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It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time
- Author
- Bruce Vilanch
- Narrator
- Bruce Vilanch
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date
- 4 March 2025
- Run Time
- 5 hours 37 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
Bruce Vilanch is known as a go-to comedy writer for award shows, sitcoms, and top-heavy variety specials, but he has also been responsible for quite a few of the worst shows ever put on television—legendarily bad productions.
Some of his work lives in infamy—The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White at the Oscars, and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. How did these ever seem like a good idea?
Well, everyone has screwed up a few times, or had their work screwed up by others. It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time is a lifetime reflection of what Vilanch has experienced, learned, forgotten, dismissed, and embraced in decades of working in show business, specifically the south forty acres known as comedy. It involves very famous people and people who were not very famous but should have been.
And it explains to the person in the audience who says to himself, once he has gotten his jaw off the floor, “’How did this ever get made?”
Don’t we all want to know?
Critics Review
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“An entertaining, often hilarious behind-the-scenes look at working in show business.”
Library Journal
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“If you’re a fellow pop-culture dumpster diver, it won’t matter whether you read or hear Bruce Vilanch’s stories. You’ll just be glad to have found them in the muck.”
Washington Post
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“Serves as a reminder that even the most outrageous misfires can become cultural touchstones and that sometimes the best ideas really do start as bad ones.”
The Advocate
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“Flops pepper his pages, most of them in the variety vein, and not all of them his fault…There’s nice dish along the way on the likes of Paul Lynde, Betty White, and his own ’70s-era cohort of TV folks before and behind the camera. A well-written treat for fans of show-biz gossip.”
Kirkus Reviews
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“Longtime television writer and comedian Bruce Vilanch narrates his wry, sardonic, whimsical, and perhaps too detailed examination of some of the greatest disasters in his TV writing career. His delivery is well articulated, understandable, enthusiastic, and varied…Listeners will likely have fun with this novelty effort.”
AudioFile
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“It’s hilarious! He’s finally coming clean and owning up to his part in creating some of the worst television of the twentieth century, and that’s saying a lot. There’s no one like him!”
Bette Midler, actress
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“Bruce is the name, the man, the person, who steadied the Oscars for a hundred years. The go-to genius we all relied on.”
Steve Martin, actor
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“Turns out that all those TV specials I watched as a kid—the ones that not only delighted me but made me wince, groan, and squirm with embarrassment—had Bruce Vilanch’s name on them. And he lived!”
Jane Lynch, actress
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Bruce Vilanch
- Narrator
- Bruce Vilanch
- Duration
- 5 hours 37 minutes
- Release Date
- 4 March 2025
- ISBN
- 9798228356368
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Genre
- Biography: arts and entertainment, Memoirs
Synopsis
Bruce Vilanch is known as a go-to comedy writer for award shows, sitcoms, and top-heavy variety specials, but he has also been responsible for quite a few of the worst shows ever put on television—legendarily bad productions.Some of his work lives in infamy—The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White at the Oscars, and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. How did these ever seem like a good idea?Well, everyone has screwed up a few times, or had their work screwed up by others. It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time is a lifetime reflection of what Vilanch has experienced, learned, forgotten, dismissed, and embraced in decades of working in show business, specifically the south forty acres known as comedy. It involves very famous people and people who were not very famous but should have been.And it explains to the person in the audience who says to himself, once he has gotten his jaw off the floor, “’How did this ever get made?”Don’t we all want to know?
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