Showing results for "Kaplan" in Comedy & Humour

While other books give you tips on how to “write funny,” this book offers a paradigm shift in understanding the mechanics and art of comedy and the proven, practical tools that help writers translate that understanding into successful commercial scripts. The Hidden Tools of Comedy unlocks the unique secrets and techniques of writing comedy. Kaplan deconstructs sequences in popular films and TV that work and don’t work and explains what tools were used (or should have been used).

From a dysfunctional family who turn their mother's wake into a full-blown riot, to funeral crashers looking for free meals, to a horse-drawn hearse taking the dearly departed for the ride of their afterlife, these accounts from actual undertakers will have you laughing, thinking, and gasping in disbelief. A literal graveyard of wild coincidences, slapstick humor, and touching moments, Over Our Dead Bodies explores the lighter side of the dead, the living, and the lone undertaker who has to make it all go as planned - even if it doesn't.

Nora Ephron at the Movies offers an unfiltered look at Ephron as a champion of the rom-com and as a feminist Hollywood trailblazer. It explores her life and work by pairing detailed criticism with exclusive interviews with Ephron’s key collaborators, including Andie MacDowell and Jenn Kaytin Robinson, to add color and nuance to her life and legacy. With her singular voice, Nora Ephron flourished as a dominant force in the entertainment industry, focusing on the idiosyncrasies of romance that were universally relatable.

Just days after Josie is the last-minute bridesmaid at a massive Boston Brahmin wedding, the lovely bride dies on her honeymoon at an exclusive Arizona resort. The mother of the bride thinks Josie, with her... unique people skills, can find out what really happened. Josie discovers the dead bride may not have been the first dead girl. And to Josie's horror, the killer has set his sights on her next.

In January 2022, Bruce Eric Kaplan found himself confused and upset by the state of the world and the state of his life as a television writer in Los Angeles. He started a journal to keep from going mad, which eventually became They Went Another Way. The book’s through line traces his attempt to get a television project set up in the increasingly Byzantine world of Hollywood.

A delightfully funny and moving novel about the singular life of a cantankerous Jewish-American writer and anarchist troublemaker, as remembered by his daughter. In 1972, sixty-four-year-old Ezra Slavin's heart gives out at an anti-war rally. A contentious and irascible Jewish-American writer, anarchist, and inadvertent guru to discontented youth, he leaves behind a large extended family of ex-wives, lovers, and children, most of whom had cut all ties with the infuriating intellectual provocateur years earlier.

Ivan Sorokin is missing. Who wants him out of the picture - his wife, his business partner, or the stripper who holds his heart? Josie Tucker stands on Beach Street with her back to the San Francisco wharf. Above her, the Ghirardelli sign winks in the dusky twilight, seducing her. The ice cream parlor lights beckon like a lactose lothario, a casein casanova, trying hard to woo her. But her heart longs for dumplings, for dim sum.

"Stranger's Thing" by Robert Bevan: Four friends get more than they bargained for when they break into a seemingly abandoned research lab. "The Shingling" by Steve Wetherell: Johnny Terry, a recovering meth addict, is excited to start his new life as the caretaker at the Underpass Motel. Unfortunately, the Underpass is haunted by the ghosts of dead porn stars. "The Haunting of Whore House" by Robert Bevan: Lucy and her brother, Junkie, find out that moving was only the beginning of their troubles when they encounter the ghost of a little boy in the woods. Plus three more!

Sometimes, there are stories about other people. But if you read between the lines, you'll find that most stories are about me: Brandon Thighmaster. And why wouldn't they be? You can have your tales of daring-do and double-crossing rogues, sure, but that's kind of the story bread, you know? Useless carbs. You want to get to the meat of the story, that's where the rich protein is.

A mysterious letter-writer causes havoc on the idyllic Bader University campus. After a professor receives numerous poison pen letters more and more threatening in nature, Josie Tucker is on the case...grudgingly.

In the quaint but frigid Chicago suburb of Lake Park Villa, grumpy food critic Josie Tucker is on the trail of a would-be killer. Is wealthy cough drop heiress Lynetta Downes about to lose her life? Or is she simply losing her marbles?

In 2006, a person going by the name Tara Gilesbie published perhaps the worst fan fiction of all time, My Immortal, a goth reimagining of Harry Potter. In 2024, four comedians decided to read it out loud at a party. Then they uttered the seven coolest words in the English language: “should this be a podcast?” Comedians Laura Merli, Rebecca Kaplan, Arielle Dundas, and Amanda Lynn Baez explore the worst fanfiction the world has to offer.

When snarky food critic, Josie Tucker, heads to Austin, Texas, to wax philosophical about the local barbecue joints, she stumbles on to a decades' old missing person case. With the help of a local reporter, a Goth ghost hunter, and a bunco-playing transvestite, she tries to unravel the heart-tugging, hidden history before the whole place goes up in smoke.

Hey folks. Mandy Kaplan here. I’d like to share a bit about my intentions and mission for MMAN if you’ll indulge me. You will? Huzzah! Look, I am a lot of things. I’m a writer, actress, mother, and lover of musicals and cats, but NOT Cats, The Musical. Give me a little bit of credit, would ya? So...throughout my life, I’ve been surrounded (and intrigued) by all things nerd. A sister who plays D&D, a Star Wars-obsessed husband, friends who love anime, comic books, video games, and...well, you get the picture. Somehow, I have always held it all at arm's length. Not to get too deep, but ...

Kody Rawlee Green is stuck in juvie. Tella “Teal Cartwheels” Carticelli is packing her bags for Rome—on the orders of her parents, who want her as far from Kody as possible. But teenage love is too strong a force for the obstacles of reality. And the highway beckons.

Comedian and human Myq Kaplan (pronounced Mike Kaplan) has conversations with friends about the work of their lives (as represented by broccoli) and the joys of their lives (as represented by ice cream). Everyone has the best time and learns a lot forever. Enjoy!

Comedian Myq (Mike) Kaplan is The Faucet. Except instead of water like from a literal faucet, what comes out are words, thoughts, ideas, jokes, rhymes, philosophies, fun, and more, in a stream of consciousness. A stream. Like water. See? Like this.

Three 70-year-old sisters turn to the family business—cat burglary—to pay off an old debt.

If you like college basketball and you like the truth, then this is the podcast for you. Each episode you’ll find Tyler Kaplan, Mike Erickson, Matt Stern, and Zach Reynolds discuss the week prior: recapping games, bad beats, bad coaching as well as looking ahead to March Madness. If we find something interesting, we’ll always share, and we hope that at the end of each episode you learned something new, or disagreed with at least one thing we said... or both.

In which you (human listener) get to (but don't have to) hang out with (that is to say, listen to) comedian Myq Kaplan (pronounced "Mike Kaplan," I know! I agree with the way you feel about it!) as he hangs out with (that is to say, talks to) other humans in ways that are meaningful, fun, both, or neither. (Probably not neither.)