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Just The Funny Parts by Nell Scovell

A woman walks into a room. She’s the only female comedy writer there. She leans in, writes a funny book, and has the last laugh. Lots of laughs. Just the Funny Parts (Dey Street Books) is Nell Scovell’s story of how she went from wise-cracking kid to writing for David Letterman to Hollywood, where she put funny words in the mouths of Homer Simpson, Bob Newhart, Kermit the Frog, Coach, Murphy Brown, Lily Tomlin Stephen Colbert, and even Barak Obama for a White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Millions have laughed at her jokes, including, probably, you. width=

Who can forget the hilarious, heartbreaking moment when Miss Piggy, on the Red Carpet, has a wardrobe malfunction and her tail pops out. “I’m a lady, and a pig,” the divine Miss P tells the world tearfully, yet proudly.

After serving as executive producer for “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,” co-executive producer for “Charmed,” and consulting producer for “NCIS,” Scovell wrote speeches for Sheryl Sandberg. This led to collaborating with Sandberg on the writing of Lean In, (16 weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list), which Scovell says was the most meaningful work of her career.

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Two women with full time jobs and families wrote a bestseller that became a feminist handbook. “We learned that while work expands to fill the time, time expands to fill a mission,” writes Scovell. (Sandberg contributed the foreword to Scovell’s book.)

Comedy came easy and early to Scovell, growing up in New England surrounded by very funny relatives. “Don’t get too attached to Beth,” deadpanned an aunt to a niece reading Little Women. Scovell was married and divorced twice by the time she was 26. Her father wrote it off by saying she had had two very serious boyfriends.

At college, Scovell made a major career move (at the time, it was more like following a hunch) by deciding to cover sports for The Harvard Crimson, suspecting she wasn’t suited to straight news.

Her sports expertise came in handy much later as she struggled to gain control on the set of her first directing job. Reporting to Vancouver, Scovell was told the three things Canadian crews dislike: “One: American directors. Two: First-time directors. Three: Female directors.” She broke the ice with a cameraman by knowing that Bobby Orr came from the same hometown in Ontario that he did.

Each page of Just the Funny Parts reads like an insider’s guide to Hollywood success, with hundreds of tell-all stories: The scoop on David Letterman’s sex scandal; Scovell’s personal e-mails from Arthur Penn offering advice and support; how she wrangled writing guidance from Albert Brooks; how assaults by Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were open secrets long before the two were charged with crimes.

Scovell, no surprise, has her own Me Too tale to tell.

Illustrating the dictum that success in Hollywood is all about connections, Scovell has them, with anecdotes to match: Conan O’Brien, Garry Shandling, Larry David, Penn Jillette, Dick and Tommy Smothers, and Irving Brecher, the man who invented the sitcom when he turned his radio show, “The Life of Riley” into the television show that launched Jackie Gleason’s career.

Always an advocate for gender diversity, Scovell writes in her book, “(A) female perspective can lead to joke areas that male writers might overlook.” Just the Funny Parts shows the way.

Just the Funny Parts is now available to purchase. We are also running a giveaway for Just the Funny Parts until August 23rd, don’t miss out on a chance to win this great title for free!

 

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Just The Funny Parts by Nell Scovell
Genre: Nonfiction
Author: Nell Scovell
Publisher: Dey Street Books
ISBN: 9780062473480
Joanna Poncavage

Joanna Poncavage had a 30-year career as an editor and writer for Rodale’s Organic Gardening magazine and The (Allentown, Pennsylvania) Morning Call newspaper. Author of several gardening books, she’s now a freelance journalist.

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