as a producer and director, Kanter always considered himself, first and foremost, a writer. And just how many scripts has he written? "More than I can lift," he says.