The Book Club

TV Review & Adaption Analysis: DC's Super Best Friends Forever

Title: Super Best Friends Forever

Form: TV short

Adapted From: DC Comics

Staring: Nicole Sullivan (Supergirl), Tara Strong (Batgirl), and Grey Delisle (Wonder Girl)

Creator/Writer: Lauren Faust

TV Review: Seriously, this is an absolutely hilarious short. It's smart, entergetic, and stays true (enough) to the characters. How can you seriously not love an uptight as hell Donna Troy, a wacky Supergirl who just wants to teepee Lex Luthor's house, and a cracked out Batgirl?

Plus, the animation is great, with my main focus being on the design elements. Wonder Woman is sharp lines with an actual Greek accent for once, Supergirl is all curves, and Batgirl is a skinny gymnast. It makes sense and gives the overall short a beautiful look.

There's the humor there from Faust, creator of the mega-popular My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic series. Can Faust keep doing these? I'd love to see what happens when the Big 3 actually show up and what their designs would look like.

Adapation Analysis: This is the first time DC has allowed one of their animation partners to use Donna Troy (copyright issues), and although we don't hear her name, it's obvious this is the Donna Troy Wonder Girl. Even better? They went with the easiest origin for a character who has about fifty of them: she's Wonder Woman's little sister.

The Batgirl here is probably the farthest cry from Barbara Gordon you get in the current comics. While Babs is energetic, she's never been that bad - and we're obviously missing Babs' amazing smarts. If these shorts keep coming, I'd love to see a swerve ball with Batgirl saving the day with her brain. And is it me, or is Batgirl's personality more Stephanie Brown then Babs? Just a bit. I do believe she's also taking her cue from the more bubbly Batgirls of the Batman cartoons.

And lastly, we have Supergirl. She's great on so many meta-levels. 1) She's curvy as all get out. In other words, she ain't Supergirl. She's Power Girl. (Fits the personality, too.) 2) She wants to teepee Lex Luthor's house. Didn't the Matrix Supergirl used to date him, when he was less evil than usual? 3) She's nutty. Supergirl does tend to go crazy sometimes.

Overall, though, the interesting thing here is that this short hardly reflects the current DC at all. The current Supergirl is like a dark female Superman, Babs' Batgirl is far broody-er than the previous one, and Wonder Girl is straight up missing in action. If DC wants to connect to new readers, I suggest a Super Best Friends Forever comic book. Right now.

Super Best Friends Forever appears on Cartoon Network as part of the DC Nation scheduling block.

Great Quotes: Mean Girls on Shakespeare

"Why should Caesar get to stomp around like a giant, while the rest of us try not to get smushed under his big feet? What's so great about Caesar? Hm? Brutus is just as cute as Caesar. Brutus is just as smart as Caesar. People totally like Brutus just as much as they like Caesar. And when did it become okay for one person to be the boss of everybody, huh? Because that's not what Rome is about. We should totally just stab Caesar!"

Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert) in Mean Girls

Screenplay by Tina Fey

Book Review: Kathy Griffin's Official Book Club Selection

Title: Official Book Club Selection, a Memoir According to Kathy Griffin

Author: Kathy Griffin

Publisher: Ballatine Book (2009)

Genres: Autobiography, Memoir, Nonfiction

Sub-Genres: Coming of Age, Hollywood, Humor

Plot Summary: Kathy Griffin, D-list actress and celebrity annihilating comedienne, details her lifestory. She examines her family, including her troubled brother and her eversupportive, drinking, and wisecracking parents. She looks back on her career, from paying her dues at the LA improv troupe the Groundlings and her big break on Sudddenly Susan. She takes a no-holds bar approach that shatters any illusion that making it in Hollywood is easy.

What I Liked: Griffin, unlike some other celebrity writers out there, can actually write. This memoir isn't perfect, but it's got a recognizable voice in Griffin - you can easily hear her say all the wonderfully awful things she writes - and her humor jumps off the page.

The most important thing about this book is that Griffin isn't afraid of digging deep and admitting her own weaknesses, whether it's her failed marriage, her dangerous brother, or her inability to keep her damned mouth shut. A lot of celebrity memoirs will skip on the introspection that is really pivotal to an engaging read (at least in my opinion) and while Griffin does balance it out by telling us the Hollywood gossip we love from her, its the soul searching that's really the heart of the book.

And you know a book's good when you laugh at the chapter titles alone.

What I Didn't Like: There's a few structure issues here, which isn't surprising given that Griffin isn't a book writer by trade. But she (or her editor) made the smart decision of trying to turn it into a joke. Sometimes it works, but by the third time, it gets a bit annoying. Besides a few flat jokes, though, this thing is gold.

The other major issue will be how dated this book might become when the celebrities she talks about, everyone from Brooke Shields to Paris Hilton, will be unknown. This isn't a book that could be read in a 100 years from now, not at least without some major annotations.

