General Comedy Audiobooks | Comedy

Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays

Christmas is a time of seasonal cheer, family get-togethers, holiday parties, and-gift giving. Lots and lots--and lots--of gift giving. It's hard to imagine any Christmas without this time-honored custom. But let's stop to consider the gifts we receive--the rooster sweater from Grandma or the singing fish from Uncle Mike. How many of us get gifts we like? How many of us give gifts not knowing what recipients want? Did your cousin really look excited about that jumping alarm clock? Lively and informed, Scroogenomics illuminates how our consumer spending generates vast amounts of economic waste--to the shocking tune of eighty-five billion dollars each winter. Economist Joel Waldfogel provides solid explanations to show us why it's time to stop the madness and think twice before buying gifts for the holidays. When we buy for ourselves, every dollar we spend produces at least a dollar in satisfaction, because we shop carefully and purchase items that are worth more than they cost. Gift giving is different. We make less-informed choices, max out on credit to buy gifts worth less than the money spent, and leave recipients less than satisfied, creating what Waldfogel calls 'deadweight loss.' Waldfogel discusses how this waste isn't confined to Americans--most major economies share in this orgy of wealth destruction. While recognizing the difficulties of altering current trends, Waldfogel offers viable gift-giving alternatives.

Joel Waldfogel (Author), Lloyd James (Narrator)

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What Would Susie Say?

IN WHAT WOULD SUSIE SAY?, Susie Essman sheds the crasser layers to reveal how she went from an anxiety-ridden, struggling stand-up comic to being one of the funniest women on television, playing Susie Greene on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. Emerging as one of the most successful performers in her field, Essman goes behind the scenes of a life in comedy with her funny cohorts, including Joy Behar, Rodney Dangerfield, and, of course, Jeff Garlin and Larry David, while also providing sidesplittingly funny wisdom on a range of topics that she's highly unqualified to expound upon, including men, sports, hypochondria, and stepparenthood. WHAT WOULD SUSIE SAY ABOUT... MARRIAGE? "It took me a long time to find the man I was willing to commit myself to. Even the word commit is troublesome. One is committed to a mental institution." MEN WITH DOGS? "As a dog lover, I've researched many different breeds and I've begun to realize that you can tell a lot about a person by what breed of dog they choose to associate with. A bit self-conscious about your cellulite? A guy with a shar-pei is for you. They're hard to find, but cheaper than lipo." THE BEAUTY OF MENOPAUSE? "I guess I just have to accept the fact that I'm going to end up a bald, fat, sweaty, irritable woman with a dry vagina and a full beard who never sleeps and has memory loss so I won't even be able to remember how hot I used to look!" STEPPARENTHOOD? "My mother used to tell me 'you can't buy your kids'love.' Bullshit. You can, and it's exponential. They'relike Russian mail-order brides -- the more you spend,the more they love you." WHAT WOULD SUSIE SAY? is Essman's irreverent, refreshingly candid, and hilarious retort to the dubious facts of life that we all face.

Susie Essman (Author), Susie Essman (Narrator)

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Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me! Famous People Who Returned Our Calls

Celebrity guests are put on the spot in the popular "Not My Job" segment of the Peabody award-winning NPR radio show. Each week, two million listeners tune into Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me! to test their knowledge of the week's dumbest news against some of the best and brightest, panelists including author and humorist Roy Blount Jr., author and radio anomaly Tom Bodett, syndicated advice columnist Amy Dickinson ("Ask Amy"), Atlantic Monthly journalist P.J. O'Rourke, Washington Post columnist Roxanne Roberts, and other know-it-alls. Celebrity guests are put on the spot in the popular “Not My Job” segment of the Peabody award-winning NPR radio show. Each week, two million listeners tune into Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! to test their knowledge of the week’s dumbest news against some of the best and brightest—panelists including author and humorist Roy Blount Jr., author and radio anomaly Tom Bodett, syndicated advice columnist Amy Dickinson (“Ask Amy”), Atlantic Monthly journalist P.J. O’Rourke, Washington Post columnist Roxanne Roberts, and other know-it-alls. Always a high point of the show, “Not My Job” features a celebrity guest who must answer questions on a topic totally outside his or her area of expertise. Guests must also contend with not-so-helpful interjections from host Peter Sagal and the panelists, with hilarious results. Comedians Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report) and Denis Leary (Rescue Me), actors Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek), Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and Carrie Fisher, musicians Mavis Staples and Moby, Southern cook and restaurateur Paula Deen, and high-wire artist Philippe Petit (Man on Wire) are just a few of the stars who find themselves under the heat of the Not MyJob spotlight.

