Books about Talkshow from Amazon.com

Wayne Munson examines the talkshow as a cultural form whose curious productivity has become vital to America's image economy As the very name suggests, the talkshow is both interpersonal exchange and mediated spectacle. Its range of topics defies classification: from the sensational and bizarre, to the conventional and the advisory, to politics and world affairs. Munson grapples with the sense and nonsense of the talkshow, particularly its audience participation and its construction of knowledge. This hybrid genre includes the news/talk "magazine," celebrity chat, sports talk, psychotalk, public affairs forum, talk/service program, and call-in interview show.All share characteristics of lucidity and contradiction the hallmarks of postmodernity and it is this postmodern identity that Munson examines and links to mass and popular culture, the public sphere, and contemporary political economy. Munson takes a close look at the talkshow's history, programs, production methods, and the "talk" about it that pervades media culture the press, broadcasting, and Hollywood.He analyzes individual shows such as "Geraldo," "The Morton Downey Show," "The McLaughlin Group," and radio call-in "squawk" programs, as well as movies such as Talk Radio and The King of Comedy that investigate the talkshow's peculiar status. Munson also examines such events as the political organizing of talkhosts and their role in the antitax and anti-incumbency groundswells of the 1990s.In so doing, Munson demonstrates how "infotainment" is rooted in a deliberate uncertainty. The ultimate parasitic media form, the talkshow promiscuously indulges in and even celebrated its dependencies and contradictions. It "works" by "playing" with boundaries and identities to personalize the political and politicize the personal. Arguing that the talkshow's form and host are productively ill-defined, Munson asks whether the genre is a degradation of public life or part of a new, revitalized public sphere in which audiences are finally and fully "heard" through interactive. Wayne Munson is Assistant Professor of Communications/Media at Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts..
Price: $19.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

With the wit and charm and wit that have made him one of America's most beloved, and now most sorely missed, television personalities, Larry Sanders tells here the story behind the man -- Larry -- from his emotionally barren beginnings in Mound, Minnesota, to his ten-year run as the man millions went to bed with every night. (He had a very big bed.) Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host is a Hollywood autobiography like no other because it reveals all -- the loves and losses, the pain and joy, the shrinks and doctors -- and it is uproariously funny. Larry Sanders has written a book that will have the same ten-year run that his show did.

Larry Sanders is no ordinary man, and this book will show America and the world how very different he is. Fueled by an enormous need to be loved and gifted with a talent beyond even his own, Sanders has risen to the top of his field -- and dropped -- while retaining all of his dignity and modesty. As he says on the first page of his story, "I'm famous. Actually, I'm very, very, very famous." Sanders's story is laced with the names (and some of the faces) of the thousands of celebrities who have sought his attention for a decade -- and Sanders tells the world what he thinks of all of them, even if it hurts his own feelings.

Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host is a Hollywood tell-all that will forever change the nature of this kind of book. While Geraldo Rivera used his sexual exploits to shamelessly promote his book, Sanders uses his conquests of thousands of women to illustrate his compassion and grace. "If it sells, it sells," Sanders says. "There was never a hidden agenda." While Roseanne used her book to promote her many personalities, Sanders's book shows how a straight-shooter can not only survive but thrive in Hollywood. Most of all, Sanders, in truthfully disclosing all aspects of his life and those of people he has never met, hopes to heal and entertain. Sanders has written a wonderfully hilarious book that will make some of his fans wish he were back..
Price: $6.70 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This digital document is an article from The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), published by Thomson Gale on April 18, 2004. The length of the article is 748 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Ellen dances her way to talk-show success.(Television)
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication:The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) (Newspaper)
Date: April 18, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Page: L1

Distributed by Thomson Gale.
Price: $9.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Radio's most controversial performers and their most uproarious routines are featured in more than seventy-five hilarious clips. This program features the stars and programs that came close to being "banned from the airwaves." Written and hosted by Anthony Tollin, TOO HOT FOR RADIO features the voices of Mae West, Bob Hope, Gypsy Rose Lee, Jack Benny, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Orson Welles, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Don Ameche, Errol Flynn, Anthony Quinn, Marlene Dietrich and dozens of other great radio stars..
Price: $19.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]