A review by alisonchannita
Is This Anything? by Jerry Seinfeld
3.0
I have this terrible habit of picking up a book without reading what it’s about so long as it’s written by someone I know and then wondering why I’m so confused with the direction of the book 50 pages in…
I don’t know why I was expecting this to be a memoir, but it’s not (or not really… there’s a little bit of biographical information). This is literally a book of Jerry Seinfeld’s jokes since the 70s. If you’ve seen his Jerry Before Seinfeld special on Netflix, you will see many of the jokes told there on the pages.
I think comedy as an art form is so interesting and I’m fascinated by the process of writing jokes and figuring out what’s going to hit. This book got me wondering about how Jerry Seinfeld performs on the mic—I’m not as familiar with his standup as I am with Seinfeld (the show) where there’s a script and a laugh track. The jokes in the book are (for the most part) stand alone bits and don’t appear to flow together, yet the collection feels organized.
Without going back and watching the aforementioned Netflix special, I’m trying to remember if this was his game plan to make up for the lack of continuity in jokes: tell a joke, wait for the laugh to fade, then segue into a new joke with, “You know when…” or “Have you ever…”
While many of his jokes definitely reflect the times (read: *very* heteronormative), still some solid LOLs scattered throughout.
I don’t know why I was expecting this to be a memoir, but it’s not (or not really… there’s a little bit of biographical information). This is literally a book of Jerry Seinfeld’s jokes since the 70s. If you’ve seen his Jerry Before Seinfeld special on Netflix, you will see many of the jokes told there on the pages.
I think comedy as an art form is so interesting and I’m fascinated by the process of writing jokes and figuring out what’s going to hit. This book got me wondering about how Jerry Seinfeld performs on the mic—I’m not as familiar with his standup as I am with Seinfeld (the show) where there’s a script and a laugh track. The jokes in the book are (for the most part) stand alone bits and don’t appear to flow together, yet the collection feels organized.
Without going back and watching the aforementioned Netflix special, I’m trying to remember if this was his game plan to make up for the lack of continuity in jokes: tell a joke, wait for the laugh to fade, then segue into a new joke with, “You know when…” or “Have you ever…”
While many of his jokes definitely reflect the times (read: *very* heteronormative), still some solid LOLs scattered throughout.