Best of
Comedy

1988

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury


Bill Watterson - 1988
    The strip follows the richly imaginative adventures of Calvin and his trusty tiger, Hobbes. Whether a poignant look at serious family issues or a round of time-travel (with the aid of a well-labeled cardboard box), Calvin and Hobbes will astound and delight you.Beginning with the day Hobbes sprang into Calvin's tuna fish trap, the first two Calvin and Hobbes collections, Calvin and Hobbes and Something Under The Bed Is Drooling, are brought together in this treasury. Including black-and-white dailies and color Sundays, The Essential Calvin and Hobbes also features an original full-color 16-page story.

Tales Too Ticklish to Tell: Bloom County


Berkeley Breathed - 1988
    Three hundred black-and-white and forty-four color strips bring fans up to date on current affairs in Bloom County: Opus dances in an all-female nightclub and discovers the social penalties for penguin lust and more.

The Complete Fawlty Towers


John Cleese - 1988
    Published in its entirety for the first time and illustrated, The Complete Fawlty Towers will appeal to the millions of fans who have suffered through endless PBS fundraisers waiting for the next episode -- and anyone who has survived a package holiday tour. Fawlty Towers is the hotel of every traveler's nightmare. Basil Fawlty -- ill-tempered, henpecked, and conniving -- tries in vain to be master of his house under the disapproving and ever-watchful eye of his wife, Sybil. The hotel offers service by Manuel, the incompetent Spanish waiter whose feeble grasp of English makes for hilarious misunderstandings, and Polly, the unflappable chambermaid who is Fawlty Towers' only sane employee. Meals are scorched in the kitchen while adulterers consort upstairs and chaos reigns all around. For countless fans, Fawlty Towers is the best-loved bad hotel in the world, and with publication of The Complete Fawlty Towers they will all have a chance to relive its outrageous awfulness.

Blue Heaven


Joe Keenan - 1988
    Living in New York in 1991 is Gilbert Selwyn, a young man possessed of boundless charm and an allergy to employment, who has devised a plan to wring a nice pile of loot from his mother's newest (and obscenely wealthy) husband.The scheme, simply put, is to get married for the gifts. But Gilbert, who's gay, needs a fiancée... Enter Moira Finch, a demonically conniving young woman whose own mother, having recently married the Duke of Dorsetshire, will contribute richly to the couple's receipts. Enter, too, Philip Cavanagh, Gilbert's longtime friend, former lover, and highly strung Best Man. And enter, finally, the Cellinis, Gilbert's huge internecine stepfamily, whose fortune has not been amassed as innocently as Gilbert first thought, and who conform rather more closely to Italian-American stereotypes than Gilbert would like to believe. As Gilbert, Moira, and Philip struggle to keep their plot under wraps, the scams get bigger and more perilous, deceit multiplies, and a wonderfully calamitous trail leads us towards what could be the wedding of the season.

View From Rat Lake


John Gierach - 1988
    Among them are: ‘remote trout lake,’ ‘fish up to 13 pounds,’ ‘the place the guides fish on their days off,’” writes John Gierach in this wonderful collection of thirteen essays inspired by a fishing trip to Rat Lake, a remote body of water in Montana. Once again John Gierach does what he does best—explain the peculiarities of the fishing life in a way that will amuse novices and seasoned fly fishers alike. The View from Rat Lake deftly examines man in nature and nature in man, the pleasures of fishing the high country, and the high and low comedy that occasionally overcomes even the best-planned fishing trip. Some typically sage observations from The View from Rat Lake: “One of the things we truly fish for [is] an occasion for self-congratulation.”“In every catch-and-release fisherman’s past there is an old black frying pan.”“We . . . believe that a 12-inch trout caught on a dry fly is four inches longer than a 12-inch trout caught on a nymph or streamer.”

Don't Bend Over in the Garden, Granny, You Know Them Taters Got Eyes


Lewis Grizzard - 1988
    He tells us why Junior Leaguers don't do it in groups, why Baptists won't do it standing up, and why Richard Nixon never did it, among other things. From the Paperback edition.

