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Rating: 
Summary: tales that exaggerate too much in writing
Review: jonathan winters is great while watching him
reading him made me feel that his tales were exaggerated and too unbelievable. i quickly put it down
Rating: 
Summary: Less Odd than You Might Think.
Review: These aren't short stories--more like scenarios, or poems in the form of scenarios. Jonathan Winters impersonates children, a baby robin, a migrating duck, a tiger, a lunatic from an asylum on a picnic, a bear cub that becomes a teddy bear, a child going to an asylum, the President of the United States hosting a boring reception, a man attacked by a bear, soldiers, an alcoholic Navaho artist looking to his Medicine Man for a cure, a test pilot, orphans, Santa Claus & a turkey, among others. He has it in for Admiral Byrd--maybe the name, because birds appear often. Each "take" has a twist at the end, more for surprise than irony. His tone is more screwball than bizarre, as if he were trying to bean the reader with a wild pitch. His method is to strew stimulation everywhere, but he also deals with serious subjects--love, war, loss. His mood is plaintive rather than deep, like a kitten crying. He searches for value & finds none except laughter, as if he were Kafka scripting an episode of "The Twilight Zone." If the book gets thin in places, it's because the written word is less effective for a performing artist than the spoken word. Listen to the casette first.
Rating:
Summary: Less Odd than You Might Think.
Review: These aren't short stories--more like scenarios, or poems in the form of scenarios. Jonathan Winters impersonates children, a baby robin, a migrating duck, a tiger, a lunatic from an asylum on a picnic, a bear cub that becomes a teddy bear, a child going to an asylum, the President of the United States hosting a boring reception, a man attacked by a bear, soldiers, an alcoholic Navaho artist looking to his Medicine Man for a cure, a test pilot, orphans, Santa Claus & a turkey, among others. He has it in for Admiral Byrd--maybe the name, because birds appear often. Each "take" has a twist at the end, more for surprise than irony. His tone is more screwball than bizarre, as if he were trying to bean the reader with a wild pitch. His method is to strew stimulation everywhere, but he also deals with serious subjects--love, war, loss. His mood is plaintive rather than deep, like a kitten crying. He searches for value & finds none except laughter, as if he were Kafka scripting an episode of "The Twilight Zone." If the book gets thin in places, it's because the written word is less effective for a performing artist than the spoken word. Listen to the casette first.
Rating: 
Summary: Tales to last a lifetime
Review: What a wonderful book. You would expect a book by a comedian to be full of laughs (and this one is definitely full of laughs), but there is a serious note to many of the stories; it's the kind of book that puts you into a state where you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Jonathan Winters writes like O. Henry; you never know how his stories will turn out, but you know there will be a twist in the end. These stories beg to be read aloud; I hope that someday a spoken-word version will be released.
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