BERT: The big problem with comedy books is that they almost never actually manage to be funny. Instead, they're a collection of half-baked memories stitched together into a misshapen Frankenstein's Monster lurching between clumsy pathos and one-liners you couldn't give away on the old Midday Show. There's a reason they all come out around Christmas time - because no-one in their right mind would buy one of these things for themselves.
The Beached Az stubby holder: is there any clearer sign that western civilisation should just give up and fuck off back to the pavilion? To be fair to the Beached Az team, it's not as if they haven't merchandised the living shit out of their "product" since day one, and it's hardly drawing a long bow to suggest their successful marketing of a bad drawing of a whale played a large part in the ABC giving them a TV show in the first place. Unfortunately, we aren't in the business of giving out awards for marketing here - the queue for that gig forms to the left. And as comedy, even making a joke about how this stubby holder is a joke is giving it way too much credit. Corrine Grant's book made a moderate splash when Today Tonight used it as the basis of a story suggesting Grant was an out-of-control collector of useless junk. Grant rapidly got the message out that it wasn't true; a nation shrugged, put down her book and walked away. Akmal's book is fairly interesting and informative, so long as what you're interested in is Akmal. If you're interested in anything else, such as being entertained, or learning anything about his comedy career... well, good luck with that. EDDIE: People used to ask me why The Footy Show never put out a book. I never answered them. Eventually they figured it out. Which is more than our fans would have done if we'd given them a book.
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