comedy comedy comedy drama a memoir book review

“You’ve never seen this show, have you?” Cranston asked. In the makeup trailer to prep for Saul Goodman, Odenkirk asked star Bryan Cranston a dopey question about the Walter White character. ”I had heard of Breaking Bad, and I vaguely recalled the image on the billboards–a guy in his underwear in the desert?” Odenkirk wrote. He notes how the AMC show, beloved as it is today, did not really take off until it began streaming on Netflix around season three. Next in the book is a chapter called “Development Heck,” during which Odenkirk details the many, many projects, film and TV, that failed to take flight.Īround page 200, he starts on Breaking Bad.

“Python through an American lens, a bit more rough and direct,” is how Odenkirk describes the series, which ran from 1995 to 1998. He soon met David Cross, and the two hatched Mr. Moving to Los Angeles, Odenkirk worked on short-lived Chris Elliott comedy Get a Life, then was in the cast of the also short-lived Ben Stiller Show, along with Stiller, Andy Dick and Janeane Garofalo, with Judd Apatow producing. “Lorne had subsidized my education in sketch writing, and now he would see NONE of the benefits. “I had quietly, excruciatingly learned the components of a good sketch and developed a sense of structure that gave me confidence and led to all my best sketch work still to come,” he said. Odenkirk said his time on SNL was frustrating and stressful, but still taught him tons. He shares about working alongside Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Al Franken, Victoria Jackson, Ben Stiller and other SNL cast members. “When I sat in a room with him, even over the phone when I was still living in Chicago, pitching lines, Robert showed me by example how to find the best part of a comedy idea and make the most of it,” Odenkirk said. He followed Smigel to New York to write for Saturday Night Live in 1987, when he was in his mid 20s.

Young Odenkirk, raised on Monty Python, kicked around with various sketch comedy troupes in Chicago, including Second City, and became pals with Robert Smigel. “This is a base component for good comedy thinking and writing–a lack of respect for the world and one’s place in it. “She was always a big fan of not thinking too highly of yourself, or anyone else for that matter,” he wrote. His father had a mean streak and his mother was quite funny. Odenkirk grew up in suburban Illinois, one of seven children.

Comedy comedy comedy drama a memoir book review