Checking in Halfway Through ‘And Here’s The Kicker’

Two weeks ago, we named And Here’s The Kicker as the first book of the Splitsider Comedy Book Club. The plan is to give everyone a month to obtain and read the book but I wanted to check in as we’re halfway through. So far, I’ve read the wonderful interviews with Buck Henry, Stephen Merchant, Harold Ramis, Dan Mazer, Merrill Markoe, Paul Feig, Bob Odenkirk, Todd Hanson, Marshall Brickman, and Mitch Hurwitz. Though the hope is to have a longer discussion at the end of the book, below are a few questions to be discussed in the comments section of this post to get the ball rolling (obviously, if you’ve already the book, please feel free to jump in as well):

What do you think so far?

Which has been your favorite interview?

Do you find yourself maintaining interest when you might not be as familiar with the writer’s work?

Do you have any favorite quotes/passages?

If there was one conflict in the first half of the book it is if comedy is about surprise or repetition. Especially, in terms of the repeating of characters on SNL. Do you think that repeating characters is fundamentally good or flawed writing?

To organize this, start any comment with the number corresponding to the question number and try to respond to each number’s thread instead of starting a new one (unless your comment doesn’t necessarily correspond to any of the above questions). Since this not a cheertatorship, I’m going to answer in the comments section below, as well.

On June 11th, we’ll have the larger, final discussion. Also, around that time I will be talking with Mike Sacks about the book. If you have any questions for him you can include them in the comments or e-mail them to me at Jesse@Splitsider.com.