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9 Reviews

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3.6 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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99 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comedy Writing Secrets by Melvin Helitzer a must!, 21 Jun 1998

By A Customer

Helitzer's Book on comedy writing is the best book out there on the subject. He has a firm grasp on essential techniques needed to refine your raw material into comedy gold. I recommend this book for anyone seiously interested in the old addage, "if it's funny there's money!" If you perform stand-up, or just write, this is the book to read. His various examples from today's comedians are not only hilarious but keep the reader interested and the book moving along. Helitzer has written the first and best book on the subject. I teach a comedy class and I know I couldn't do it without this book.

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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ignorant, vindictive and charmless., 14 Mar 2006

By	Mr. G. Coffey "Gaius Coffey" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Comedy Writing Secrets: How to Think Funny, Write Funny, Act Funny and Get Paid for it (Paperback)

After the seventh page I found myself skipping the bits written by the author and jumping instead to the quotes. When I did force myself to read the (poor) prose between the quotes, I usually found the gist could be got from the first sentence with the rest of the paragraph mere padding.
Looking from the writing style to the theory and philosophy;
While I am undecided whether the author was the bully or the bullied, I am certain that he is familiar with bullying. In fact, his philosophy of comedy largely revolves around vindictiveness of one type or another and as such provides a charmless and cynical picture of humanity as a whole.
Moving from his philosophy to his theory of getting laughs; I found it distracting when the author used bad definitions of terms and then cited examples that failed to support even his own definition (eg: "malapropism" ... which uses a pun to introduce it in the book before mistakenly citing examples of verbal imbecility as malapropisms).
If you are interested in writing comedy, I strongly recommend against this book in favour of ... something else. For me, "Writing Television Sitcoms" (Evan S. Smith) is a much stronger book with more convincing (better written and informative) arguments and a much less misanthropic view of comedy.
Just my two cents.

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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Save your money, time, ..., 22 Feb 2006

By A Customer

It will be insufficient if I just say "very poor". Although interesting in the very beginning the book is shallow and is based on teaching tricks rather improving the "self". As far as the tricks are concerned you won’t get too much either - put it in this way it is like reading a newspaper and expecting to become a great politician. What you might get is few good jokes that are cited. I am not sure it worth reading few hundreds sides of garbage for the few jokes. The quality of the book as an object is such that it felt apart after 10-20 openings.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it! Still love it!
Mel Helitzer is a genius, but his ideas come with a price: effort. You have to put in the work, you have to do the brainstorms, you have to see how all of his ideas relate,... Read more

Published 17 days ago by Deniz Ates

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and Informative
I don't know if it's possible to learn humour, but there are certainly plenty of techniques in this book to help the budding comedy writer or performer hone whatever natural... Read more

Published 4 months ago by Paul Solomons

3.0 out of 5 stars boring but useful
it was very boring to me but if you can make it all the way through then i guess it would really help. but i would advise getting something else if you can.

Published 8 months ago by joker

2.0 out of 5 stars Lessons in VERY Old School Comedy
Very disappointing. Despite quoting from a few modern American comedians in the book,the comedy being taught here is SO dated. Read more

Published on 4 Oct 2007 by R. Lewis

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!
I've just read the other reviews on here and I'm shocked.

This is an EXCELLENT book, a detailed read on why we laugh, what is funny and what is not - and why... Read more

Published on 28 Mar 2007 by Mr. Daniel J. Offer

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent overview of the comedy writing process
This book provides a comprehensive look at the comedy writing process. If you are involved in comedy of any kind then this will be highly useful. Read more

Published on 13 Feb 2006 by Mr. P. J. Kimberlee

› See all 9 customer reviews...

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