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Either you love them or you hate them, but everybody agrees on one thing—there's just nothing like a New York Post headline.
Gathered here for the first time ever are the best of the best from the paper's two-hundred-year history. Whether outrageous or scandalous, laugh-out-loud funny or shocking, these classic headlines never fail to entertain. Headless Body in Topless Bar is the perfect book for any pop culture junkie and a hilarious tribute to the one-of-a-kind New York Post.
The staff of the New York Post—for all the paper's illustrious history—is a fairly irreverent bunch. One way or another, the staffers who wrote these headlines have been around since 1801. Or rather, the spirit surrounding them has.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Keeping a cool head,
By
This review is from: Headless Body in Topless Bar: The Best Headlines from America's Favorite Newspaper (Hardcover)
I'm a sucker for wordplay, especially when it takes communication to a new level. In this hit-and-miss volume, the New York Post puts its wordplay artistry on display, giving us the best of the wild and irreverent headlines from the last few decades. The most clever of the headlines move beyond merely play on words. "Sin in the Clones," blares one, accompanied by the photo of a couple of lab monkeys, is both a clever play on the song "Send in the Clowns" but also says something about the story -- that the Church finds sin in cloning humans. The headline from the book title does not skewer a song title, but is artful anyway: "Headless body found in topless bar" is gruesomely funny wordplay PLUS has the attraction of accurately describing the story. The Post (at least by its own accounting) lays claim to dubbing Ronald Reagan's anti-missile defense system "Star Wars." The name stuck, being more memorable and descriptive than "Strategic Defense Initiative." Alas, only a few of the Post's "best" achieve this level of art or incisiveness. "The Lady is a Trump," announcing one of "the Donald's" marriages, says little about the event other than that it occurred.
The book starts off with a 2-page history of the Post (mostly changes of ownership) followed by several pages bent on sliming the 1993 owner, real estate mogul Abe Hirschfield. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and the Post can't seem to get enough of laying this gentleman low. The rest of the book is devotes to covers and memorable inside pages. The chosen covers are taken from the world of politics ("The Full Monica"), sports ("May the Curse Be With You" -- odious to this Red Sox fan, but clever nonetheless) and the Mafia ("Gotti's Greatest Hits"). The selected titles also highlight the tabloid's propensity for bringing down the mighty -- be it Jim Bakker, Donald Trump or Martha Stewart -- and upping the cleavage count. Anything to get the proles to shell over a few clams. Later Post covers showed an alarming propensity to editorialize and pander to the masses in a way that goes well beyond journalistic limits of propriety. "Axis of Weasel" blares one headline from January 2003 over the photos of French and German leaders who opposed America's invasion of Iraq. While the locals must have lapped up that sentiment, after 5 years of war, the fun has gone out of it. In any event, whether maddening or delighting, the Post headlines are eye-catching, if not always memorable, clever or right. They serve their purpose -- to attract reader attention, and entice them to pay 25 or 50 cents to see what other red meat might be lurking beneath the headers -- be they funny put downs or pix of some bathing beauty. "Topless Body" does not always show the Post in good light, but it does show it, and that may be all the point it needs.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
FUN BUT POOLY DESIGNED,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Headless Body in Topless Bar: The Best Headlines from America's Favorite Newspaper (Hardcover)
As enjoyable as the headlines are much of this book is a missed opportunity to celebrate the outrageous headlines that always made me giggle while entering the subway near a newsstand.
I would have gladly paid more for a book with better design and product quality. These faults keep it from being a coffee table book. It's more for the bathroom library, where reading is also an option in our home. Neverthess, it's fun to flip through.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ya gotta sit up and take notice,
This review is from: Headless Body in Topless Bar: The Best Headlines from America's Favorite Newspaper (Hardcover)
Tabloid editors know that what sells their papers are headlines and pictures, the stories can fill up what space is left. The New York Post does a nice line in play-on-word headlines (the grammatical term is: paronomasia) set in big type. The book mostly reproduces the Post's front page with headlines and the stories continue elsewhere.
As the Post is a down-market tabloid the headlines are no-nonsense grabbers that are history by the next edition which is why I found so many of them rather superficial and that only pointed up several that I thought classics. The arrest of Panama dictator Noriega in 1990: CANNED PINEAPPLE (because of his pock-marked face), Mike Tyson fight: BITE OF THE CENTURY, Russel Crowe court case: CROWE FLIES. What did intrigue me about the Post pages was the sloppy design. There seemed to be no tabloid style of locking the headlines, pictures and text in a tight page design. Odd because Murdoch's News Corporation who owns the paper also owns Britain's best selling tabloid the Sun, which daily produces great newspaper pages in the best tabloid style. The best selling German tabloid Bilt also has tightly designed pages, yet the Post, from what is shown in the book, rather ignores the tabloid look. As a collector of great headlines, I've enjoyed these: * U.S. ADMITS ATTACKS ON ALLIED WARSHIPS `MISTAKEN FOR HELICOPTERS' * The war of the obese parsnip: will sugar cane take a beating * Lone rower may miss Australia * You Pretend to Drive, We Pretend to Get You There (about taxi drivers in Moscow) And my favorite from the British Sunday Times in 1993 about the Inspector Morse TV series: Backward reels the mind in the dotty dash to give Morse a name ***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES (and some from the Brit Sun) by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.
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