The Horizontal Epistles Of Andromeda Veal


Adrian Plass - 1988
    Andromeda has broken her femur while trying to 'eat muesli and roller skate at the same time'. Deserted by her separated parents, she lies in a hospital bed feeling very lonely. Anne Plass mobilises the whole church into writing letters. Among the old friends who put pen to paper are Gerald Plass, the enigmatic Leonard Thynn, Charles Cook (from Deep Joy Bible School), Adrian himself and even the dreaded Mrs Flushpool. Andromeda not only replies to these letters, but writes to the famous - among them Cliff Richard - with stern, if badly spelled, advice. Then, with the urging of Father John, Andromeda decides that her family problems will only be solved if she goes right to the top. She writes to God ...

The Four Elements


Roz Chast - 1988
    1988. 8.00 x 7.90 x 0.50.FUNNY Cartoons by Roz Chast

Yes, Prime Minister: The Diaries of the Right Hon. James Hacker


Jonathan Lynn - 1988
    For all those who laughed at the political wisdom contained in the fictional diaries of The Complete Yes Minister, here is the hilarious sequel in which the hero, Sir James Hacker, successfully fails his way upward to the top political post in Great Britain.

The Collected Plays of Peter Shaffer


Peter Shaffer - 1988
    

Herman: The Sixth Treasury


Jim Unger - 1988
    Cartoons offer a humorous look at UFOs, students, marriage, doctors, job interviews, restaurants, golfers, parents, banks, television, dogs, weddings, and modern art.

A Fish Called Wanda: The Screenplay


John Cleese - 1988
    "Wanda defies gravity, in both senses of the word, and redefines a great comic tradition." - Time "The meanest, most consistently hysterical film in ages ... the writing is sharply pointed and delightfully irreverent." - Gannett Newspapers

Milligan's War: The Selected War Memoirs of Spike Milligan


Spike Milligan - 1988
    Adolf Hitler, Monty, Mussolini, Rommel (who?) - all played their modest parts in the Second World War and the shaping of human destiny, but we all know where the real action was... Milligan's war documents in words and pictures. The most scurrilous, bizarre and certainly the most hilarious military career embarked upon by any bombardier of the 56th heavy regiment, royal artillery, ever.'The most irreverent, hilarious book about the war that I have ever read' Sunday Express 'Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar' Sunday Times 'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese 'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie Izzard 'That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man' Stephen Fry Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.

The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Make You Miserable


Jamie Buckingham - 1988
    

World of Lily Wong


Larry Feign - 1988
    

Great Housewives of Art


Sally Swain - 1988
    But for years, the lives of these women have remained shrouded in mystery. Here, artist Sally Swain gives them their due, capturing them at their many household chores. 42 color illustrations.

The Return of B.C. Rides Again: A B.C. Collection


Johnny Hart - 1988
    collection, everyone's favorite cavepeople are back, discovering the wheel, consulting with psychics, turning harebrained ideas into successful small-business ventures and more.

The Life And Times Of Maxwell Smart


Donna McCrohan - 1988
    Here is the definitive guide to the program: a treasury of facts from on screen and behind the scenes, culled from over a year of research and interviews with the major stars and creators. 50 photos.

Brazil: The Evolution of the 54th Best British Film Ever Made


Terry Gilliam - 1988
    The genesis for Oscar nominated screenplay to the film lies in a faded notebook in Terry Gilliam's attic. It began life in 1977 when Gilliam was working on the Jabberwocky. He had had in his mind for years an image of a totalitarian state, an image of a superficial society where dreams have become scarce. He retired to a cottage in Wales for a month with Jabberwocky screenwriter Charles Alverson and created a 150 page screenplay which, eight years later he and Tom Stoppard used as the blueprint for the final film. previously undisclosed fantasy sequences, plot lines and characters. The original script is wonderfully biting. It also has some of the most eccentric characters in all of cinematic history. In addition to the full, restored, previously unseen screen-play, the book includes an extensive foreword chronicling the beginnings of the project, featuring extracts and sketches from Gilliam's notebooks and includes new in-depth interviews with both Terry Gilliam and Charles Alverson talking for the first time about his contribution to the movie. With its huge cult appeal this is a fascinating insight into the evolution of a modern movie classic.

Famous American Plays of the 1980s


Robert Marx - 1988
    Vastly different in theme, style, and sensibility, these works share an element that characterizes many serious new productions of the decade -- they first appeared in regional theaters and off-Broadway. In the 1980s the emergence of quality theaters from coast to coast has allowed the public to experience the visions of today's best playwrights. So here we have the distinctive black drama of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the emotionally riveting western fantasy of Fool for Love, the artistic fulfillment depicted in Sunday in the Park with George, and the disturbing moral commentary of Aunt Dan and Lemon and Grown Ups.