Mr. Funny Pants, Michael Showalter
Mr. Funny Pants, Michael Showalter
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Mr. Funny Pants

Author: Michael Showalter

Narrator: Michael Showalter

Unabridged: 6 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/22/2011


Synopsis

The writer and star of The State, Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, and Michael & Michael Have Issues brings readers his uniquely absurd humor in his hilarious first book.

I was at my wit's end. I'd had enough of this job, this life, and my relationship had broken up. Should I eat chocolate, or go to India, or fall in love? Then I had a revelation: Why not do all three, in that order? And so it was that I embarked on a journey that was segmented into three parts and was then made into a major motion picture. Later, I woke up on an airplane with a hole in my face and a really bad hangover. I was ushered brusquely off the plane by my parents who took me to a rehab where I tested positive for coke, classic coke, special k (the drug), Special K (the cereal), mushrooms, pepperoni, and Restless Leg Syndrome. It was there that I first began painting with my feet.

But rewind...the year was 1914. I was just a young German soldier serving in the trenches while simultaneously trying to destroy an evil ring with some help from an elf, a troll, and a giant sorcerer, all while cooking every recipe out of a Julia Child cookbook. What I'm trying to say is that there was a secret code hidden in a painting and I was looking for it with this girl who had a tattoo of a dragon! Let me clarify, it was the 1930s and a bunch of us were migrating out of Oklahoma, and I was this teenage wizard/CIA operative, okay? And, um then I floated off into the meta-verse as a ball of invisible energy that had no outer edge...

Ugh, okay. None of this is true. I'm just kind of a normal guy from New Jersey who moved to New York, got into comedy, wrote this book about trying to write this book, and then moved to Alaska, became the mayor of a small town, spent $30,000 on underwear, and now I'm going to rule the world!!!

Reviews

Goodreads review by Amy on March 27, 2013

I really think Michael Showalter's comedy is super funny. So, I expected this book to also be super funny. Some parts of it certainly were, but overall, I think it kind of missed the mark. Usually, as I read a book, when I put my bookmark in, I start thinking about what I would say if I were to writ......more

Goodreads review by Kelly on May 11, 2012

I love Michael Showalter, so I wanted to love this book, but I found it extremely hit-or-miss. At times, I could feel the effort he was putting into being quirky and it caused the humor to fall flat. Or else the humor just fell flat all on its own. A huge theme of the book was blatantly trying to fi......more

Goodreads review by Bonnie on May 02, 2011

So far, this is one of the funniest books I have ever read in my life. Srsly- I am banned from reading this book at work b/c I distracted my coworkes from my muffled guffaws and chuckles and I just sounded like a creepy elmer fudd since I was trying to hide how fucking funny all this shit is. HOLY FUC......more

Goodreads review by Mary on March 12, 2011

Pure Genius! I never knew you could be sarcastic and earnest at the same time. This is one of the funniest celebrity pseudo-memoirs I have read in a long time Anyone who hides their guilty pleasures in music on their iPod by labeling them really cool and hip indie bands, has my vote. I would do the......more

Goodreads review by furious on October 22, 2015

a paean to procrastination & silliness, half-assedly masquerading as memoirs. it legitimately feels like the process of not writing: of jabbering away words that hold no greater meaning just to get SOMETHING on the page. and some of it is inspired. but much of it is not. i know it isn't fair to alwa......more


Quotes

"Showalter is a comic genius. This is, cover to cover, the funniest book I've ever read!"
(Dear Mike, Haven't had time to check it out yet. Do you want to just write a quote and put my name on it? Best, Ben) --Ben Stiller

"Here's the deal: I think Michael Showalter is a genius. And I don't use that term lightly. This book is brave, merciless, and soulful and I think that by that I actually mean stupid, smart and very funny (I mostly just wanted to use the word "merciless" in a sentence.) If you see it on a friend's shelf do yourself a favor and just take it. Not the shelf. Just the book. Unless of course you need a shelf. Merciless!!!" --Paul Rudd

"I read Michael's book on a train. It was funny and engaging. I also once took a train with Michael. I wish that Michael, as a passenger sitting next to me, was as funny and engaging as his book was." --Janeane Garofalo

"Procrastination in written form. This book, like all great works, is honest, absurd and absolutely pointless." --Amy Poehler

"With MR. FUNNY PANTS, Showalter deconstructs books down to their core, then builds them back up into a swirling core-nado. Which is a tornado made out of book cores. It's not a real thing. This book is funny." --Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone of SNL & The Lonely Island

"Showalter, Michael has written a very clever book. And he has written about writing a book, cleverly. Showalter, Michael asked me to write a blurb. It was easy to do-here it is: 'I very much really really liked this Mr. Funny Pants-a book so enjoyable that blurbing about it is so very easy.'" --Zach Galifianakis

"MR. FUNNY PANTS is unlike any book I've ever read. It's this weird, hilarious, choose-your-own-adventure inside Michael Showalter's brain-which is, of course, brilliant. I was at first skeptical of the premise of deconstructing the process of writing a book, but 10 pages in, I was literally crying with laughter and by the time he got to analyzing his own high school poetry, I could no longer read the book in public without embarrassing myself."--Mike Birbiglia, New York Times bestselling author of Sleepwalk With Me

"Michael Showalter: amusing trousers, singular mind." --Sarah Vowell, New York Times bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates

"With MR. FUNNY PANTS by Michael Showalter, the meta-enterprise of the [comedian memoir] genre achieves full wax-bouquet bloom." --James Wolcott, Vanity Fair