Similar Works: Funny Memoirs by Famous Women: Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman, and Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling.

Other Kathy Griffin Works: Kathy Griffin: She'll Cut A Bitch, Kathy Griffin - Allegedly, and Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List - The Complete First Season.

Similar PFS Reviews:  Bossypants by Tina Fey

Buy It Here!: Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin

Last Thoughts: Funny and insightful with more heart than you'd expect, Griffin still manages to stay true to her own (gossipy, foul, slightly insane) voice.

Book Review: Tina Fey's Bossypants

Title: Bossypants

Author: Tina Fey

Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books (2011)

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Memoir

Sub-Genres: Art, Celebrity, Coming of Age, Family Studies, How To, Television

Plot Summary: Fey, former head writer of Saturday Night Live and creator of (and actor on) 30 Rock (not to mention being famous for impersonating a certain former Alaskan governor), details just how she got to be where she is now. From stints in theatre camps to a summer job at the YMCA, Fey looks at where she's been, all with her unmistakable comic talent. She also addresses the questions that she's always asked, like being Sarah Palin and being a working mother, without ever missing a chance to  make a joke. She even manages to detail why she's not as pretty or as funny as you think she is.

 What I Liked: The book's funny. It's in Fey's voice. It's a pleasant, easy, and enjoyable read. In other words, this is the perfect, don't-have-to-think beach read for anybody who just wants to avoid the real world for a while and chill out, while laughing a bit along the way.

I enjoy Fey's sarcasm, especially at the moments where she actually seems vulnerable. When she talks about her high school experiences, her family, or the fates of her 30 Rock employees all hanging on her (rounded) shoulders, it seems real. When she talks about how much she did and didn't want to portray Sarah Palin on SNL, it was nice. She's frank about her own abilities and does a good job of pointing out that part of being a great performer isn't knowing what you're good at, but rather, what you're not good at.

What I Didn't Like: While the fun tone and jokes make this book easy-to-read, it also makes the book fall flat at times. The book itself can be read in a few hours, especially with those extra blank white pages taking up the ends of each book section (and there's about 10 book sections, so that's a whole lot of extra white space). In essence, the book just needed more.

Fey doesn't go into too much detail about any particular topic - mostly, she just skims through her life, makes some jokes, and then moves on. While she does have some moments of reflection (like on breastfeeding or Photoshopping), it doesn't seem enough to warrant a book. The book needed to have more actual Tina Fey and less Tina Fey the performer.

Memoirs, unlike stand-up or improv, require a frankness that most people simply cannot handle divulging. Here, I'm not sure it's really Fey's fault, as she seems to just be writing about what somebody told her to write about. Also, this caused the book to feel disjointed, without an overreaching theme connecting each section of the book. It's more like comedy snippets, than a held together book.

Similar Works: Books by Funny Women: Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler, Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin, and The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman.

Books by TV Stars: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling, Snooki's A Shore Thing, and Priceless: A Novel by Nicole Richie.

Another Book about Saturday Night Live: Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests.

Buy It Here!: Bossypants

Last Thought: You'll laugh and you'll like it, but you'll read it in an hour and probably won't learn anything new.