NPR (Author), Carl Kasell, Peter Sagal (Narrator)

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An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain: or Sixty Years of Making the Same Stupid Mistakes

Following his hugely popular account of the previous 2000 years, John O'Farrell now comes bang up to date with a hilarious modern history asking 'How the hell did we end up here?' An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain informs, elucidates and laughs at all the bizarre events, ridiculous characters and stupid decisions that have shaped Britain's story since 1945; leaving the Twenty-First Century reader feeling fantastically smug for having the benefit of hindsight.

John O'farrell (Author), John O'farrell (Narrator)

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The Better Part of the Road

Tom Bodett (Author), Tom Bodett (Narrator)

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I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Standup Comedy's Golden Era

I'm Dying Up Here chronicles the collective coming of age of the standup comedians who defined American humor during the past three decades. Born early in the Baby Boom, they grew up watching The Tonight Show, went to school during Vietnam and Watergate, migrated en masse to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, and created an artistic community unlike any before or since. They were arguably the funniest people of their generation, living in a late-night world of sex, drugs, dreams, and laughter. For one brief shining moment, standup comics were as revered as rock stars. It was Comedy Camelot but, of course, it couldn't last. In the late 1970s, William Knoedelseder was a cub reporter assigned to cover the burgeoning local comedy scene for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote the first major newspaper profiles of Jay Leno, David Letterman, Andy Kaufman, and others. He got to know many of them well. And so he covered the scene too when the comedians-who were not paid for performing at the career-making-or-breaking venue called the Comedy Store-tried to change an exploitative system and incidentally tore apart their own close-knit community. Now Knoedelseder has gone back to interview the major participants to tell the whole story of that golden age and of the strike that ended it. Full of revealing portraits of many of the best-known comedic talents of our age, I'm Dying Up Here is also a poignant tale of the price of success and the terrible cost of failure-professional and moral.

William Knoedelseder (Author), William Dufris (Narrator)

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The Werewolf's Guide to Life

Have you been attacked by a wolf-like creature in the last 30 days? Was it after the sun had set and under a full moon? If you answered, yes to both these questions, there's a very good chance that you were bitten by a werewolf. You now have less than a month before the full moon returns and with it your first transformation into a savage, bloodthirsty beast. Survival is an option, but first, know this: * Werewolves are real. * The majority of lycanthropes who do not have access to this book die during or shortly after their first transformations, generally due to heart failure, gunshot wounds, exposure, drowning or suicide. * Hollywood horror movies are NOT to be used as guides to living as a werewolf. Their goal is not to educate, but to entertain. As a result, they are largely ignorant of the realities of the condition. * Ignorance creates monsters; lycanthropy does not. * You are not a monster. The Werewolf's Guide to Life cuts through the fiction and guides you through your first transformation and beyond, offering indispensable advice on how to tell if you're really a werewolf, post-attack etiquette, breaking the news to your spouse, avoiding government abduction, and how to not just survive, but thrive. You cannot afford to not read this book. Your very life depends on it. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Bob Powers, Ritch Duncan (Author), Robertson Dean, Unknown (Narrator)

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Women Are Crazy, Men Are Stupid: The Simple Truth to a Complicated Relationship

Since the dawn of time, when the first smitten caveboy tried to woo the object of his affections by shoving her into the mud, men have demonstrated that when it comes to women, they are profoundly stupid. And when it comes to men, women—no matter how intelligent or mature—are completely crazy. Based on this simple yet groundbreaking insight, comedy writers and real-life couple Howard J. Morris and Jenny Lee have devised a relationship guide that is refreshingly honest, completely hilarious, and surprisingly practical. Using their own crazy/stupid romance as an example of these forces in action, they set out to explain why women ask questions that they absolutely do not want answered—and why men persist in answering them. What are men really thinking—or crucially, not thinking? Why do women view even the most mundane events through an emotional prism? Why do guys suck at being romantic? And why does every conversation with a woman lead back to whether or not she's fat? Using wit, hard-earned wisdom, and a highly entertaining he said/she said format, the authors explore the surprising method to his dumbness and the valid reasons behind her insanity, while providing real solutions to perennial relationship problems. By teaching men how and why they're stupid around women, and showing women how to "control the crazy" for everybody's sake, Women Are Crazy, Men Are Stupid helps couples to reach the place where giving isn't giving in, needing isn't needy, and where the sexes can break the dysfunctional patterns and find a way to live lovingly, happily ever after.

