Wake Me When It's Funny: How to Break into Show Business and Stay (Newmarket Insider Filmbooks) [Paperback]

Garry Marshall (Author), Lori Marshall (Author)

Book Description

Series: Newmarket Insider Filmbooks | Publication Date: July 1, 1997

This memoir and show-business primer from one of film and TV's most successful writer-producer-director-actors (Pretty Woman, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, Murphy Brown) gives sound advice on how to create comedy, break into TV, shoot movies, and deal with Hollywood. 40 b/w photos.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Marshall was king of TV sitcoms in the 1970s with Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy and The Odd Couple, then turned to film, directing Pretty Woman and Beaches. He claims he has not been hurt by critics who blasted him for targeting society's lowest common denominator; rather, he glories in that assessment, for his aim was to be "the Norman Rockwell of television." This autobiography, written with his daughter, shows how he reached his goal. The book is a sort of how-to guide, for he explains the processes of writing, directing and producing TV comedy and directing movies in a way that should prove helpful for anyone aspiring to break into either medium. He takes readers from his youth in the Bronx to freelancing for famous comics and thence to Hollywood, with entertaining anecdotes about showbiz types from Danny Thomas to Robin Williams. Photos.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

In Wake Me When It's Funny, Garry Marshall takes the reader on a tumultuous, behind-the-scenes journey from his early days as a nervous writer for comics on the grungy New York nightclub circuit, to the peak of sitcom success when he produced four of the five top-rated television shows, and on to the movies where he has directed Julia Roberts, Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Gere, Jackie Gleason, Tom Hands, Dan Ackroyd, Dana Delaney, Bette Midler, and Goldie Hawn. Mixed in is advice on how to make it in the business and beat the system, with anecdotes about his career as an actor in films and television, where he is currently in a reappearing role on Murphy Brown. -- Midwest Book Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Newmarket Press (July 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557042888
• ISBN-13: 978-1557042880
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #166,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Garry Marshall is a comedy genius and his book proves it!, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Wake Me When It's Funny: How to Break into Show Business and Stay There (Hardcover)

This book is a must for Garry's fans. It's funny and heartfelt. The forward, written by sister Penny, is hilarious. This book lets us all into the heart of one of America's funniest men. I have read this book half a dozen times and am looking forward to reading it again. If you love Garry, you'll love this book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine person, November 29, 1999

By 

Sandra Jerome - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wake Me When It's Funny: How to Break into Show Business and Stay (Newmarket Insider Filmbooks) (Paperback)

I used to think I was in love with Garry Marshall because of his films and sitcoms, but now it's because he's truly a fine person. Read the book and I think you'll agree. If you're a screenwriter thinking about writing for sitcoms, this should be required reading. I'm more of a spec writer, so I just enjoyed the stories and laughs. This is a story of one of the most successful people in Hollywood and more importantly, a good father, brother, son, and grandfather.

3.0 out of 5 stars What An Appropriate Title! Scattered Stories That Fall Flat, February 27, 2011

By 

Mediaman "TVviewer" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wake Me When It's Funny: How to Break into Show Business and Stay (Newmarket Insider Filmbooks) (Paperback)

This surprisingly bland book about a Hollywood producer is poorly organized and frustrating to read. Instead of going through his career and clearly discussing each major production, Garry Marshall mixes everything together, jumping from show to show within the same paragraph and often making no sense. And his "jokes" on the written page are just not funny, so he never actually is able to explain his own success.

Considering the family material he had to work with there should have been much more insight and depth into his background, but instead there are just surface stories of growing up and odd events (maybe because his daughter co-wrote it?). When it gets to his career he just kind of falls into everything and doesn't really explain what his life was like as a struggling writer other than a few off-hand references to staying up all night or smoking things that weren't cigarettes. It all sounds way too easy.

Many of the stories about how shows got on the air are very familiar to those in the business and Marshall fills in a few extra details. But he might not have all of his facts straight--he says at one point about network programmer Fred Silverman, "Fred had been the head of NBC and spent his days trying to figure out a way to beat Happy Days in the ratings. Now he was the head of ABC and preoccupied with keeping Happy Days at the top of the Nielsen charts." That's not true. Fred Silverman had left CBS for ABC and had roundly defeated Happy Days at his old network (Silverman went to NBC AFTER he left ABC). After the move from CBS to ABC Silverman then saved Marshall's show, which should have been cancelled, and turned it into a top hit. So instead of using the book to point out Silverman's role in Happy Days success, Marshall writes revisionist history. Those facts are all pretty easy to research, so one wonders what else in the book is wrong.

He has known many, many major comedy figures, but that too just gets the surface treatment here. He even refuses to name a couple in some of his best stories, which is really frustrating. He doesn't seem to want to hurt anyone's feelings and that makes for a dull book. For example, this is the third book in the past year where I've read about Joey Bishop's shocking mistreatment of writers, but Marshall (who was a writer for Bishop) does nothing but praise the guy and glosses over the star's blow-ups.

Marshall certainly has a lot of advice to give others and provides lessons galore. He'll tell a mediocre story and then finish it with a lesson to the reader. The problem is that not all of his experiences are universal and therefore what may have been his lesson may not apply to others in the business. He also has a weird habit of quoting authors and philosophers that have nothing to do with what he's talking about.

This book should have been fantastic. He has had major TV successes and big flops. You don't get a feel for any of that. His sister had one of the biggest on-set feuds in TV history and he devotes less than two pages to it, never explaining it beyond a misunderstanding. He had one giant movie and one giant film embarrassment, but he treats them both the same. If he can't discern the difference and dig deep inside himself to try to figure out what works and what doesn't, then the book becomes just a series of musings of an old-timer who either can't remember all the details or chooses not to print them.