Great Quotes: Kathy Griffin Wants a Tony Award

"Kathy Griffin is thrilled to be performing at the storied and absolutely haunted Belasco Theatre, where she has already told legendary stage impresario David Belasco's ghost, in no uncertain terms, to "Suck it." Ms. Griffin is especially excited to be reprising the role of Kathy Griffin after spending four years as Kathie Lee Gifford in a touring company of Ms. Gifford’s one-woman musical jamboree, Jesus Is My Homeboy. Born in Madagascar, raised in Rangoon (that’s for you, Streisand-obsessed gays), Ms. Griffin made her stage debut at the age of nine in a Griffin family kitchen production of Boys in the Band, where Ms. Griffin played seven gay men simultaneously. Can you say foreshadowing? Broadway: Speed-the-Plow (with Jeremy Piven, Sushi Taster no. 4); Macbeth (Macbeth's wisecracking red-headed sidekick); Les Misérables (Jean Valjean's funny flame-haired henchwoman); The Iceman Cometh (Iceman's sharp-tongued best friend); Neil LaBute's I Hate You But I Won't Say It Till It Can Do the Most Damage (Dead Whore); Cats (Fierce-y Tattletail MacHairBall); Sweeney Todd (Pie Eater No. 3); Chicago (Mrs. Cellophane); Your Arms Too Short to Box With God: A Soaring Celebration in Song and Dance (God's Fight Promoter); Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark (Head Stuntwoman, fired). Off-Broadway: Mark Twain Tonight! (Understudy); Stamp (the sister production to Stomp, but about stamp collecting); How Do I Get to Broadway? Off-Off-Broadway: Live! Live! Girls! Girls! Sex! Sex! (still running). Television: the double-Emmy-winning "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List" (series regular); "Law & Order: SVU" (no, really, this isn't a Playbill joke, I'm like a real New York actor!); "Suddenly Susan" (not Brooke Shields); "Seinfeld" (not Julia Louis-Dreyfus); "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (not Larry David); "Glee" (another Emmy please); CNN "New Year's Eve With Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin" (Gloria Vanderbilt's best friend); more stand-up comedy specials than any other comedian EVER, including four in 2011 alone; "ER"; "The X-Files"; "The Simpsons"; "Ugly Betty"; "American Dad." Ms. Griffin has also hosted countless awards shows. Look, just type "comedy legend" into your search engine and her picture will come up, probably sixth or seventh. Talk show bannings: "Oprah," "The View," "Live with Regis & Kelly," "Ellen," "Maury Povich Baby Daddy Specials," "The 700 Club," "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Celebrity Feuds: Oprah, Ryan Seacrest, Bill O'Reilly, any and all Palins and Angela Lansbury (she knows what she did). Film: Pulp Fiction; Four Rooms; It's Pat; Gandhi (Gandhi's wacky girlfriend); Saving Private Ryan; Cold Mountain; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Can’t Stop the Music; Can’t Stop the Music 2: Turn It Up; Can't Stop the Music 3: Okay, Now That's Just Too Loud; The Remains of the Day; Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad White Woman; Black Swan; The King’s Speech; The Social Network. Awards: Ms. Griffin has received two Emmy awards, having been nominated seven times. She has also received three Grammy nominations, the GLAAD Vanguard Award, the Trevor Project’s Lifetime Honoree Award, the Human Rights Campaign's Ally for Equality Award, a 2007 GAYVN Award (aka gay porn), the key to Louisville and the 2011 Tony Award (fingers crossed!). Ms. Griffin is also the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin. She lives in Los Angeles, but loves New York, and would like to thank her dogs PomPom Griffin and Larry Griffin-Arquette, as well as her loving fiancee Kelsey Grammar. However, Ms. Griffin's most cherished production is that of her four children: Apple, Moses, Willow and Jaden. Without their strength and love and support, she would not be able to continue to tell dick jokes for the best audience in the world (that's you, people!). She would also like to thank God, and remind everyone how closely she follows Biblical scripture: "Behold I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces." (Malachi 2:3)"

Kathy Griffin, from the playbill for her upcoming show, Kathy Griffin Wants a Tony Award, via Boy Culture

Book Review: Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Title: Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

Authors: Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Publisher: Quirk Books (2009)

Genres: Horror, Humor, Literature, Romance

Sub-Genres: Jane Austen Adapation, Classics, Comedy of Errors, Mash-Ups, Regency Romance 

Plot Summary: The five Bennett sisters (Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia) have sworn to fight the zombie hordes that plague England, but their mother is determined to marry them off. With the appearance of their new neighbor Mr. Bingley and his handsome but arrogant friend Mr. Darcy, the two elder Bennett sisters find themselves taken up for the first time in romantic entanglements, but it's only when their youngest sister Lydia gets herself into trouble, do the sisters realize that they might have to give up their fighting forever.

What I Liked: This book is fun. It's a cleverly executed piece of fiction, where Grahame-Smith took something that was already smart and transformed it into something hilarious. The zombie violence, really, is just an added bonus. I won't spoil too much, but I'll just say that the Charlotte Lucas parts were my favorite.

The characters here retain all their original charms but are exaggerated a bit to further the comedy of errors or to display the callous nature of people who don't quite see their servants as actual human beings. While I wouldn't call this a smart book, Grahame-Smith does manage to point out a few of that era's less pleasing cultural tics.

The main thing about this book is that it is funny and easy to read. There's some violence and some gore, but underneath that, this book is supposed to make you laugh. And it does that, with an ease that's hard to capture in books.

What I Didn't Like: While I enjoy the style of inserting the zombies into the original book, there are times when the mesh doesn't fit as well as others, like the recurring jokes about Mr. Darcy's balls or his most English parts. It just screams 20th century to me and thus, the book loses part of its appeal. I like the book more when you can actually still hear Austen's voice ringing through the zombie hordes.

On the other hand, I wish this book could have gone a bit further. While what Grahame-Smith did was clever, I wouldn't ever call it genius. And in a book, something that takes several hours to read, clever gets tired after a while. By about 3/4 through the book, I was ready for the book to be over, as I knew the story and I got the jokes. Grahame-Smith should have tried to elevate the book a bit further, offer some new surprises along the way. There wasn't much I didn't see coming.

Similar Books: Mash-Ups: Jane Slayre, Little Vampire Women, and Android Karenina.

Jane Austen Adaptions: Darcy's Voyage, Darcy and Fitzwilliam, and Manner of Devotion: A Sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Other Grahame-Smith books: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies Prequel: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

Buy It Here!: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!

Last Thought: Fun, but could have been amazing.