"This is a comprehensive ticket to learning more about every aspect of the late-night comedy staple and its storied history." - Library Journal Television history was made on October 11, 1975, when a new generation of young performers welcomed America to the first episode of a new late-night comedy and variety show. Combining cutting-edge humor with a satirical sensibility, Saturday Night Live would go on to become the longest-running series of its kind in television history, shining a light on pop culture as well as contemporary social and political issues. It also became a launching pad for many of the leading comedy performers of the last five decades, including John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Eddie Murphy, Phil Hartman, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, Maya Rudolph, and Kate McKinnon Celebrating the show’s record-breaking 50 years on the air, The SNL Companion is a fun, fact-filled tribute to a television institution. From the show’s creation by Lorne Michaels through all of the seasons leading up to its golden anniversary, it provides an in-depth look at SNL’s comedic highlights and nadirs, its memorable hosts and musical guests, and its many controversies. Along with a complete episode guide, it explores the characters, sketches, politics, catchphrases, commercial parodies, and viral shorts that have made it a leader in American comedy for over five decades. Vastly revised, updated, and expanded since its original publication in 2013 and packed with photographs and rich encyclopedic detail, The SNL Companion is a one-stop resource for all things SNL.

The complete history, on stage and behind the scenes.

Over 2,200 Jokes from America’s favorite live radio show A treasury of hilarity from Garrison Keillor and the cast of public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion. A guy walks into a bar. Eight Canada Geese walk into a bar. A termite jumps up on the bar and asks, “Where is the bar tender?” Drum roll. The Sixth Edition of the perennially popular Pretty Good Joke Book is everything the first five were and more. More puns, one-liners, light bulb jokes, knock-knock jokes, and third-grader jokes (have you heard the one about Elvis Parsley?). More religion jokes, political jokes, lawyer jokes, blonde jokes, and jokes in questionable taste (Why did the urologist lose his license? He got in trouble with his peers). More jokes about chickens, relationships, and senior moments (the nice thing about Alzheimer’s is you can enjoy the same jokes again and again). It all started back in 1996, when A Prairie Home Companion fans laughed themselves silly during the first Joke Show. The broadcast was such a hit that it became an almost-annual gagfest. Then fans wanted to read the jokes, share them, and pass them around, and the first Pretty Good Joke Book was born. With over 200 new and updated jokes, the latest edition promises countless giggles, chortles, and guffaws anyone—fans of the radio show or not—will enjoy.

“ It reads like a thriller, and may be the best book ever written about television.” Associated Press“ A chilling real-life cliffhanger.” Washington Post“ An anthropological masterpiece.” Vanity FairSaturday Night is the intimate, original history of Saturday Night Live, from its beginnings as an outlaw program produced by an unruly band of renegades from the comedy underground to a TV institution that made stars of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy.This is the book that revealed to the world what really happened behind the scenes during the first ten years of this groundbreaking program, from the battles SNL fought with NBC to the battles fought within the show itself. It's all here— the love affairs, betrayals, rivalries, drug problems, overnight successes, and bitter failures, mixed with the creation of some of the most outrageous and original comedy ever.This reissue features nearly fifty photographs of cast, crew and sketches.Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad covered television for a wide variety of popular and professional organizations and publications, including The Associated Press, The New York Times, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, TV Guide, Broadcasting/Cablecasting, and Advertising Age.

James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales's definitive oral history of Saturday Night Live, hailed as "incredible" (Vulture) and "required reading" (People). When first published to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, Live from New York was immediately proclaimed the best book ever produced on the landmark and legendary late-night show. In their own words, unfiltered and uncensored, a dazzling galaxy of trail-blazing talents recalled three turbulent decades of on-camera antics and off-camera escapades. Now decades have passed, and bestselling authors James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales have returned to Studio 8H. Over more than 100 pages of new material, they raucously and revealingly take the SNL story up to the present, adding a constellation of iconic new stars, surprises, and controversies.

"Nick at Nite's Classic TV Companion offers capsule descriptions of every episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Love Lucy, Bewitched, The Bob Newhart Show, I Dream of Jeannie, The Munsters, Taxi, and Welcome Back, Kotter. Featured are such vital nuggets as classic guest stars: cameos by famous actors; classic quotes: TV's classic catchphrases and unforgettable one-liners; and awards and critical comments."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

From the daughter of the iconoclastic comedic performer, Kelly Carlin’s memoir A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up with George “is written in the DNA of a Carlin, honest, biting, savage, funny, sad, dark, and profound...Hold on; like George Carlin, this book gives you a hell of a ride” (New York Times bestselling author and multi-award-winning comedian Lewis Black). Truly the voice of a generation, George Carlin gave the world some of the most hysterical and iconic comedy routines of the last fifty years. From the “Seven Dirty Words” and “A Place for My Stuff”, to “Religion is Bullshit” and “The American Dream”, he perfected the art of making audiences double over with laughter while simultaneously making people wake up to the realities (and insanities) of life in the twentieth century. Few people glimpsed the inner life of this beloved comedian, but his only child, Kelly, was there to see it all. Born at the very beginning of his decades-long career in comedy, she slid around the “old Dodge Dart,” as he and wife Brenda drove around the country to “hell gigs.” She witnessed his transformation in the ’70s, as he fought back against—and talked back to—the establishment; she even talked him down from a really bad acid trip a time or two (“Kelly, the sun has exploded and we have eight, no-seven and a half minutes to live!”). Kelly not only watched her father constantly reinvent himself and his comedy, but also had a front row seat to the roller coaster turmoil of her family’s inner life—alcoholism, cocaine addiction, life-threatening health scares, and a crushing debt to the IRS. But having been the only “adult” in her family prepared her little for the task of her own adulthood. All the while, Kelly sought to define her own voice as she separated from the shadow of her father’s genius. With rich humor and deep insight, Kelly Carlin pulls back the curtain on what it was like to grow up as the daughter of one of the most recognizable comedians of our time, and become a woman in her own right. This vivid, hilarious, heartbreaking story is at once singular and universal—it is a contemplation of what it takes to move beyond the legacy of childhood, and forge a life of your own.