Howard J. Morris, Jenny Lee (Author), Justine Eyre (Narrator)

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Old Harry's Game: The Complete Series Three

The complete third series of Andy Hamilton's hell-ariously entertaining Radio 4 comedy. Satan may rule the roost, but he's beset by the poor unfortunates condemned to sit out Eternity with him. Amongst them is the Professor, who is convinced that societies evolve and mature until Satan introduces him to Bill Clinton. There's also Scumspawn, Satan's personal assistan, with his large expanse of nothingness between the ears - and as for Satan himself, he is persuaded to attempt to improve his image on Earth, to remake Casablanca (with Bogart, Bergman and a mutant alien) and to start a football match in Hell which provokes God to send a couple of Archangels down to see what all the fuss is about.

Andy Hamilton (Author), , Andy Hamilton, Jimmy Mulville, Robert Duncan (Narrator)

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Don't Say I Didn't Warn You: Kids, Carbs, and the Coming Hormonal Apocalypse

When I first learned that I was pregnant, I thought this was going to be the most blessed, beautiful, rose-petals-at-my-feet-and-bluebirds-lighting-upon-my-forearm time of my life. Then I went for my first prenatal visit. Which starts with a weigh-in. From comedian Anita Renfroe, already beloved by women's groups and YouTube viewers across America, comes this hilarious and brazenly honest look at motherhood and middle age. Famous for her live performance of the "Mom Song," which barrels through everything a mom says to her kids in a single day to the tune of the "William Tell Overture" (just two minutes and fifty-five seconds), in Don't Say I Didn't Warn You, Renfroe now turns her irreverent and daringly accurate comic eye to other female conditions. In chapters with names like "Brother, Can You Spare an Epidural?" and "Playing Favorites (Or, As a Matter of Fact, I Do Love Your Brother More)," she dares to speak what other women are thinking--but don't say out loud. Using wit and honesty as her weapons of choice, Renfroe shares her deeply funny and relatable takes on everything from weddings to mammograms to every woman's never-ending quest for just one good photo of herself. The world is a bounty of material for Renfroe; with it, she makes a feast of laughter for us all. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Anita Renfroe (Author), Anita Renfroe (Narrator)

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Andrew Zimmern, Ritual Royalty: Chapter 19 from THE BIZARRE TRUTH

Andrew Zimmern, the host of The Travel Channel’s hit series Bizarre Foods, has an extraordinarily well-earned reputation for traveling far and wide to seek out and sample anything and everything that’s consumed as food globally, from cow vein stew in Bolivia and giant flying ants in Uganda to raw camel kidneys in Ethiopia, putrefied shark in blood pudding in Iceland and Wolfgang Puck's Hunan style rooster balls in Los Angeles. For Zimmern, local cuisine — bizarre, gross or downright stomach turning as it may be to us -- is not simply what’s served at mealtime. It is a primary avenue to discovering what is most authentic — the bizarre truth — about cultures everywhere. In this section, Zimmern recounts the Trance Dance ceremony in Botswana.

Andrew Zimmern (Author), Andrew Zimmern (Narrator)

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Sporting Gaffes Volume 2

John Inverdale presents another hilarious selection of sporting clangers from the BBC archives. Here are some more wonderful giggles, goofs and gaffes that can turn an innocent sports report into a commentator's nightmare - and a listener's dream. Live on air, commentators and sports personalities can say the silliest things.Among those caught out this time are John Humphrys, Garry Richardson, Jonathan Agnew, Alan Green, Mike Ingham, Cornelius Lysaght, Simon Brotherton, Peter Baxter and Colin Murray. This compilation also includes Nigel Mansell trying out a new exercise, misbehaving microphones, 'muppet' impressions, party tricks, accidental innuendo, and some special off-air bloopers featuring Glenn Hoddle, Gary Lineker, Ray Illingworth and Peter Baxter. More classic moments, together with some surprises, in this quick-fire collection which is a must for every sports fan.

Various (Author), Full Cast, John Inverdale, Radio Archive (Narrator)

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General Comedy Audiobooks in Comedy