A Load of Hooey

Listeners will have to decide for themselves: Do they find defecation and circumcision funny? How about a dinner party with Hitler or "Aunt Frank"? If the answer is yes, then this audiobook will be an enjoyable listening experience. If the answer is no, then the experience will be a turn-off. Each skit is performed enthusiastically by a talented cast of narrators. Fans of comedy writer Bob Odenkirk will appreciate that he does much of the narration himself. As graphic language and descriptions abound, sound effects and music enhance each short piece of warped humor. This sketch comedy program is very much for adults only. M.M.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

July 14, 2014
The first humor collection from comedian Odenkirk is—to quote Forrest Gump— like a box of chocolates. That is to say, its 34 offerings are small, diverse, and consistently delicious. Whether skewering pretensions or making darker, sometimes political, points, the narrative has the deadpan earnestness of Comedy Central’s fake news shows, and the details are blissfully on point. Some standouts include “Martin Luther King’s Worst Speech Ever,” “Baseball Players’ Poems About Sportswriters and Sportswriting,” and “So You Want To Get a Tattoo!” More mordant in their humor are “The Phil Spector I Know,” which takes the American cult of celebrity to a disturbing extreme, and “I Misspoke,” in which a political candidate with heinous views slickly “corrects” the public record. Sprinkled throughout the book, like palate cleansers, are 15 fabricated “Famous Quotations”: for example,“Know thyself. Come on. Hurry up. We’re waiting. Oh, forget it.—Socrates.” Readers who know Odenkirk from his role as Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad may not remember his HBO sketch comedy series, The Mr. Show with Bob and David, which was similarly topical and mischievous. His work here is in the same vein—whip-smart and laugh-out-loud funny. Agent: Erin Malone, WME Entertainment.